“Compound Interest Is An Amazing Thing”: 30 People Share Their Best ‘Rich People Tips’

A lot of “luxury” brands are things the poor buy to look wealthy.

Spending money on cars for status is stupid.

Find a good partner, divorces are expensive. Brush your teeth really good two times per day, dentists are expensive. Take care of your health, clean food, exercise and sleep, doctors are expensive. Look after your mental health as best as you can...you guessed it, depression is really expensive, in all aspects of life, once it sets in.

*Also, time is NOT money, you can always get some more money, but you won't get your time back.

To appreciate how priceless your health is, would you trade your eyesight for 1 billion dollars? Do think about this question profoundly because if you wouldn't trade it, that means you have an "asset" that's not measurable in financial terms, you're infinitely rich from this perspective. Try to stay blindfolded for a few hours and do things around your house like that, to experience how it would be like to be blind. Have gratitude and remind yourself, if you have health, you have wealth!

A much older coworker when I was working as a receptionist at a tax resolution company was next to me when I got offered my 1st geologist job. When my excitement died down, she asked me what the benefits were. When I got to the 401k match, she told me that I needed to max out the match right away. She said "you're offered more money than you've ever made before so just put in the full 6%. You'll never miss it." I did exactly that and she was right.

The biggest unavoidable expenses in your life will be housing, transportation, and food. Minimize these expenses. I live in NYC, which is a notoriously expensive city. But by taking care of 'the big three,' the lifestyle here becomes surprisingly affordable. I live in an unfashionable neighborhood, use my monthly Metrocard to get everywhere I need to go on public transport, and cook for myself 95% of the time (rather than eating out). This saves a huge amount of money! (which I then blow on expensive tickets to Broadway shows, but that's beside the point).

The only one I can think of right now concerns eating healthy, which can be super hard to do on a budget when fresh veggies cost an arm and a leg. My tip: frozen veggies. Not only can they be stored long-term, but they're frozen really soon after being harvested, which means that they're oftentimes fresher than the veggies in the produce section.

Be born to rich parents.

Never buy a depreciating asset with credit. If you buy a car buy a good used one that has taken the majority of its depreciation.

Spend on what you truly value, ruthlessly cut what you don’t.

This might be a wacky response but I'll throw out there anyway. I had to stop with the handouts. I was being "too nice" and got taken advantage of (several times) by ungrateful people. My intent was to help but I ended up feeling like an idiot when these people that I "helped" came back and started complaining because would not continue to help them.

I don't use the word "flabbergasted" very often but yeah I was flabbergasted at their sheer gall! I digress.

Wealth whispers and does not need external validation.

Personal finance is personal. Meaning, stop comparing yourself to others. Consider whether their decisions would also be good for you, but realize that it's ok and normal for your decisions to be one of a kind. It's ok for you to be ahead or behind your peers, because you are not your peers. Etc.

Buy really good items that last.

Somehow my parents never enforced that with me, but I started buying good things in 2006 and it made a difference.

Privacy. Truly rich people are anonymous. You’ll never know who they are and if you saw them out in public they look like everyone else. They look at people who wear luxury fashions with logos all over them as sad pretenders. They don’t have social media, they don’t do anything public at all, and they keep their lives so private that outside of their immediate family few people know what they’re actually like.

You can be very generous without spending a lot of money. The additional cost of feeding another person at home is tiny. For less than the cost of one ice cream cone at the ice cream store, you can buy a whole tub of ice cream. This is even more true with soft drinks and alcohol.

As a woman — learn your worth in the job market and don’t settle for less.

Think differently. It is not about saving. It is about not spending. Do you really need it? Do you have room for it? Can it wait? Ask tons of question before buying.

Don't show off. It's boring.

The faster you realize that you were programmed at birth to buy buy buy. The faster you can break the cycle, and start saving with high interest rates that will compound you into wealth over 30 or 40 years.

Compound interest is an amazing thing.