What You Should Be Doing In Your 20’s & 30’s To Get Rich

Getting rich isn’t so mysterious once you understand how money works and have an undying determination and persistence to succeed. Everything mentioned below doesn’t work unless you do. So, if you haven’t already, start now – because the blueprint is only as good as the person following it.

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10 Principles of Creating Wealth:

1. Increase Your Earnings

Don’t ignore active income. If you want to supercharge your way to becoming a self-made millionaire do not overlook your earnings power. Lot’s of early entrepreneurs with the ambitions of getting rich fall into the idea that they can get wealthy simply by saving and investing – this may be true if you’re looking to do it over a 30 year period like getting a Roth IRA account.

But, if you’re looking to do it in half that, you need lots of income. You can’t keep the fire growing without adding lots of fuel, over and over again.

Your earning power determines your borrowing and investing power. The more you make, the more you can invest.

2. Get An Understanding Of How The World Works

Study:

1. Personal and Corporate Finance
2. Micro and Macroeconomics
3. The Tax System
4. Other areas of value+

You don’t need to be an expert, but start by understanding each on a basic foundational level where you can start to understand what the wealthy do with their money and why they’re doing it. Once you understand the mechanics at play, you can start making more calculated decisions.

3. Have At least 3 Income Streams

Assets, assets, assets.

If you want to make lots of money, you need cash flow. Having plenty of income streams provides you with consistent cash flow, non-dependence on one source, diversification, more income, and is why having income streams is what most millionaires all have in common.

65% of self-made millionaires have at least three streams of income, found Tom Corley, author of “Rich Habits”. And of those, 1/3 have at least 5.

4. Live Frugally

Frugal living is something that will pay you in dividends in the long run. Discipline yourself to carry a mindset of being rich and not looking rich. Do this and you will see every dollar you didn’t spend is a dollar you could be investing.

In a 2017 interview with Time, Mark Cuban said that anyone who wants to get rich should aggressively save and not spend money on anything other than the essentials.

[ Related Article: 12 Clever Ways To Living More Frugal ]

5. Invest, Don’t Save

2.17% is the average inflation rate, per year, in the US over the last 20 years. Meaning that, when you save cash in the bank, it loses 2.17% of its value each year.

This is a fundamental principle to the saying “the rich get richer”, because the rich invest their money in assets that appreciate to outpace inflation.

6. Build Your Credit History

Your credit score and credit history are 2 very different things. Does one reflect the other? Yes, but a great score with little to no history will get you a terrible interest rate or denied completely.

Lenders typically want to see you have experience using credit responsibly through a consistent history of on time payments. Although your credit score is made up from 6 credit factors, credit history takes the longest to build and the only one with no shortcuts. According to Credit Karma, credit history takes 7 years to be deemed “good”.

Sure, there are ways to hack your credit score past a 750, but a good credit score doesn’t necessarily mean you’re trustworthy in the eyes of a lender.

If you want to leverage your income, you should start building a strong credit history.

7. Think Bigger And 10x Your Goals

Life has an interesting way of rewarding the bold. Have you ever heard the saying “Fortune favors the bold”? Well, set ambitious goals and commit to them.

8. Study Those Who Already Did It

Take a look at those who are where you want to be and understand how they got there. Study their blueprint. How did they get rich? What does their portfolio look like now?

47% of millionaires are business owners, so you may want to consider starting a business considering that almost half made of their millions this way. While 23% of millionaires got rich through paid work, consisting of mostly skilled professionals or managers.

It’s also notable, through the same study, that all millionaires have an average of $3.05 million in assets. So, you also may want to check into how they distribute their $3.05 million and what they are invested in?

9. Leverage Good Debt

Leverage your income to buy above your earning power through outside funding. In other words, borrow money to make money. This is where having great credit and an understanding of how money works comes into play.

Leveraging your money in real estate, for example, will typically allow you to borrow 80¢ on the dollar. So a 20% down payment means you’re using 80% leverage, and sometimes even lower.

10. And Most Importantly.. Persistence

Becoming a millionaire is no easy feat. In fact, according to a Spectrem Group study, 80% of current millionaires didn’t reach the $1,000,000 mark until at least 50 years old. So, as long as you have determination and persistence – you will get there.

Related: 11 Simple Tricks to Stay Motivated That Actually Work