Aside from inheriting money or winning the lottery, there are two basic ways to accumulate wealth.
1. Have your money earn more money for you
The nice thing about money is that it never gets tired. It can work day and night forever and ever. Take advantage of this and start investing. Get your money to start making more money for you.
Investing does not have to be scary. It just takes research. For instance, if you look at the history of the S&P 500 stock market index from January 1, 1975 to December 31, 2007, the average return was 10.74%. If you had invested $100 a month in this index over that entire period, the total amount of money you would have put in would have been $38,400. However, the total value of your investments would have been over $337,000
That is quite a bit of money for hardly doing any work yourself!
2. Buy or build a business or asset that can earn you money even if you are not there to run it
Any business you own that can be managed for you by other people fits into this category. A good example would be the franchise restaurant McDonald’s. Owners of these types of businesses earn money day and night whether they are on the job or not.
If you do not have the money to start a full-time business or franchise, start something part-time and build it up slowly.
