Habits that make you rich

I am sitting here wondering whether I have the traits required to be successful. Investing and growing money gives me a kick but do I enough in my personal life ? What are some other things that rich people do that I and you can learn from ? Here’s a summary of what I found:

Millionaire Breakdown Stats

I really appreciate how Ramsey Solutions has provided the National Study of Millionaires for public consumption. I think the study is quite motivational for all of us in understanding that irrespective of where we are, we are capable of building serious wealth. Here are the snippets –

1. Majority of the millionaires in the study i.e. almost 80% did not receive any inheritance. 8 of 10 millionaires came from middle class or below middle class families. Wow !
2. Top 5 careers for millionaires included Engineers, Accountants, Teachers, Management and Attorneys. Of all millionaires, only 15% were in C-Suite roles. About a third never made a salary of $100K in any working year of their careers. Wow !!
3. Millionaires went to college but not necessarily elite schools. Completion of education seemed to be a commonality in the study but not the perceived reputation of the school.

There’s a reason why I wanted to begin with these stats. Its incredibly motivating and proof that being intentional and frugal with your money works in building wealth in the long term. This study itself echoes the sentiment among American millionaires that building wealth through systematic long term investing is what got them where they are. Incredible stuff !

A list of 7 things that make Millionaires successful !

I am referring to the wonderful pieces written on Ramsey Solutions, Grow and Success as I state the following personal habits of millionaires –

1. Millionaires and Billionaires like to read rather than be entertained. I guess this talks to having a level of discipline and wanting to self-improve yourself everyday. This is information I found on both sources. Audiobooks have a special mention.
2. Millionaires understand delayed gratification. I wrote a piece on how we save money on the daily where I spoke a bit on havocs of impulse buying. Millionaires will sacrifice instant gratification for planned future goals. Thomas Corley goes so far to mention that the rich don’t waste time on the tv and on the internet.
3. Millionaires stay away from debt. Eliminating debt is an important component of what makes people wealthy. It is good to understand at the same time how debt can be leveraged to build wealth. Understand the difference between good debt and bad debt.
4. Budgeting. Both studies talk about spending what you absolutely need to and paying yourself towards a longer term goal. Be intentional with your budgeting. The rich are also respectful of money and avoid gambling.
5. Health is wealth. In Tom’s study, he found that over half the millionaires were active athletes. And that most millionaires made time for sleep.
6. Volunteering and Giving. This was another common theme between the articles. Paying it forward mattered to the financially successful.
7. Making money takes time and the wealthy understand this. Per Tom, Successful Entrepreneurs took 12 years or more to become millionaires while Company Climbers took 22 years. I’ve always maintained on this blog that Time is non negotiable for Compounding to do its magic.