Master Your Debt By Changing Your Consumer Mindset

Posted on May 6, 2008

Changing Your Consumer Mindset

Society today teaches us to be a consumer, to buy buy buy. But this consumer mindset is likely what got you into debt in the first place and it needs to change.

Imagine if you will that you are building a house of wealth, where every brick is $1 and the final product (the metaphorical house) is a wealthy life for you and your family. Every time you save money you are adding bricks to your house, and every time you spend money you are taking bricks away from your house.

The consumer mindset that we have in western culture today has no goal of building a magnificent house, instead we just want to use the bricks for other things such as clothes and cars and food and shopping. This mindset is what gets us in debt.

We need to change our mindset and develop a mindset of building wealth. This is a mindset that adds to the house continually. That is not saying that they don’t take bricks away from time to time, but as a whole they give more to the house than they take away. The greatest thing about a building mindset is that as time goes on your money begins to work for you and earn you money so you don’t have to work anymore. Your money begins to grow at a quicker rate over time as you begin to earn interest on your interest.

So how do we begin to create this builders mindset? Well there are a few steps you can take in order to develop this mindset and become a builder not a consumer.

1. Have a goal for the future
Having a financial goal for the future will drive you to save and invest. It is having forward thinking that allows you to be a builder, because you are not just thinking of the now (of the bricks) but you are thinking of the completed product in the future (the house). So get some financial goals for what you want your future to be like and then work towards a better future.

2. Spend less than you earn
A builder gives more to the building than he takes away. So spend less than you earn. A great way to manage and do this is by creating a budget. CLICK HERE to read more on how to write a budget and stick to it. Tomorrow we will talk more about spending less than you earn.

3. Let your money work for you
There are two ways of making money, you either work for money, or money works for you. As you save up and invest then your money begins to earn you money (and you don’t even have to do anything) and you can retire and just live off the money that you earn. So as you master your debt and begin to save you can begin to invest and earn more money by letting your money work for you.

Sign Up For the Fool’s Wealth Weekly Advisor at http://www.foolswealth.com/newsletter and learn how any fool can become extremely wealth. Want to go from $0 to $1,000,000 in just 12 months? Then join the people already partaking in “The Challenge” by signing up at http://www.foolswealth.com/challenge

You could very well be on your way to becoming a millionaire today. Hurry.

Tags: consumer, control debt, debt, debt management, debt reduction, master debt, Money, rich, wealth