
8. Equating Material Things to Wealth
When you ask people to define what they think it means to be rich, some people will respond that it is someone with a big house, new car, and beautiful clothes. The truth is that being truly wealthy has little to do with owning expensive things. Someone with a good job and credit score can buy all this by getting into debt. They still have to go to their 9-5 job to pay back this debt. And if they’re living paycheck to paycheck, all of these nice things aren’t going to save them from bankruptcy. If your goal of being “rich” is so that you can buy nice things, you really only need a middle-class job to achieve material goals. After a while, you’ll realize these things don’t make you happy after all.

True wealth is a matter of being secure knowing that you can maintain your lifestyle without working. When things go wrong, you’ve got enough of a cushion to survive. Rich people usually have multiple streams of income. Time is another luxury that not everyone has. In a lot of ways, freedom to spend your time any way you want is something that makes you truly “rich”.