«
»

The Discipline Needed to be Rich

In all my readings and learnings on wealth building and actually moving from ‘getting by’ to ‘doing well’ takes dedication, commitment, and discipline. I often ask myself if I have the discipline to be rich and the answer is pretty sobering — no, not yet.

In deciding to buy a house, we had two very clear paths available to us: stay the financial improvement course and rent or buy a small place or over-stretch financially and buy a house with some land. We selected the less financially beneficial path.

We knew, without a doubt, that it would have a huge impact on our finances and pretty much put all our positive progress on hold for at least 6 months and perhaps an entire year. But, that whole idea of quality of life came into play and we took the instant gratification instead of waiting until a point, financially, when we could better afford the gratification.

To me, this is just another sign of the lack of discipline to be rich. Another comes up this weekend and next, as we both realize that we are really hurting this month but we are both continuing with travel plans that simply are not affordable right now. Both are for once a year events that we religiously attend, but the budget really says we should consider otherwise. Instead, we’re taking the leap and will simply deal with the fall out, again, we don’t have the discipline to be rich.

Now, this doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. We do make positive strives and have enough discipline to make reasonable choices. They are not always the best, but when we consider all the options and impact, they are ones we can live with. Oh, but to think of how much faster we could reach our financial goals if we had more discipline… and no children (but thats a whole different post).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 11:19 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “The Discipline Needed to be Rich”



  • Minimum Wage
    January 10th, 2008 01:37
    1

    Discipline won’t make you rich on a minimum wage income.


  • Donna Jean
    January 10th, 2008 08:14
    2

    Thanks for the comment but I’m not so sure that I agree with that statement, unless it is implying that someone could never increase their income above minimum wage. Perhaps then they would not become rich, but I’m sure that they could move from ‘getting by’ to ‘doing well’ while living within their budget, though that’d certainly take more discipline than I can probably manage.

    Of course, this isn’t meant to indulge into an entire conversation on social economic and societal factors that make it very difficult for the very poor to improve their quality of life. While I don’t subscribe to the simplistic notion that anyone can escape poverty if they work hard enough (because, most do indeed work very hard), I do believe that it is possible for many people to work within the confines of their situation for improvement.

    And I do reveal and recognize my own personal experiential bias come into play in this type of discussion having slowly moved away from those exact conditions over the past 12 years.

    I don’t, what do other’s think? Is it possible to become rich, with the proper discipline, if you’re starting out at minimum wage?


  • mapgirl
    January 21st, 2008 19:41
    3

    MW is a troll BTW. But you do pose an interesting question. One can start at minimum wage and get the skills to move up in the world. It all depends I guess.

    At any rate, I wanted to comment about the lack of discipline to be rich. I am right there with you. Right now I am feeling very spendy with new job and new boyfriend and I’m feeling like I’m spending more than I should and not focusing on my credit cards. I know it’s entirely on me and my own failure to focus and be disciplined.


  • Donna Jean
    January 21st, 2008 22:34
    4

    mapgirl, good to hear from ya, it’s been a while. It’s nice to hear from others about their slacking in the discipline department. It’d be a little lonely if all we ever heard about was how everyone was on the straight and narrow path of getting it right. :)


  • Jenny Ford
    February 17th, 2008 06:31
    5

    People have become wealthy from every possible starting point – but not just by spending less than they earn.

    It’s what you DO with the money you save that makes all the difference. You must use it to build assets, not just park it with a bank.

    If only they taught this stuff in schools, there would be a lot fewer struggling adults! It took me years to unlearn the terrible money ideas I got from my parents – like the only way to be wealthy is to do something “shady”!

    Keep up the good work, spreading the word!

    Jenny
    http://www.cash-smart-kids.com
    blogging at http://www.raisingentrepreneurs.org

Leave a Reply