Ok, so I just had my 30th birthday. And I am pretty much broke. Therefore I want to request advice on how to get seriously rich. Not just scratching around rich, but mega rich. Anyone care to let me in on their money making secrets?
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.–Poor Richard
Don’t spend all your money on MD players.
Don’t spend capital.
Work out in the gym for four hours a day to make yourself buff, borrow some money for cosmetic surgery to chisel your features, then find yourself a wealthy older Taiwanese woman who’s desperate to marry a hunky foreigner. It’s the easiest and most surefire way to get rich quick.
You’re not the only one who wants to make loads of money quick. Check out Bassman’s serious money makers in Taiwan thread.
Honestly!
We can’t ALL be rich, so sharing your secrets with the entire online world hardly seems very smart, does it?
Send me $1000 and I’ll tell you my secret proven formula for making outargeous sums of money for very little work. It’s true. I’ll even demonstrate it to you.
What you need is a time machine. Here’s what I suggest:
How to get fabulously rich through the use of a time machine
1)Sit in your living room, and wait.
2)After a short while you should receive a visit from your future self.
3)Your future self will arrive in a time machine.
4)Listen very carefully as your future self gives you the detailed instructions on how to manufacture said time machine.
5)Using the instructions given by your future self, construct aforementioned time machine.
6)Use the time machine to go into the future and obtain stock information, lotto numbers etc.
7)Do not go back in time and kill your granfather!
8)What ever you do, don’t forget to revisit yourself from the future and give yourself instructions for the time machine.
9)Buy stock, lotto tickets etc.
10)Wait for the money to pour in.
Brian
It is very simple. Work hard and save your money. Have a budget for everything that you do or must spend money on. If you budget $5,000NT per month on food and you have spent it all after 3 weeks, starve for the last week.
Don’t have an ATM card. If you get paid in cash put it in the bank ASAP.
If you are a teacher, I suggest following this basic formula: Privates pay living expenses and your main school is all bank (assuming that you have enough of both). If you don’t have the correct Private/Cram school ration to follow this formula, then of course you need to balance it.
Never lend money.
Don’t buy crap that you really don’t need.
is there much modeling work for us poor unfortunate handsome types in Taiwan? does it pay good?
modeling, tv commercials, any kind of advertisement that requires unique foreign lookers 
=============you must make your own self rich by yourself. but be warned, forewarned. being rich is not all that it is cracked up to be. better to be satisfied with what u got now. rich is a bitch.
My parents made me Rich.
I like Richard Bransons advice for becoming a Millionaire.
“Start off as a Billionaire & then open an airline”.
I suggest you ignore any advice re: prudent saving as the way to riches.
You dont save yourself to wealth . Saving 50% of a shite income instead of 10% is still a small saving & will reduce your quality of life in the present. And your dream home in Dullsville Arizona or whatever has probably inflated in price by US$200K while you have saved US$100K.
The only way to become rich is to significantly increase your income. Hence you need to take a personal risk & do something different (Doing the same thing & expecting a different result is delusional & unscientific !).
Alternatively come to terms with remaining relatively poor & accept that that is the life choice you have made. Thats fine too if you are happy with it.
What helped me “break out” was picturing myself in the future. Its OK being relatively poor when you are in your 20s/30s when you can feel like a bit of a bohemian. But in your 50s/60s its just…sad. No choice re: retiring etc…no choice at all in fact…ugh.
You need to decide how important it is to you & then do something. Or do nothing but dont blame anyone else in 20 years when its too late to make the change.
Buy low, sell high.
The easiest way to become rich is to start your own business. If you work for other people, you will always be a wage slave. If you have special skills (lawyer, doctor), you might be better off than the average, but you will still be a wage slave, at the mercy of whoever is paying you.
It’s not true to say saving money will not make you wealthy.
