Why Aren't You Richer?

With all this talk (in yesterday's post) about the secrets of happiness, it's probably time to move on to what many believe is the secret of happiness -- money. Years ago I saw some financial adviser on TV proclaim that 90% of winning the financial game was spending less than you make. Well, that sounded reasonable to me. Then I picked up Jean Chatzky's, Make Money, Not Excuses the other day. In her Introduction, she takes this idea a bit further:

"It took me only fifteen years reporting on money and how people should be using it to have the following epiphany: If you want to get rich, if you want to be wealthier than you are today, you really need to do only four things. That's right, just four things:

* You need to make a decent living.
* You need to spend less than you make.
* You need to invest the money you don't spend so that it can work as hard for you as you're working for yourself.
* And you need to protect yourself and this financial world you've built so that a disaster -- big or small -- doesn't take it all away from you.

"Everything else is just window dressing. The fees -- and how to avoid them. The advisers -- and how to hire them. The deals. The scams. The ins. The outs. They are all interesting. Some of them are even quite important. But until you have conquered the heart of the matter, they are all minutia.

"The four cornerstones, by contrast, are the meat and potatoes of your financial life. If you do those things today, you'll start getting rich tomorrow. And once you feel set financially, you'll be able to start focusing on the truly important things in life."
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In my view, those four things might be summarized thusly:
* Earn it
* Save it
* Invest it
* Protect it

So now I suppose we are all pretty well-armed to go out there and make a fortune. Good luck!