Have you ever wondered about why after slogging so hard at your job, you are still not as rich as your cousin who leads a very affluent life but does not seem to be working at all?
It is only natural that you should do so. But you also should understand why it is so – why is there this huge gulf between his efforts and yours and his income and yours.
This disparity is the difference between working for money (you) and making money by having your money work for you (your cousin). We are taught from childhood that “making money” is a bad thing because most people equate it to shady, get-rich-quick schemes, to activities that are not quite ethical and the like. But making money does not mean that – it is a way of growing rich, and is quite separate from working for or earning money.
What does “working for money” mean?
What does “working for money” mean? It means that you are putting in time, energy and labour (could be physical, mental or intellectual) for somebody else and are getting paid for this. So you are, in effect, dependent on another entity – person, company, business, government etc – for earning and receiving money. You get paid only once for every bit of work that you do. If you don’t work you don’t get paid. To get more money you have to work more.
Making money is where you use your capabilities, talent, creativity, intelligence, ingenuity, time, efforts to create something that will bring in money over and over again with minimal effort on your part. You are in charge here, you are not dependent on anyone but yourself. You create a source of continuous income and then just wait for it to grow and multiply – you are making money in this case.
You can make money by inventing something new that will find repeat buyers or you can write a book and keep getting royalties for life or you can compose music, write a play, write lyrics, and get paid every time your creation is performed. In today’s world you can build an online business and once it is set up, you can let it run by itself and bring you monthly returns.
Don’t wait till you retire to start making money
If you are not the creative type you can buy property – houses, shops, hotels, land – and then lease it out. The rental income will coming in year after year. Once the property is paid for the entire rental money is income for you.
A time-tested way of making money is investing in stocks and shares or other financial instruments like mutual funds, bonds etc which appreciate over the years and also give you dividends and interests regularly. You have to maintain property, you have to track the performance of your stocks and shares and adjust your portfolio from time to time but apart from that, these investments are a source of income. You are making money by making your money work for you.
Don’t wait till you retire to start making money. Start now and you can soon stop working for money and instead make money that will ensure a life free of financial problems in the future.
