Making Millions For Dummies- Book Summary
There’s an old axiom in finance: If you suddenly made rich people poor and poor people rich, and then fast-forwarded ten years, those who originally were poor would be poor again, and those who originally were rich would be rich again. Why? Because poor people spend their money, and rich people keep theirs.
Making Millions, authors says, that you don’t have to have a lot of money to make more money. Small sums can add up to big dividends if you properly use the money you do have.
You don’t have to give up anything to become wealthy. Financial security is a choice, not a sacrifice. There will be trade-offs, of course; you may not buy or do something today so you can buy or do something else later. But that, too, is a choice. You’re deciding what’s most important to you, so whatever you don’t buy or do today isn’t really a sacrifice — it’s just something that isn’t as important to you.
Millionaires don’t think that they can’t afford something. Instead, millionaires figure out how they can afford something they want. This is part of the continual goal-setting that wealthy people do.
Inflation and the overall economy dictate how much harder your money has to work to grow in real value, and that means you continually have to think about the best choices you can make with your money, no matter how big your net worth is.
Setting Your Financial Goals
Seneca said that “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Wealthy people never trust their financial security to chance; they set goals and come up with plans to meet those goals. And because they do this, they’re prepared to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves.
If you want to achieve your financial goals, you have to put forth some effort. It’s not always easy — sometimes it’s downright difficult. It requires discipline and attitude and a willingness to spend some energy thinking about what you want and how you can get it. Difficult, yes, but not impossible.
STEPS👣
The first step in setting your goals is deciding what you want — not what other people want for you, or even what others want for themselves, but what you want for yourself. Deciding on your goals can be tough. But if you follow the crowd on the main road, you may miss out on byways that you would find much more interesting and fulfilling.
Making Millions, authors says that, millionaires don’t believe money is everything, or the only thing. They take a holistic approach to setting goals: They consider not just their financial well-being, but their spiritual fulfillment and quality of life, too.
Figuring out a time frame for your goals helps you identify the steps you can take now to reach both your immediate and your longer-term goals. It’s part of the preparation you do so you can turn opportunity into luck.
It may seem counterintuitive, but we recommend thinking about your midrange goals first, then your long-term goals, and finally your immediate goals.
Why? Because, for most people, it’s much easier to visualize what they’d like their lives to look like five years from now than to think decades into the future, or even to decide what they want right this minute. Five years is far enough away to allow your imagination to explore possibilities and near enough to provide some motivation for figuring out an action plan.
What You Want Now
Sometimes goal-setting seems pointless because the things you want are big things — things that can’t be accomplished today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. And in a consumer-driven, instant-gratification society like ours, it’s frustrating to think that you have to wait to get what you really want. What you can do today may seem miniscule in comparison with your long-term goals, so you may feel tempted to skip doing anything. But your immediate goals will help you reach your intermediate goals, which in turn will help you reach your long-term goals. So what you’re doing today is laying the groundwork for what you want to do 5, 10, or 20 years from now.