Most People Want More Money But Don't Actually Want More Money

The title, I will admit, seems a bit strange, doesn't it? I mean, one either wants more money or they don't. Doesn't everyone naturally want more money? It would seem like a no-brainer to say, most people want more money.

The thing is, that's just what most people say. The reality is quite a different thing. The reality is that most people don't have more money, and there is actually a simple answer to why they don't.

They don't actually do anything to go after it.

Part of the problem lies in how people think about money. To a lot of people, it's magic. Or it's luck. Or they think that only rich people can actually be rich and get richer because they are already rich.

The fact is that most of the rich people in this world did not start off that way. Many started off quite poor and became rich. And the reason that happened for them is that they did want more money and actually wanted more money.

Perhaps the title is making a bit more sense?

Let's go back to what I said about how people think about money. Beyond magic and luck, people think of money in terms of mainly income. Money that is created through a job, or a second or third job, through side gigs, using certain apps and taking surveys. Perhaps they write online and that's a source of income. Or they decide to sell crafts or something else on eBay or some other similar selling site.

All good things, mind you. And there is nothing wrong with doing any of these things to create more income and have more money. But really, the new money is rarely tied to getting ahead. It's tied to simply continuing to get by.

In other words, the objective for getting more income is to spend all of it. And here's another reality. You cannot spend your way to riches.

When I say more money, I am not just talking about earning more. I am talking about all the ways that are out there to actually grow what you have already made. And that's the part most people overlook. Thus, they don't actually want the real money that's available to them.

Because, that part is not a secret. It's not magic or luck. It's simply knowing where the money is and taking the time to learn how to get it.

It's not the easy way. Not necessarily. I mean, to me it is. But I have been doing it a long time and know my way around. That learning process didn't happen overnight. Nor did growing my stash. And that is also the reason a lot of people avoid it.

The stock market. 

People think of it as a private organization. An exclusive club. A place for the rich to play high stakes games, sometimes at the expense of the little guy with pockets less full.

That can't be farther from the truth. But of course, I will repeat what I said before. You just have to know what you are doing. The question is, if the stock market is one of the best sources of money and one of the best opportunities to actually become rich, why don't more people do it?

Because again, it's no secret. In fact, when you look at the Forbe's Richest list published every year, a good many of the people on that list made their money through investments. Yeah, a lot of them own businesses. Sure. Of course. But owning a business and making a lot of money doesn't necessarily mean running it or even having started it.

Many of the people on the Forbe's list are simply investors.

The stock market can be complicated. I want to be clear about that. I mean, it is not always complicated. Take a guy like Warren Buffet. He takes the easiest approach there is to investing. He simply buys low—and in his case rarely ever sells. He rides on the waves of successful companies and collects dividends as they continue to grow and operate.

That is where and how he had made most of his money.

A great book to read if you want to know how Warren does it is called The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. To some it is considered to be the Bible of Basic Investing. If you wanted to call it something else, you could call it the nuts and bolts of making money by buying solid businesses.

I am going to tell you that reading Graham's book might be one the most valuable reads you may ever read, aside from maybe the Bible Itself if you happen to be religiously inclined. It is the key that opens the door to the vault of knowledge secured behind it.

It dispels the magic and the luck theories.

Going back to the income thing, think about this for a second. It goes right along with that how people think about money thing. College. For some it's a big deal. If you want to have a good income you need to have a degree that gets you a good job.

But even that, having a good job, does it serve one to really get ahead? The answer is mostly no. No good job really gets anyone ahead. Investing the money they earn does. And again, the people who actually want more money know this. It's why they have money.

Besides the fact that many non-college degree jobs pay more than degreed jobs do. Plumbers and electricians make a lot of money. So do welders and factory workers—depending on the job of course. A guy working in a brewery might make over $80,000 a year easily while someone working in a cereal factory might be closer to about $40,000-$50,000 a year.

Back in the day I worked for a Coca-Cola bottling plant on the factory floor and made over $60,000 a year. And that was more than 20 years ago.

But that's not my point. Just an illustration. I have always worked and continue to work to this day even though I don't really have to. But the second part of that, even if I don't really have to, is because I never spent all of what I made. 

