Best money advice you've ever received?

[yona]

If you work too hard, you have no time to make money

[retire@40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yona If you work too hard, you have no time to make money

Did you mean to say "If you work too hard, you have no time to make spend money"?

[Gekko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life_is_Good I never received advice about money, but I made it a point to observe how successful people spent their money. The one thing I learned was that ... "just because you have money.... doesn't mean you have to spend it." I think that single observation (of people close to me) helped me to achieve my ER.

Thru-out much of my adult life, I've had the opportunity to observe up close and personal, the habits of extraordinarily successful people. And I came away with the same conclusions - however much money they had, they always took the spending or saving of money very very seriously, far more seriously than the poor people I observed in childhood. That's not to say that they couldn't be very generous, only to say that each decision about money was made very carefully. From that I have learned a healthy respect for money - mine and other peoples too.

In addition, it goes without saying that they were LBYMers - even the ultra wealthy among them (inherited wealth being the exception).

[bright eyed]

Start early
Put more with each raise/increase/bonus
Read this forum

Now trying to learn what to do with the after tax money, soon as i find some...

It's not what you earn, it's what you don't spend....should be tattoo'd to my forhead...then maybe i can find more of that after tax $!

[yona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retire@40 Did you mean to say "If you work too hard, you have no time to make spend money"?

No.
People that work too hard don't have time to make money. I see it all the time in my company. When I talk with people about stocks, they tell me thay don't have time for this. They just put their money in CD.

When you work hard and get promoted, the salary doesn't go up much. I decided not to get promoted into rules that require more of my time, and to use this time to invest my money. I already make in the stock market much more than people that are much more senior than me.

Of course, if you are self-employed, this is not the case. But if you work for others, you better not work too hard, and invest more time in making money for your self and not for your employer.

[CuppaJoe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gekko Thru-out much of my adult life, I've had the opportunity to observe up close and personal, the habits of extraordinarily successful people. And I came away with the same conclusions - however much money they had, they always took the spending or saving of money very very seriously, far more seriously than the poor people I observed in childhood. That's not to say that they couldn't be very generous, only to say that each decision about money was made very carefully. From that I have learned a healthy respect for money - mine and other peoples too.

I've found that some of these folks are really slow to pay our bills. The really really rich, I mean so rich that instead of, say, buying Microsoft at the IPO, they were among those who provided the start up cash, will actually ask for discounts; some get the discounts, others are reminded that thinking a service is overpriced is a good reason to end the professional relationship.