Hi everyone, I'm 31, doing pretty good financially. I've started saving at 23 and investing at 27.
I've been doing a decent job of not spending on frivolous stuff and saving instead. Now, I'd like to focus on making more.

I came across a money coaching program lately, I decided not to buy it but I still got curious about the "rich people mindset" part.
Do you have any good book recommendation that would help me? What were the books that changed your mindset towards money and helped you earn more?

I've read Your Money or Your Life already and read JL Collins's most famous articles and watched his talk at Google. Every MMM article twice also, probably. 😁

(I feel obliged to add that I know nothing about real estate and that it's a topic I'm afraid of)

You're already saving and investing. That's the rich people mindset right there. If you keep doing it, wealth will find you.

As far as those financial coaching programs go, they are a waste of money. You chose wisely.

To increase income, you could try starting your own business, or going back to school for degrees and certs, but these options are secondary to what you've already accomplished.

Why buy a book when you have us?

What are you doing right now to make money? How much do you make? How many hours do you work and how hard is the work (mentally/physically)?
Here's why:
- If you're a oncology resident working 85-hour weeks, then you should focus on saving in smart ways and not buying stuff you don't need.
- If you're doing some 35-40hr/wk job that you find mentally and physically easy, then I would recommend starting a side-hustle that could grow.

If you're open to the idea that you could create a service or product to sell, then I would recommend some entrepreneur books.

The classic is "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss. There is a lot to critique in this book, but the core message that you don't have to trade hours for money is strong.

I like "Company of One" by Paul Jarvis.

I'm a big fan of "$100 Start-Up" by Chris Guillebeau - which shows that you don't need investors or a lot of money to start a side-business that could grow to much more.

I'm a huge fan of the Side-Hustle Nation podcast with Nick Loper. He has 600+ podcast episodes and does a great job of avoiding  get-rich-quick or anything associated with MLMs or network marketing. To help you sort through his enormous catalog of episodes, he will create a curated list based on your answer to a few questions. (https://www.sidehustlenation.com/side-hustle-show/

I really liked We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers.

Please don't give the Fed more ideas...

There's a book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker that is a little cheesy at times, but addresses some of the mental hang ups people have about money that I haven't seen covered in most other financial advice books.

I just did a search and found a website with his "17 wealth files" for a "Rich Mindset Versus Poor Mindset"

and before people who have never read the book start complaining that these are stereotype - he admits that and says that they for example only no one is exactly all of one or the other.

It's more of a mindset book than a how to.   I've met plenty of broke people who have the "poor mindset" that he describes and I think they would be better off with some of the "rich" beliefs that he describes.

Also I think these are probably more geared towards business owners than employees.

Your average FIRE manual is dead in the water when it comes to how to handle your career.

Better to look in the Personal Development space - personally I love Jim Rohn.  His audiobook "Ultimate Jim Rohn" is the go-to for me, although you can find plenty of his teachings from the book already on youtube.

Are you really working to earn more?  As in work more, or change what you do?
Have you read The Millionaire Next Door?
If you really do want to make more, what is it that you do now?

Hey!
I haven't read The Millionaire Next Door but I read MMM's book review years ago, re reading it now.

I'm currently a Web Developer, working for a Giga Corp. The job is super boring, the pay is OK.

To increase income, you could try starting your own business, or going back to school for degrees and certs, but these options are secondary to what you've already accomplished.

I'm already self employed (consultant/freelancer) but this doesn't scale - I could at best work for a second client but that's it.
I'm terrified at the idea of starting a business. I have never seen useful certs for devs so far but I'd love to study some more!

@SmashYourSmartPhone thank you for the tips! I have inflated my lifestyle to some degree. At least I'm spending more than a few years ago, I don't know how much but some of it is due to inflation.

Sorry guys for the time it took me to answer. I'll be there now!

I like Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You and Deep Work for career stuff. They're hardly about money at all though.

I recommend these as well.   There's lots of advice about how to interview well or ask for raises.   That's fine, but it doesn't put you in the position to get a good paying job or ask for a big raise in the first place.   

Top performing employees are on the order of 10 times more productive than the average employee.   You want to be that top 10% and you don't get there by working longer.   I used to work at a fairly large engineering consulting firm so billable hours were very important.   There was soft pressure to spend lots of time at the office and at least appear to be billing lots of hours.   Working nights and weekends was fairly typical.