I invested.

Moreover, I took the time to learn how to invest. I learned about the stock market. I even went beyond what Warren Buffet does and learned other aspects of investing such as writing covered call options contracts and that sort of thing.

I actually wanted more money and continue to want more money. To actually want it, achieving it through doing things that actually make it. By not wasting my time seeking out high incomes or time-consuming side gigs exclusively just to chase the next payday and do nothing more than get by.

There is one other thing I did. Rather than lambaste and scold the rich, or even be envious of them, I studied them. I wanted to know what they did to get there. I wanted to know how they did it. 

The bottom line is that simply wanting more money doesn't more money make. Only actions can do that. Only an active interest and participation in things that make money and create wealth will do it. Either you can sit back beneath the table of the rich and wait for crumbs to land on your plate. Or you can sit at the table with them and have your own plate.

The choice is entirely yours. But it is up to you. The opportunity is not lacking. You true desire to get at it is.

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Don't Let Your Money Leave You Stranded

WHEN IT COMES TO MANAGING YOUR MONEY, THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE STATEMENT THAT I HAVE STRONGLY DISAGREED WITH, and that is to just simply save it and forget it. In other words, you will hear a good many people, and even sometimes from certain financial advisors, to not watch the daily nuances of the markets—

Lest you wish to drive yourself completely insane.

The truth is that in order for you to fully reap the rewards of any investments you may have, you really do need to keep a good tabs on what's going on with them. Yes, it can be a painful thing to watch your portfolio in the throes of its ups and downs. It can be particularly painful when there are bad days, or strings of bad days.

If you go into the process of looking daily at what you have with the mindset that this is just the way that the market operates, and if you have done your due diligence and have confidence in what your individual investments hold for the long haul, the daily nuances should not have the agonizing impact that they might otherwise have.

Going it blind, to me, just seems like a foolish way to go about things. Perhaps it is a stupid analogy. But imagine driving a car that has no gas gauge. You simply drive around having some general idea of where you need to be and how much gas is left in the tank to get you there. But you have no idea how much gas is actually in the tank.

At some point or another, or at various points, you are going to find yourself on the side of the road trekking to the nearest gas station, gas can in hand, to make up for the fact that you got it wrong. You'll even be filling up when you don't need to.

That's time, folks. And time is money. And it's a cog in the wheel that can throw your whole day off balance.

In order to manage your finances, you need to know how much gas is in your tank so you can make wise decisions about when you need to fuel up, when it might be a good idea to pour a few extra gallons in the tank, or even when you are safe to drive a little bit longer before doing anything at all.

But it does another thing for you when you are watching the daily nuances. It helps you to also make wise spending decisions. Look, let's be real here. We save money not only for the future. But we also save it to have it when we want it to do things.

Watching the money and knowing exactly where you are at any particular time can help you decide if now is the time to take that vacation, or replace the car, or go out to eat one night. If I see I am up for the week, perhaps I allow myself to take a little bit of that money off the table to take it out of the bottom line and do something I want to with it. Conversely, if I am down, I'm not taking money away from it making a bad situation worse.

Money is not the most important thing in our lives. Obviously. But it can certainly have an impact on the quality of our lives.

Again, going into the process knowing the mechanics of money and markets is key, and helps us even to see a silver lining. Remember when the markets lost half their value in 2009? It was a devastating thing to watch really. But, having an idea that we have been to places like that before, and seeing that we not only gained it all back eventually, and then some, gives you great insight into what you need to be doing in times like those.

You could say that back then, in 2009, the tank was running on empty. The choice would have been unwise to just keep on driving hoping you would still get to your destination. The wise choice would have been to put some gas in the car and drive a little less.

And by comparison...spend a little less.

You don't want to find yourself on the side of the road dead while all the other cars whiz past you. You want to be on the road with them, getting to the places you want to, and need to go. Pressing the gas pedal is intent to move forward. But you're going to need gas to actually make the car go.

If you really want to reach your destination, it is best to avoid guessing whether or not you will actually have what you need to get there, or what you need to do in order to have some influence on whether or not you will ever actually arrive.

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