rich people don't buy things
how to think like an investor: aka assets vs liabilties:
Ok, that’s a sweeping statement, but let’s unpack.
Most people think about money in regard to the things they can buy: a new car, a renovation, a holiday.
The key part they’re missing is seeing how your money can work for you, what your money can earn, and buying your freedom. As long as you’re dependent on exchanging your time for money, you’ll always be beholden to the person giving you that work.
If you can reach a stage called financial freedom, you get to a comfortable place where you can choose to say no.
Saying no to obligations, what doesn’t serve you. You’re instead living out of passion, choice, purpose, rather than urgency, stress, or surviving until the next paycheck.
This is why reaching financial freedom has been my end goal for the last 7+ years, and the purpose behind building a £150k net worth by 25.
Sure, circumstance and privilege come into it, but the intention to eventually reach £1m was there, meaning the goalposts on the way came that much faster with a tangible goal that I could reverse engineer backwards from.
I got a comment on one of my posts about mindful consumption. It was something along the lines of, “Now I think about it, poor people are the ones going to Selfridges and buying loads of stuff, people like you, with money, don’t buy a lot.”
That comment stuck with me, because it’s fairly true. There’ll of course be arguments that no, rich people do in fact buy a lot of stuff, or why do we obsess over rich people in the first place? Both valid arguments.
What is rich?
Let’s reframe rich as just having an abundance of money, being able to invest large portions of your income, being able to wake up without an alarm, being able to make healthy choices, or living slowly on your own terms. I don’t mean generational wealth or trust fund kids, I mean everyday millionaires building wealth through entrepreneurship. This is what I would define as rich, not the gaudy excess display of wealth sold to us via social media.
If we take that definition of rich, then it would make sense why they don’t buy “things,” and by things I mean the latest viral skincare, a 10th water bottle, or a Zara haul. Somewhere along their journey of perhaps side hustling or starting a business, they learnt a key lesson:
