
Tag Archives: earning more

The myth of earning more

I’m a research junkie.

Image By: AMagill

I love looking at numbers and identifying trends.

Particularly around other people’s behaviors.

While I was researching google search terms on the topic of money, I stumbled upon something that stopped me in my tracks.

Something that made me rethink everything about the way I talk about money.

It turns out people really want to get rich.  In fact, 7.4 million people searched the term ‘get rich’.

The way I see it there’s two primary ways we can make that happen:

1. Earn more money

2. Spend less money

And if google is any indication, people clearly prefer option 1.

Earning money beats out spending less on google searches by nearly a 9:1 ratio (2.7 million searches compared to 301,000).

I get it, earning more seems like a magic bullet solution.

It’s easy to think that once you make six figures, richness will just automatically happen.

But it’s not always the right solution.

Making money isn’t synonymous with getting rich.  Far from it.

In fact, one survey by Thomas J. Stanley, found many high-income earners are actually less efficient at becoming millionaires than their moderate income counterparts.

Once people start making more money, they have a tendency to spend more money. They live in more expensive homes in pricier neighborhoods and increase their lifestyles to match their incomes.

If you want to really create wealth, you have to be willing to look at both sides of the coin.

Think about it:

  • How much money were you making 5 years ago?
  • Has your income increased?
  • Has your net worth increased?
  • Has it increased by the same percentage as your income?
  • Do you know what your net worth is?

Most people don’t.

I used to be one of them.  In fact, I’m a perfect example of the earn more myth.

As recently as a few years back, I was making six figures and was far from rich.

I had no idea what my net worth was.

I knew exactly how much money I made, but I had no idea how much I spent.

If income was the solution to wealth, I would have nailed it.

But as I found, creating wealth took more than a high income.

It took consciousness.

It took awareness.

It took understanding.

And it took spending less than I earned.

If Google has it right and we really want to get rich, we have to be willing to look beyond earning.  Earning is only half of the equation.

Share our comments below.  

I’m curious: what do you think about the google earn more, spend less discrepancy? 

How are you creating wealth?  What’s had the greatest affect your bottom-line?