It is impossible to make any investments without cash. One doesn’t need a lot of money to make smart investments. Everybody should buy their own house. It is the easiest way to leverage 20,000 dollars, into 250,000 with the prospect of that 250,000 growing for you as an asset. Even on a low wage, it’s not difficult to save this kind of money and we all have to live somewhere.
Never work for another person. That’s not to say don’t take a job in a company; however you should only perceive that job as if you were your own boss. The moment it doesn’t suit your goals-walk.
Think only about money. Get your priorities right. Health, money, love, and sex in that order. You can’t do it without health, love and sex are feely available to anyone with a heart, but money can only be earned or lost.
Make friends with successful people. Nobody brings you down more than your loser buddies. If you want to keep them do so, but always have a peer group who aspire to similar goals. This can breed a very powerful culture. Just look at the neocons in the US if in doubt.
Don’t waste your time in politics of any kind. Politics is the surest way to lose money, because it eats time and makes enemies.
Build systems that don’t rely on your personal time or input beyond their establishment.
Don’t diversify to the point of going nowhere. Specialize in your investment strategies. For example, if you want to trade the stock market don’t trade the whole mother, just find three stocks and watch them. Don’t be bothered by the chatter in the ether.
Learn how to lose. Learning how to lose builds a stoic mind. As Kipling says treat triumph and disaster just the same as they are imposters.
Apply the lessons acquired when learning how to lose to help you take your wins.
Once you learn how to lose, you will never be afraid of investing your money. Being afraid of investing your savings is the surest way to stay poor. I think it was Buffet who said the biggest risk is to take no risk at all.
How do you spell it…jiggly-o…jiggle-OH…gigolo 
?
On the other hand, if you don’t save, you are much more likely to remain in your current economic situation, and you probably will end up working well past when everyone else your age is retired. I spent many years working in the silicon valley during the huge economic boom and saw many of my coworkers who were making huge amounts of money, yet not saving or investing a penny. Many of them didn’t even participate in the stock purchase plan where you can buy stock at a large disocunt or the retirement plan that matched dollar for dollar up to 4% of your income tax free. They were making US$60-100k and spending it on rent on expensive apartments, bought expensive cars, big TVs, travelled extensively (like skiing every weekend, going to Las Vegas or Hawaii multiple times a year), and always had the latest computer and mobile phone. Never saved a dime, never invested, and some despite their large incomes even managed to run up quite a bit of credit card debt. When the tech crash came, those that got laid off with no savings, high debt, and no house got really really screwed.
If you want to get rich, of course you need to spend money to do so. This is still a form of investment. To be able to invest in yourself you need to know how to cut your expenses and debt. This means making sacrifices to meet your goals. You need to concentrate first on meeting your required expenses: food, housing, health. Cut expenses where you can by avoiding expensive meals and expensive housing. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish though. If you choose cheap housing that requires large amounts of time to get to work or clients then you could actually end up losing money. You should spend some amount on your comfort to make sure you are suitably happy to perform your work well. Try to reduce your reliance on debt as much as possible. If you aren’t paying off your credit card bill completely at least 4 times a year, you have a debt problem and will end up paying as much as twice as much for everything you buy on credit. You should have a goal to be able to pay off your credit cards completely every month.
For asset backed debt such as a mortgage, make sure you don’t take on so much that you have trouble servicing the debt or have to spend a majority of your income on the debt, or have to take on additional debt to cover your other expenses. When you do have asset-backed debt, you should try to split extra income towards paying off the debt early and other investment/savings.
If you are able to control your expenses, pay off your credit cards each month, have enough to have a good time occasionally, and have a bit left over, you will feel much richer than if you didn’t. This has been proven by studies that looked at different families with the same incomes and compared how well off they felt compared to their debt load. The families who controlled their expenses and debt felt more well off than those who didn’t. Those who made less money even felt richer to those who made more but didn’t manage it well. Contrary to popular belief, blowing all your money on luxuries you can’t afford will only make you feel worse, not better. Buy luxuries you can afford and that you really truly know you want. Or in other words, spending to make yourself happy can only make you feel worse if you end up not being able to pay for it later.
Once you are able to manage your income, you will be able to make investments. This can be the standard stocks, bonds, savings, etc. but you also need to invest in yourself. Teach yourself new skills, go to school, buy books. Invest in tools that can help you make money. Watch for opportunities and take reasonable risks when they arise. Your money making opportunity will not be handed to you. It will not be risk free. It will probably take a lot of work, at least initially. But when you see the opportunity, you need to take it and try your hardest to attain your goals.
When you start making serious money, re-invest as much as you can. Only spend a set portion on improving your standard of living. At this point, reinvestment will end up earning you much more in the future than any momentary incremental increase in your comfort.
[quote=“Fox”]It’s not true to say saving money will not make you wealthy.
Learn how to lose. Learning how to lose builds a stoic mind. As Kipling says treat triumph and disaster just the same as they are imposters.
Apply the lessons acquired when learning how to lose to help you take your wins.
Once you learn how to lose, you will never be afraid of investing your money. Being afraid of investing your savings is the surest way to stay poor. I think it was Buffet who said the biggest risk is to take no risk at all.[/quote]
My point on saving was in response to DBs post “Work hard & save your money”. I thought it implied : Keep doing what you are doing just put more in the bank each month. This will never get you rich. You need to
use (invest )the money as others have pointed out rather than just save it. Plus if you dont increase your income you will never have much to invest & hence never be rich.
I dont fully agree with the point on not working for someone else. If you are a teacher this is probably true or working in a fairly small company where all the top jobs are reserved for the family members. If you get into the fairly high ranks ( no need to be on the board level) of any major corporation you will be a multi millionaire, though perhaps this would be considered as scraching around rich rather than mega rich. One of the benefits of being a wage slave is that it is easier to leave your worries behind in the office. I know many more people who have had the lives sucked out of them by running their own business versus the wage slaves because its more of a 24/7 responsibility, very difficult to switch off. Wage slave or self employed depends on your personality I suppose re: which works best.
I agree with your point on learning to lose. I am still not very good at this & it makes me too conservative with my own investments. I also agree re: keeping money in perspective , but that would answer the question How can I be happy not how can I be rich. Incidentlaly the studies I have read indicates that Friends come above health re: happyness . Unhealthy with lots of good friends is apparently better than Healthy & no friends.
well, there is a lot of very helpful advice printed. Thank you so much. I will try to adopt some of the principles mentioned. Sticking with successful people is a good idea. But I get some other pleasures from my less successful friends, so I dont want to go too far down that road.
To clarify, I am financially sound about my living expenses. I dont blow large wads of cash, and have never been in debt. I dont use credit cards. BUT, I am looking for ways to make the time I spend on work more profitable for me. I will start my family one day, and I dont want to be scratching around for the pennies to buy educational toys, clothes etc. Also, marrying a Taiwanese woman will be far easier on the stress levels if I can financially afford to compensate for the distance between our 2 sets of parents. Know what I mean?
I dont wish to be the richest man in the world, but Id like to be somewhere on the top 10000!
Cheers. Will keep you posted…
[quote=“patterson”]
I don’t wish to be the richest man in the world, but Id like to be somewhere on the top 10000!
…[/quote]
You need to be looking at about US$50-100M to be in the Top 10,000.
The stats are below. So now you have a target , go for it !!!. I suggest you set some milestones for celebration on the way eg When you pass US$1 M you can celebrate being in the Top 7.3M rich people etc. When you reach US$50M please give 100 guanxi to each contributor to this thread .
How rich is rich?
In 2002, there were 7.3 million high net-worth individuals worldwide. Combined, they had $27.2 trillion in assets.
Wealth # of people
$1M to $5M 6.5 million
$5M to $10M 446,000
$10M to $20M 166,000
$20M to $30M 44,000
More than $30M 58,000