However, the very top performers, the people the bosses wanted and needed to work on their projects, all left at 5:00 and never worked on the weekends.   They would efficiently create high quality work and then go home.   I am utterly convinced that humans have a limited about of high quality focus time and the top performers take advantage of that.  Before I hung up my spurs, I was self-employed for a number of years and I was able to easily monitor my productivity because I was the only one doing stuff.   Sometimes out of necessity I simply had to work a lot of hours and found my productivity per hour declined greatly as my hours increased.

Cal Newport's stuff reiterated what I already knew in many ways, so it resonated.  Make your focused time count and then call it good.   It is also possible to increase your ability to focus.   I used to try to always respond to calls and emails promptly.  However, I found maintaining focus was more important and most calls and and emails can wait a few hours.   Things like that. 

He also emphasizes developing an in-demand skill set.   I don't think the field matters too much, but if you are good at what you do and people need you, they will pay you.   And you will never be short of work.   

I'm way over skilled for my current job.

Overskilled = underpaid.  Go find a job that challenges you, and pays more.  You will solve both your basic problems.

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Late to this thread, but @Baguettestache ? If you're still here, I'd strongly recommend this academic research paper:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w25442

This is going to be WAY different direction to go in your thinking. But thinking about your human capital and how to get the absolutely maximum return on that probably provides more opportunity than anything else available in "traditional" asset classes.

This paper is interesting but very hard to understand. I realize you gave a one-sentence summary above, but would you care to add more thoughts? Does a CEO like Elon Musk (as much as I hate to use him as an example) with multiple, highly talent-dependent companies epitomize this human capital growth? Or any tech industry business?

I think the paper's research results suggest that someone gets a very good return on investing in their vocational skills. That could be going to medical school or dental school. But it could also be doing an electrician apprenticeship. Or really learning construction or the restaurant business.

And then two interesting take-aways.

First, small business owners who are using their vocational skills in their own business earn more money than employees. E.g., an accountant who works for herself or himself can make more than someone who works a corporation as an accountant.

And then, second takeaway, the really big money comes from you running your own business where you not only know how to be a doctor or a lawyer, an electrician or a contractor or restaurateur, but you go out and hire other skilled people who do that same job. E.g., don't try to be a stock-option-millionaire. Be a small-business-millionaire.

BTW the other insight from that paper is these folks--these human capitalists as I've called them in a blog post--may be the top 1% or top .1% while they run their own businesses. But when they retire, their incomes decline dramatically.

P.S. I was trying to point to other actionable insights I saw in the research paper here, https://evergreensmallbusiness.com/human-capitalists/ , but you might find my blog post on the paper interesting.

Quote from: Baguettestache on September 30, 2024, 11:34:50 AM

I'm currently a Web Developer, working for a Giga Corp. The job is super boring, the pay is OK.

I'm already self employed (consultant/freelancer) but this doesn't scale - I could at best work for a second client but that's it.
I'm terrified at the idea of starting a business. ...

Wait, what?  I'm gonna push back a little, get ready.

If you were doing something that literally required hands on work (like a massage therapist), then I would agree - that stuff doesn't scale. You literally have one of the best skillsets for scaling.

Please listen to how this guy (and his very small operation) onboards and creates websites for a new client every single day (30/month). You've got to take the red pill and open your mind regarding different business models.
https://podcast.ditchinghourly.com/episodes/ryan-golgosky-productized-subscription-model-for-web-design

And I also think you missed the primary message of The 4-hour Work Week. The message isn't "slack off and barely get by because that is good enough" ... the message is "look for ways to deliver what your under-served customers really want (and more), but do it in a way that uses leverage and efficiency". (My apologies if I misinterpreted your statement)

The beauty of being self-employed is that you are unshackled from a boss or industry telling you the "way we do things around here and have done them for 20 years!" and you get to be creative and efficient. This frees you to discover what your potential clients really value and then you can develop creative ways to provide that value for a fair exchange. If you go beyond a traditional model of creation and delivery, you can often find ways to provide amazing value with less time and effort than when you were an employee. And that is when things get very interesting (and profitable).

Agree with above. And I'd say you really don't want to be charging customers or clients by the hour if you can help it. That tends to focus buyers attention on how much you cost and how much you might be earning. Buyers also do a crummy job of translating your hourly billing rate to an equivalent income. They'll easily assume if you're charging $50 an hour, you're making $100K a year. Because they forget or don't get you (a) don't get to bill all your hours and (b) you have expenses like every other business in the world.

BTW I think service businesses are scalable. But the trick and it's emphasized in that academic paper I referenced above is you need to learn enough about some service business that you can hire other people to do the hours. And then you get paid for doing the ringmaster's job.