5 Biggest Lies You’ve Been Told About Money All Your Life

5 Biggest Lies You’ve Been Told About Money – and how It’s making you poor

You have been living lies about money that have been told to you for a generation. And you are…getting poorer as a result.In the next 5 minutes, I am going to expose the 5 biggest lies, and tell you the real truth about money.

5) “Live within your means.” Everybody tells you to live within your means. You don’t really get rich that way.

Learn to Live BELOW your means. Then save the rest of your money. If you are living barely within your means, you are living hand to mouth. You might be one paycheck away from bankruptcy. You will not get rich. You will remain where you are.
There is happiness in living only with things you need.

4) “Live for the moment.” It’s true but this applies to your time, not your money. When it comes to money –people get rich by DELAYING GRATIFICATION…Not spending money right away simply because they have it.

My father always told me, “you don’t get rich by spending money”—save for the future. The delay will be worth it. When I see people driving fancy cars and wearing fancy clothes, all I see is spending not investing. I wonder how many of them are like my friend in Beverly Hills. They are getting poorer, not richer. How many times have you seen a lottery or a game show where someone won a big chunk of money. They always talk about how they are going to spend it. These are the kinds of people that will stay poor. If I won a big chunk of money, I would not think about how to spend it. I would think about how I would INVEST it. Which brings me to number 3.

3) “You have to spend money to make money.” Completely and utterly false.

You don’t spend money to make money. You INVEST money to make money. This is the biggest reason rich people get rich. This is true not just for any business venture you might start, but the money that you have saved, as well. Don’t keep the money you have saved in a bank account. if you do, you are helping the bank make money. You should either start a business venture, or invest this money. Which brings me to lie #2.

2) “Investing in stocks is like gambling” – This is false. Very few companies go bankrupt. if you are invested in something like S&P 500 index fund, you are invested in the entire stock market.

You will not lose all your money. Why, because only companies go bankrupt, the stock market does NOT go bankrupt. It will always be there. And based on historical returns, if you do nothing after such an investment, you will double your money every 10 years, at 7% growth rate, which is historically average. In a bank, your money will work for the bank, not you. In 10 years, you will have the same amount as you started with, but it will be worth less because of inflation.

Long term Risk just about eliminated if you are invested in the entire stock market. And a quick tip – Vanguard Index 500 is a very good mutual fund.

By the way, Do not take stock tips from anyone – they don’t know better than you. For every winner they tell you, they have also chosen a loser. Just put your money on the entire stock market – index fund or ETF. This investment will do wonders for you.

Now, the #1 Lie you’ve been told about money:

1) “You are throwing your money away by renting, buy a house.” This is the fallacy that has probably made more people poor than any other false statement.
Buying a house, Most of the time, this is NOT a good investment.It will kill you. And I will tell you why.
a. First, it kills your mobility. You can’t easily move. You need to be mobile – because you need to be able to move to where the opportunities are.
b. Second, The fees will kill you – transfer fees, property taxes, insurance, real estate agent, lawyers, utilities. People don’t add this to the price of the home.
c. The repair and maintenance costs will kill you. The more expensive the property, the more expensive it is to maintain and repair. And guess what, most people overspend on their house – buy a much bigger house than they need – this really strains their budget.
d. The upgrades, like new bathroom or kitchens will kill you – they are expensive and you will never recover from these in the selling price. Again you will be spending money on upgrades – not investing it.
e. The down payment will kill you. The 10-20% you put into the down payment is not available to invest.