WHY ARE RICH PEOPLE USUALLY STINGY? - MY BUSINESS JOURNEY (Issue #4)
One of my good steemit pals @abeludotu highlighted a proverb in one of his publications (READ POST HERE) that caught my attention.
One cannot both feast and become rich. ~ Ashanti Proverb
To further strengthen this ideology, George Clason had a variance of it thus: "A part of all you earn is yours to keep…"
Before I continue, I have an outburst of laughter building within me...LOL. This usually happens when I hear people say: "Rich people are very stingy!" But the question is, are they really stingy? Rich dudes will only appear stingy to those who DO NOT SEE WHAT THEY SEE.
If you walk up to me hungry and request for money to eat, I should give you! If, seconds later, after eating you develop a sudden desire to lick ice cream and you approach me for it, just because you know I can afford it conveniently, would my refusal speak stinginess? Obviously not! But situations like this, appearing in different contexts across the world gave birth to this misconception of: RICH PEOPLE ARE USUALLY STINGY. People who worked their way to the top usually have a good dose of financial intelligence and that makes them difficult to be tossed around by irrelevant demands. Well, that does not rule out the fact that some individuals are naturally selfish and self-centered. Now lets dig deeper...
Money is attractive to have and even more attractive to spend. Granted, spending can be very thrilling. You get to buy what you want, impress people around you, pay the bills and generally meet your basic needs. How you spend eventually determines whether you will end up in retrospective regret or feel completely satisfied and fulfilled.
Economists say that human needs are insatiable. We all have money complaints and will continue to do, thus, it becomes a wise concept to track how much we spend on goods, services and humanitarian gestures. Regardless of how much money we make, spending it wisely is a sure way to always have more than enough. Remember that being wealthy is not a measure of how much you have acquired, but how much you are able to conveniently expend when money calls and that is directly determined by your reserve power.
PIXELS.COM
PERSONAL OBSERVATION
I have always thought my salary is not enough. Oh yes, I might be right! However, this is the fact: it will never still be enough if it is doubled. Why? As I stated earlier, human wants are always endless, thus, when we get more money in form of increase in salary or other entitlements, we tend to spend more on the latest and trendy commodities available in the market.
If your expenditure frequently increases with more income, it means you have not learnt financial intelligence. Clason puts it succinctly, ‘what each of us calls our 'necessary expenses' will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary’. He further stated, ‘Confuse not the necessary expenses with thy desires. Each of you, together with your good families have more desires than your earnings can gratify. Therefore are thy earnings spent to gratify these desires insofar as they will go? Still thou retains many ungratified desires’. By this he meant that each person and family will always have needs, wants and desires and you would only be able to meet these desires in relation to the amount of money you possess. Thus when your money is exhausted you must wait to accumulate another before you can start spending on your desires again.
In conclusion I say, BE FINANCIALLY INTELLIGENT
Know when to buy a commodity and when not to buy. Do not spend on luxury because others are doing so; rather do so when you need it and when you can truly afford it.
Remember that you never died when you had too little an income; you figured a way to survive. In fact, human beings have an inherent capacity to always figure out a survival strategy regardless of the limitations associated with our streams of income. The ability to explore this instinct tends towards latency as we have access to more funds; this is exactly the part that kills us and limits our financial advancement.
Discipline yourself to remain within the guards of these survival instincts and you will soon grow into surplus.
You can also take a drift to this post by @bankonsteemit: HOW TO KEEP YOUR MONEY
Previously on MY BUSINESS JOURNEY...
Do well to grab a copy of 50 NUGGETS TO GETTING STARTED IN BUSINESS by Jabez Gabe. It contains many of the ideas shared above and MUCH MORE. The book is written to assist anyone who wants to re-invent himself towards business success. It is also for those who hope to start a business sometime in the future as well as for those who are having poor self-confidence that is hampering their success from shining forth. It is basically a quick guide to entrepreneurial success.
To place order for the hard or soft copies, drop a message on the comment section of this post or message me privately on Discord: @mrfelix#9825.
What a revelation @mrfelix. Very educating piece. Spending wisely is a key aspect of financial intelligence.
Thats true. Thanks for stopping by.
Sadly, many do not know what financial intelligence and discipline is. Great writing, I hope many learn from this.
I hope as much. Thanks for reading through.