Want to be a Millionaire? Follow the YAWN Philosophy

Most of us want to be millionaires. And if we can be one while we are young, it's a double whammy! After all, the best time to enjoy our wealth is while we are young and healthy. In the process of chasing wealth, if we run out of time, the "millionaire" tag is not that attractive, isn't it? Well the last time we checked, we found that we still can't take our money with us :).

The next obvious question is the feasibility of such a proposition. Current times have produced a bunch of young and wealthy millionaires. The Sunday Telegraph of London has given them a name, YAWN - Young And Wealthy but Normal.

YAWNs are twenty and thirty something millionaires who prefer to live quietly outside the spotlight. They are modest, environmentally conscious, do not like excess and give back to their communities. In a nutshell they are wealthy, frugal and socially aware. Sounds too good to be true? Here is a case study:

Rik Wehbring - He is in his late thirties and lives in San Francisco. Rik is a dot-com millionaire who made his wealth working for several Internet startups. The frugal part of the YAWN philosophy is demonstrated by the fact that he gets by on $50,000 a year. That indeed is a feat considering the fact that San Fransisco is one of the costliest cities to live in US. Rik is a self proclaimed frugal guy who does not need a lot of material possessions. He does not have a TV, listens to music on a $20 MP3 player and drives a gas-thrifty and environment friendly Toyota Prius.

Now let us explore the basic tenets of the YAWN philosophy. There are three of them. Most of us are already familiar with them. All we need to do is to implement them to reap their benefits.

1. Live Below Your Means: This principle is one of the simplest ones. All of us know it yet we have a hard time putting it into practice. A one liner that sums it up is "Don't spend money that you don't have."
2. Buy Stuff That You Need: We need a subtle awareness to identify the difference between our needs and wants to put this tenet into practice. Sometimes the line is thin but if we are really keen our conscience and perseverance do help us. All of us know that unnecessary stuff sitting around our homes is of no good to anybody. We'd rather invest our money, spent on unnecessary stuff, to earn interest for us. If we make our money work hard for us, we can take it easy by retiring early :).
3. Help Others By Giving Back: Given a choice we'd all like to leave the world a better place for our next generations. We can put this concept into practice by lending a helping hand to those in need. It not only aids our community but also leaves us with a generous heart and sense of fulfillment. After all, many hands do make a miracle.
   
   From experience we know that serving our community is extremely rewarding. And for those of us who are still wondering of what good is giving away wealth for charitable causes, here is the answer: It gives us good karma. Put simply it means, what goes around comes around. And to that end, we leave you with a quote worth contemplating:

"We make a living by what we earn, we make a life by what we give.Winston Churchill"

Adapted From: Fire Finance