Let’s promptly dispel a common misconception. Becoming rich is not due to luck, a large inheritance, or a brilliant idea that suddenly occurs to you in the shower. For most people who are financially successful, getting rich isn’t something that happens all at once; it’s a process. It’s the slow, steady, and often hidden building up of disciplined daily actions.
It’s about how you handle your money.
As a financial writer, I’ve been lucky enough to learn about the lives of self-made millionaires, break down the strategies of people who build wealth, and coach people from all walks of life. The size of a person’s paycheck is not the most important thing that sets apart people who build lasting wealth from those who always have trouble. It’s the quality of their routines.
The good news? Your habits don’t have to be your fate. You can choose. You might not be “bad with money”; you might just have bad money habits. You can learn good habits just like you can learn bad ones.
This isn’t a dream about getting rich quickly. This is a detailed guide with more than 4,000 words about the basic changes in behavior that can make you rich. Even if you don’t make a lot of money right now, we’re going to look at the ten most important money habits that can help you become rich if you stick to them. These aren’t just suggestions; they are the building blocks of financial success.
Get ready to see your money, your choices, and your future in a whole new way.
Habit 1: Automate Your Wealth (Always Pay Yourself First)
This is the most important habit you can have. Let this be the only thing you remember from this whole article. People who build wealth the best don’t rely on willpower; they rely on systems.
The Idea: The idea behind “Pay Yourself First” is that you should set aside some of your money for your future self (your savings and investments) before you pay your rent, bills, or buy groceries. Automation is what makes this principle easy and impossible to change.
Why It Works: You can’t have too much willpower. After a long, stressful week, it’s very tempting to skip a manual savings transfer and buy something big. This choice is no longer necessary thanks to automation. Setting up automatic transfers from your checking account to your savings and investment accounts on payday means that the money is gone before you even have a chance to miss it or spend it. You have to live on the rest, which makes saving the default instead of an afterthought. This simple act gets around our natural desire to get what we want right now.
How to Do It Today:
- Figure Out How Much to “Pay Yourself First”: Use a reasonable percentage to start. Even 5% of what you bring home is a great start. That’s $150 if you make $3,000 a month.
- Log Into Your Bank Account: In the “Transfers” section, look for transfers that are “Automatic” or “Recurring.”
- Set Up the Transfer: Make a regular transfer from your main checking account to a separate high-yield savings account. Set up this transfer for the day you get paid or the day after.
- Automate Your Investments: Do the same thing with your investment accounts. If you have a 401(k) at work, your paycheck already automatically adds money to it. Set up a regular investment from your checking account for a Roth IRA.
This one habit makes sure that you are always growing your assets, no matter how motivated you are. It is the most important part of any good financial plan.
Habit 2: Keep a close eye on your spending (become the CEO of You, Inc.)
Rich people run their personal finances like a business. And what does every good CEO do? They look at the financial statements. They know exactly where the money comes from and where it goes. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
The Idea: This isn’t about making a strict budget that makes you feel bad about every purchase. It’s all about being aware. Tracking your spending is a way to learn more about your own behavior so you can make smart choices.
Why It Works: Writing down or sorting every dollar you spend changes your mind in a big way. What was once hidden is now clear. You might be shocked to find out that your “occasional” coffee habit costs you $150 a month or that you’re spending $200 on subscriptions you hardly ever use. This knowledge is the first step toward making a change. It helps you find money leaks and make sure your spending matches your real values instead of your impulses.
How to Do It Today:
- Pick Your Weapon:
- Apps: You can use a free app like Mint or a more advanced system like YNAB (You Need A Budget). These apps connect to your accounts and automatically sort most of your transactions, which makes it very easy to keep track of them.
- Spreadsheet: A basic Google Sheets or Excel spreadsheet can work very well. Make columns for the date, the item, the category, and the amount.
- Notebook: For people who like to touch things, a small, dedicated notebook can be a great way to be mindful of how much you spend.
