Want to be a Millionaire was the title of a free workshop that was offered at my work last week by the credit union. From the write up it was suppose to have a lots of tips and ideas for building wealth with a regular 9 to 5 salary.

All I can say is, at least they provided a free lunch and a nice free water bottle. There wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. The first half of the class was going over a list of 25 tips like “balance not sacrifice,” “automate your paycheck deposit,”, “take calculated risks” - but no tips on what those risks might be.

Telling me to stop drinking fancy expensive coffee every day isn’t going to help either, since I make my own coffee. Telling me to use a refillable water bottle instead of buying bottled water isn’t going to help me either, since I never buy bottled water.

In a nutshell - the advice comes down to being disciplined enough to save each and every month (10 to 20% of your salary), not having credit card debt (and if you do, paying it off as quickly as possible because it is a sink hole), and not wasting money on “convenience” items (which are way over priced).

There were a few other tips that I already knew and are common sense, but I know of so many people who do NOT follow them.

The biggest tip was to “live below your means.” My husband and I have always believed in this, especially when it came time to buy a house. The bank and lenders kept telling us we could get a house for 50,000 to 100,000 more then what we figured out in our budget that we wanted to spend and could afford (with money left over for a little food and the other basic necessities of life). We are happily paying off extra on our principal each and every month and have knocked down a 30 year mortgage to a 15 year mortgage (or maybe less if things keep going as planned) and we have only been in this house 6 years so far.

Had we listened to the banks, we would be swimming in debt and miserable and living in a bare house with no furniture. It is the one thing we tell friends and family when they start looking for a house - do NOT ever buy a house at the high end of what you can afford. But so far no one has ever listened to us, and unfortunately they are now all struggling.

We run in to rough patches from time to time, and we have unexpected big expenses pop up (like my eye glasses that were $750 or a car repair, etc.). But because we chose to “live below our means” we are able to handle the bumps in the road and recover.

I don’t think I’ll ever be a millionaire. But I will keep saving as much as I can and keep to my plan to retire in 8 years, with my mortgage paid off, no credit card debt, and a little something in the bank, provided we don’t run into any sink holes or pot holes along the way.

Health and Happiness, Lady Rose

Rate:
2.5

Tags: