Has this ever happened to you? It is payday and then you realized that the money you received is not yours anymore. Then you wonder what happened to all the money you made last year and the year before. Where did it go? Regardless of whatever your income is, you and the majority of us do not have much of that money to tell about. None of it is in a savings account or under the mattress. It appears that we have the habit of spending as much as we earn. And in many cases, we spend more than what we make, putting us in the position that the money we are working for is already somebody else’s. We usually see our paychecks for a short moment as we transfer them to the people we owe them to. The habit of spending as much as we make or more is a very common one among almost all of us. If you do not think so, ask around and hear it for yourself. Most of us have not saved money nor have plans to save any in the near future.
How to get out of this rat race? I am sure that there are many strategies and steps recommended by experts in how to accomplish that. Yet, out of all those I have heard and read about, I like this one that a friend of mine told me and I am sure a lot of you know it too: spend less than what you make. A very simple true and yet one that many of us have a hard time practicing it. We always come out with excuses (or valid reasons) why it cannot be done. We either owe too much or our way of life is too expensive. Then, if we end up earning more for whatever reason, then we increase our expenses to the point of having nothing left to save.
I am sure that you have heard about the book ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ by George S. Clason. Many successful people have claimed that this book made them rich. This book talks about how a man in this ancient city came to be a very rich person by practicing very simple laws that you and I and can practice and help us spend less than what we make. Arkad was his name and he learned from Algamish, a money lender, how to accumulate money. He was told that first, a part of all he earned was his to keep. In other words, he needed to PAY HIMSELF FIRST. We pay everybody and everything but ourselves. Once we pay our responsibilities, there is nothing left. See, making money is not a problem because we all know how to make money. We do it every single day when we sell our services to our employers. The problem is that we do not know how to keep it and that was the second step Arkad was told to meet. We sometimes save some money and we usually spend it on the first opportunity we encounter and typically for things we do not need. Money slips from our fingers very easily. The key here is to save it, keep it and the third step is to make it work for us. We need to learn to invest it or hand it to the people who know how. Money can grow by itself if we allow it work for us.
Therefore, I invite everybody that reads this to make a commitment with me: let us PAY OURSELVES FIRST before we pay anybody else. It will be tough at the beginning because you and I might have valid bills we need to pay but I am also sure we have expenses that we can sacrifice. The book recommends paying ourselves at least 10 percent of our income. If this is too much, let us do smaller percentages but PAY YOURSELF FIRST. The key is to form the habit and if we do this every payday, we will never be out of money. We need to make it a must. At the end, it will be worth it. Money will keep accumulating and trust me, the feeling is great. Share this with the people you know. Send it to that person you care about and that you know needs to do this. I want to make of this simple idea a world movement. It will be easier if we support each other. We must save some of that money we all make every day. I have done this in the past and it really works. Let us do this and share our successful story with the rest of the world. Once we have saved some money, we can move to the step where we make it grow and work for us. Opportunities to make more money are always out there waiting for the right person. Remember, money attracts money and with money, it is easier to make our dreams come true. So, what are you waiting for?
Arturo Gonzalez, Psy.D.