- Make a 30-Day Commitment: Don’t think about doing this for the rest of your life. Just promise to keep track of all your expenses for the next 30 days. Just keep track; don’t judge.
- Review and Analyze:* Look over your spending at the end of the month. Where are the surprises? Do you spend money on things that are really important to you? This information is the basis for your new budget.
Habit 3: Accept spending with purpose, not painful budgeting
Pay attention to the words here. The word “budgeting” often makes people think of limits and lack. “Conscious Spending” is about giving you power and making sure your money goes toward things that make you happy.
The Idea: This habit is all about figuring out what you really care about and spending a lot of money on those things while cutting costs on the things you don’t. It’s about getting the most happiness for your money. Ramit Sethi, who wrote the book I Will Teach You to Be Rich, is a big supporter of this way of thinking.
Why It Works: A traditional budget that makes you give up everything you love is sure to fail. It feels like I’m on a diet of bread and water. Conscious spending is, however, sustainable because it doesn’t take away joy; it focuses it. It lets you spend money on things you love without feeling bad about it because you’ve made a conscious choice to stop spending money on things that don’t add much value to your life.
How to Put It Into Action Today:
- Find Out What You “Love” and “Like” Spending: Look at the spending information you kept track of in Habit 2. Make two columns. In one, write down the things you bought that really made you happy for a long time. In the other, write down the things you bought because it was easy, you were bored, or it was a habit.
- Optimize and Eliminate: Your goal is to find ways to get more of the “love” spending while getting rid of the “like” spending. Can you get rid of three streaming services that you hardly ever use to save $50 a month for a nice dinner out? Can you make coffee at home (low value) to save money for a flight to another country (high value)?
- Make a “Guilt-Free Spending” Category: In your new budget, set aside a specific amount of money for the things you enjoy. By putting money here, you are giving yourself permission to enjoy your money, which makes the whole process more positive and long-lasting.
Habit 4: Think of “debt as an emergency.”
How you think about debt will change the course of your finances in a big way. For most people, debt is just a part of life. For rich people, high-interest consumer debt is like a house fire that needs to be put out with extreme prejudice.
The Idea: This is a very important change in how you think. Credit card debt, personal loans, and payday loans are all examples of bad debt. They are not tools; they are traps. The interest you pay on this debt is a sure way to lose money, which goes against your efforts to build wealth. Every dollar you send to the credit card company is a dollar that you can’t use to make money.
Why It Works: You attack debt with the urgency it needs when you treat it like an emergency. It becomes the most important thing. This intense focus speeds up your payoff schedule, which could save you thousands of dollars in interest and, more importantly, give you more freedom to use your income, which is your best tool for building wealth.
How to Put It into Action Today:
- Stop Digging: The first thing you should do to get out of a hole is to stop digging. You shouldn’t use your credit cards to buy new things while you’re paying them off.
- Pick Your Attack Plan:
- Debt Snowball: Write down your debts in order from smallest to largest. Pay the minimum on all of them, and use every extra dollar to attack the smallest one. The mental wins keep you going.
- Debt Avalanche: Write down your debts in order of highest to lowest interest rate. Start with the debt that has the highest interest rate. Mathematically, this method saves you the most money.
- Make It Hurt (A Little): Get some extra cash to pay off the debt. This could mean living on “rice and beans” for a while, getting a second job, or selling things you don’t need. Giving up something for a short time gives you freedom in the long run.
Habit 5: Make a plan for your investments, no matter how small.
This is the habit that makes people rich. Saving keeps your money safe, but investing makes it grow. The rich know that their earned money is just a seed. The forest grows when they invest their money.
The Idea: The habit isn’t about picking hot stocks or timing the market. It’s about the steady, automated, and unemotional process of buying assets that go up in value on a regular basis. It’s not as important how much you start with as how often you do it.
