When I was younger, I used to think that being rich meant having a huge house and fancy car or better yet, earning the title of millionaire. As I’ve gotten older, my definition of being rich has become much simpler. Now I think that being rich means being able to maintain the life-style that you want without having to work (especially if you hate your job). It doesn’t matter how simple or elaborate, just waking up every morning and knowing that you can do what you want to do means that you are rich. If all you want is to live in the woods and spend everyday fishing and you can afford to do it, you are rich. If you want to spend your nights partying with rock stars and you can afford to do it, you are rich. I like my new definition because it implies that anyone who can afford to retire and live the life that they want to live, is rich. The way to become rich is to eliminate your debt and save your money, not to win the lottery. Too many people have gone into debt trying to get rich.

Unfortunately, I think most people subscribe more to my old definition. We all want to be rich. There is no secret that I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I didn’t think that it was moving towards my goal of becoming rich. The problem is that our desire to become rich leads us to make bad choices and miss-interpret our priorities. We bought bigger homes than we needed. The average home size was 2,350 square feet in 2004, up from 2,000 square feet in 1990, 1,500 square feet in 1970 and 983 square feet in 1950. We also stopped driving small fuel-efficient cars and started driving gas- guzzling SUVs. Our society soon became more and more consumer driven so we could get more stuff to fill our big houses and cars. Spending got out of control and I don’t think it made us any happier. In order to pay for all this we began to take bigger and bigger risks with our money. First there was there were junk bonds, then the tech bubble and finally the derivatives market. The government also got involved but not in a good way. Things like education and science, which really drive our long-term economic growth, were left under-funded so more money could be used to feed the greed. When it all collapsed last fall were any of us really surprised?

We need to reevaluate our priorities. What does it take to be happy? What do you need to maintain the life that you want to live? Start by developing a plan. That is why this site is here. It’s free and price-less.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.