Most people either work, dream, or work and dream to become rich. And the chances are high, that you are one of them. Everyone has his standard of ‘rich’ he tries to achieve, but most dreams include a luxury house, car, and exotic vacations. Some gamble and buy lottery tickets and some work really hard to see these dreams come true. The first often end up broke within 2 years, and then later, after achieving what they wanted end up asking themselves: now what? And a sense of emptiness.

Why do we keep working and making money?

We need to have a life philosophy, in the first place, and money occupies a very specific place in this philosophy. Read about several different philosophies and pick the one that suits you. Then, stick to it no matter what happens to you, getting rich or getting broke. Without a kind of spirituality, a long-term plan, you will be most probably lost.

Before concerning what to do with your wealth, you need to make sure to fulfill these basic needs:

  1. Pay every possible debt you have
  2. Own a big house where all family member can live comfortably
  3. Own good cars for each adult in the house(by good we do not mean expensive ones)
  4. Put aside some savings for your child’s education
  5. Ensure each family member’s health and death(health and death insurance). By family members we mean you, your partner, your both parents, and your kids.
  6. Set aside a budget for two family vacations each year
  7. Have a recurring revenue like work or investment that makes sure you can afford this standard of living
A large luxury home with a deck pool and nicely landscaped grounds.

After you have all these set, you can consider the following:

  1. Make sure to live below your means. Can you keep it a secret? Even you may consider yourself wealthy now, don’t blow your money, don’t show off, don’t be cocky, and do not give money to your family members and friends. There will always greedy, dissatisfied people who will complain about not getting more, or why you gave someone else more. It is a gesture almost guaranteed to ruin your relationships. Instead, try to see it from this point of view: if they are close enough friends and relatives, you should be aware of their needs. So, when you get the chance to help, find a creative way to help without getting noticed. For example, your friends are striving to pay for their daughter’s education? You can step in to find a ‘scholarship sponsor’ for her. Kill your ego every day, for the sake of saving yourself and your family unnecessary pain.
  2. Invest in yourself. Is there a career that for some reason you could not follow? Did you dream of becoming an architect but you just couldn’t? Did you use to love painting, making music or sculpture? This is the time for you. Be generous to yourself especially for educational purposes. Besides cultivating your hobbies, you should seriously invest in learning how to manage money. You can make money, but keeping and increasing them is way more difficult. You better learn how to manage money, and invest, before taxes or yourself blow them away.
  3. Make an investment plan to keep money flowing. Your money can very soon kiss you goodbye if you keep spending without any money coming in. Make a lot of research before pouring in money. The first instinct could be to buy some real estate so that you can rent them out. But you need to know that properties require maintenance, taxes, you need to concern about having good tenants, etc. So, before you do anything, do your homework. This is why it is important to firstly invest in yourself. But if you are not rich today, and working towards that, then don’t neglect money management education starting from now. There is plenty of good free online sources you could profit from.
  4. Have a backup plan. Let’s say you worked for several years on a project, made it successful, now it is worth millions and you get an offer to sell it which you can’t refuse. You take the offer, but the next day you are suddenly jobless. You need a new professional or business goal to start working almost immediately before you get hit by depression.
  5. Set a budget for charity. Pick a specific category to do charity and make sure your money will do some good. It can be really rewarding to help people in need, just make sure that your money is really going where is needed most. Start by volunteering at an orphanage. There you will have the chance to see things from a completely new perspective. You will hear stories that never make it to the news because they are not fancy, but they are life stories that give you the best reality check. Something that can be very satisfactory is helping people in need of money, just like you were before and wished someone stepped in to help. You will notice that again the more anonymous you remain, the more it helps you stay humble and grounded. What will help you keep up with the charitable work, is having a way to see how you impacted these people’s lives. How a widowed mother could get a profession, is working and providing for her family, just because you decided to sponsor her education. How a baby is being properly fed because you provided a basic food supply for a young family. How your contribution helped the discovery of life-saving medicine to be provided for the entire world for an affordable price. These realizations should give you a good night’s sleep.
  6. Now you can indulge in some once-in-a-lifetime experiences like zero gravity, sky diving, sleeping in an ice hotel, try hot air balloon over a tourist city, take a flyboarding jetpack flight, etc. Indulge yourself, in moderation. Word of caution: keep away from drugs.

You may or may not become rich, eventually. But making sure you are going to be fine and have a plan for most scenarios will give you a compass and not feel lost.