How It Works: This habit uses two of the most powerful financial tools: dollar-cost averaging and compound interest.
- Compound Interest: This is when your investments make money, and then those returns start to make money on their own, which leads to an exponential growth curve over time.
- Dollar-Cost Averaging: When you invest a set amount of money at set times, you automatically buy more shares when prices are low and fewer shares when prices are high. This makes the market less volatile and lowers the risk of making a big investment when the market is at its highest.
How to Do It Today:
- Start with Your 401(k) Match: If your employer will match your contributions, make sure you put in enough to get the full amount. This is a 100% return right away. It’s not up for discussion.
- Open a Roth IRA: This is a great retirement account for people who are just starting out. You can open one at a low-cost brokerage like Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab.
- Automate Your Contributions: Set up an automatic monthly investment, just like you do with your savings. Start with $50 or $100 each month. The habit is more important than the amount.
- Pick a Simple Investment: Don’t let too many options stop you from making a choice. Put your money into one low-cost, broadly diversified index fund or ETF, such as an S&P 500 fund or a Total Stock Market fund. Put it in place and let it grow for the next 30 years.
Habit 6: Make a big change to how much you save
The most important thing you can do to speed up your path to wealth is to save and invest a certain percentage of your after-tax income.
The Idea: The average American saves about 5% to 6% of their income, but people who are working toward financial independence often save 20%, 30%, or even 50% or more. This may seem impossible, but it can be done by being aware of how you spend money (Habit 3) and making more money (Habit 7).
How It Works: A high savings rate has two effects. You’re not only building up your wealth faster, but you’re also learning how to live on less. This means that the total amount of money you need to be financially independent (usually 25 times your yearly expenses) is also going down. It’s a two-pronged attack that cuts your time to wealth by a lot.
How to Do It Today:
- Find out how much you’re saving right now: (Total Monthly Savings & Investments / Monthly Take-Home Pay) * 100. Know your number.
- Push Yourself to Raise It by 1%: If you’re at 5%, your goal for the next month is 6%. This is probably a small, doable amount.
- Automate Every Raise: This is the easiest way to save more money. When you get a raise or a bonus, put 50–100% of that money into your savings and investments right away, before it ever hits your checking account. This keeps you from “lifestyle creep” and puts your new money to work right away.
Habit 7: Put money into your most valuable asset (you)
Your ability to make money is what drives the machine that builds your wealth. The best money habits include not only keeping track of your money but also working to make more money.
The idea is to spend time and sometimes money learning new skills, gaining knowledge, and getting credentials that will make you more valuable in the job market. It’s about going from being a passive worker to being the boss of your own career.
Why It Works: You can’t cut your costs any more than this. But there is almost no limit to how much more money you can make. When you invest in skills like learning to code, getting a sales certification, mastering digital marketing, or becoming a better public speaker, you are directly making your financial engine more powerful. You could get a promotion or a new job that pays $10,000 more a year with just one new skill. That amount would be very hard to save by just cutting coupons.
How to Put It Into Action Today:
- Find High-Value Skills: What skills are in high demand in your field or in fields you want to work in? Check out job listings for jobs you want. What skills do they need?
- Use Low-Cost Learning Platforms: You don’t need to get a new degree. You can get world-class instruction on almost any subject for a fraction of the cost of traditional education on sites like Coursera, Udemy, and even YouTube.
- Make Time: Set aside time in your calendar for learning, just like you would for a workout. Even if you only practice for 3–4 hours a week, you can make a lot of progress in a year.
Habit 8: Learn to wait for what you want
We live in a world where we want things right away. Get it now, pay later. Shipping in two days. Everything on demand. Rich people have the superpower to resist this pull and wait for what they want.
The Idea: This is the habit of giving up a small, immediate reward in order to get a much bigger, future reward. It’s deciding to save for a down payment instead of getting a new car. It’s making your own lunch instead of buying it, knowing that the money you save can be put toward your retirement.
Why It Works: This habit helps you reach your savings and investment goals. It is what makes compounding work. The well-known “Stanford Marshmallow Experiment” showed that kids who could wait to eat one marshmallow in exchange for two later on tended to have better lives. This core discipline is essential for success in finance and in life over the long term.
How to Put It Into Action Today:
- Set a 72-Hour Rule: If you want to buy something that isn’t necessary and costs more than a certain amount (like $100), make a list and wait 72 hours. The emotional urgency will have faded after three days, and you will be able to make a more logical choice about whether the purchase fits with your goals.
- Picture the Future Reward: When you want to buy something on a whim, take a moment to clearly picture the goal that purchase is taking away from. Picture yourself on that vacation without debt or in the living room of your new home. This makes the reward in the future feel more real and emotionally powerful than the temptation right now.
Habit 9: Find financial mentors to help you.
The people you spend time with have a big effect on how you think and act. It will be very hard for you to change your money habits if your friends always think that having a good time means spending a lot of money.
The idea is to actively look for and learn from people who are already doing well with money or are on the same path as you. You don’t have to call millionaires out of the blue. Your mentors can be writers, podcasters, bloggers, or even a family member who knows a lot about money.
Why It Works: Success becomes normal when you see it. When you hear people talk about investing, saving half of their income, and starting businesses all the time, these ideas that seem crazy at first start to seem normal and possible. You take in their way of thinking, their words, and their plans without even trying. This gives you the information and the social support you need to keep up with your new habits.
How to Do It Today:
- Choose Your Media Carefully:
- Podcasts: Sign up for podcasts like “The Ramsey Show,” “Afford Anything,” or “The Money Guy Show.”
- Books: Read old favorites like “The Millionaire Next Door,” “The Simple Path to Wealth,” and “Your Money or Your Life.”
- Blogs: Read personal finance blogs that are well-known and that fit with your goals.
- Join a Community: Look for online groups, like a FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) subreddit or a Facebook group, where people talk about their progress and help each other.
Habit 10: Review and Plan on a Regular Basis
You can’t just sit back and let your wealth grow. You need to check in on your systems and goals on purpose every so often to make sure they are still working.
The idea is to make it a habit to set aside time each week to talk about money with yourself or your partner. This is time set aside to look over your progress, celebrate your successes, and make any changes that need to be made to your financial plan.
Why It Works: You stay interested and in charge by reviewing things on a regular basis. It gives you a chance to fix problems before they get worse. It’s also important to celebrate big events like paying off a credit card or reaching a net worth of $10,000. These events give you the motivation you need to keep going for the long haul. Your financial plan should be able to change as life changes.
How to Put It Into Action Today:
- Set up a monthly check-in: Set aside 30 minutes every month for this appointment. Take this time to look over your spending from the last month, check how much you’ve saved, and make sure your automatic transfers are working as they should.
- Plan a Quarterly or Bi-Annual Deep Dive: Set aside 1-2 hours every 3-6 months for a longer session. Look over how your investments are doing (don’t panic), think about your goals again, and get ready for any big bills that are coming up.
The Way You Act Today Will Affect Your Future
Making money isn’t just for the rich. It happens naturally when you have a certain set of daily “money habits.”
You don’t need to make six figures to get started. You should start putting your savings on autopilot. You need to take charge of your money. You should spend money in a way that makes you happy, attack your debt with passion, and invest with unwavering consistency. You should put money into yourself, learn from the best, and put your future ahead of your current wants.
There is a thread in each of these ten habits. It might seem small or even unimportant by itself. But when you weave them together day after day, week after week, they make an unbreakable cable that will pull you toward a future of true wealth and financial freedom, slowly but surely.
You have a choice. The habits are clear. Now is when your journey begins.
Reference:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1052.The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon
https://www.youneedabudget.com
https://www.google.com/search?q=https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/
