Tuesday, June 27, 2006
20 Years Old
A friend of mine, Alex is a young ambitious guy. He’s just getting started out with his first corporate job and he’s pretty fired up about it. I asked him today if he’s putting money into his company’s 401K plan. He said he thought about it, but didn’t because he wanted to buy a condo. We did some math and he could hardly believe that $100 a week could earn him $211,000 a month by the time he was 73 years old.
Let’s consider his $20 million dollar fortune. Did he have to out and invent the next Google? Did he have to struggle to become the CEO? Nope.
The only thing it required him to do was show up Monday morning and work his job. In fact, he doesn’t even have to try for a raise. He can blow his paycheck on anything he wants. He will still end up wildly rich.
If you can put money into a 401K at your job and don’t, you’re screwing up. It’s because you think you don’t have enough money. Might I suggest that you don’t have a money-making problem, you have a money-spending problem. Making money is easy. Not spending it is very hard. Especially in this day and age.
401K plans are great because they protect you from yourself. Your company’s payroll department takes the money before you go and spend it! It’s brilliant.
You must have the discipline to save 10% of everything you make if you want to get rich. That’s the magic pill you’re looking for. It’s a principle. When you finally decide to start saving, there will be two hard moments. Both are brief, but you’ll have to overcome them. First, is probably right now as you’re sitting here trying to justify all the reasons you can’t save 10 cents of every dollar. The next one will be your first pay-check after you decide to do it. Notice I said first check. After the second check you’ll never miss the money. The pain is over and you’re on track to being a millionaire.
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Let’s consider his $20 million dollar fortune. Did he have to out and invent the next Google? Did he have to struggle to become the CEO? Nope.
The only thing it required him to do was show up Monday morning and work his job. In fact, he doesn’t even have to try for a raise. He can blow his paycheck on anything he wants. He will still end up wildly rich.
If you can put money into a 401K at your job and don’t, you’re screwing up. It’s because you think you don’t have enough money. Might I suggest that you don’t have a money-making problem, you have a money-spending problem. Making money is easy. Not spending it is very hard. Especially in this day and age.
401K plans are great because they protect you from yourself. Your company’s payroll department takes the money before you go and spend it! It’s brilliant.
You must have the discipline to save 10% of everything you make if you want to get rich. That’s the magic pill you’re looking for. It’s a principle. When you finally decide to start saving, there will be two hard moments. Both are brief, but you’ll have to overcome them. First, is probably right now as you’re sitting here trying to justify all the reasons you can’t save 10 cents of every dollar. The next one will be your first pay-check after you decide to do it. Notice I said first check. After the second check you’ll never miss the money. The pain is over and you’re on track to being a millionaire.
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# posted by Bryan C. Fleming @ 10:55 AM 
