A word about fast money

To become rich, you need to invest your time in education and self-development. Very few people will get rich overnight. And those that do, usually lose everything in a short time, because they spend all of it, sometimes being left with debts due to a lack of financial education.

Here are some common ways of getting money fast:

Win a lottery
Gambling
Betting
Win unconditional basic income

All of the above-mentioned options are highly dependent on luck and not feasible for building long-term wealth.

Reduce your expenses

Pay off your high-interest debts

Credit cards are often used to buy items when you do not have the money for them. What many forget is that the interest rates you pay can be as high as 20-30%! If you have a credit card, or maybe even multiple ones, start by paying them off as fast as you can. The interest will otherwise keep you poor and unable to pay your regular expenses. If your interest payments are already so high, that you can't pay them off, check on comparison sites, if there are consumer loans you could take, which have a lower interest rate, to replace the existing debt with this one. It's also worth trying to give your credit card company a call and explain that it won't be possible to pay off the debt and if they could maybe cut your interest.

Stop drinking or taking drugs

While an occasional party can be fun, some people go partying every few days and spend a large portion of their income on alcohol and/or drugs. Not only is it a waste of your money, but you're also severely impacting your health and mental capabilities. You can get social without any mind-altering substances. If your friends don't understand that, perhaps you should surround yourself with other people.

The 24-hour rule

Before you buy something, give yourself 24 hours to think about it. Impulsive shopping is often a major contributor to why you have no money left at the end of the month. Do you really need a new jacket, when you already have two hanging in your closet? Is it really necessary to buy expensive sweets and snacks? You might be surprised that you think about it differently just a few hours later.

Buy luxuries only with passive income

A fatal mistake that many people make is, once they have some money, directly spending it on expensive luxuries such as watches, cars, or other non-essential items. No matter how much you earn, if you keep spending all your income, you have nothing left at the end of the month and need to keep working to pay for your luxuries. If you however take any excess money and invest it, you get passive income, which you can use to pay for your luxuries instead. You won't have your new watch right now, but you will be able to buy it from your passive income in maybe 5 years. As your passive income grows, you will be able to buy luxuries more often, without having to worry about being able to afford them.

Preparation and Security

Surround yourself with like-minded people

If you are the smartest person in the room, you are likely in the wrong room. You should surround yourself with people that have similar goals as you and who can support you. If you are starting to build wealth, your current friends might start turning against you, asking you for money, or even hating you for changing and becoming more mature and successful than they are. Think about which people you feel great around, and which people suck out your energy. If your connection with people is not giving you any benefits, you should cut ties with them and instead spend time with people that are good for you.

Build an emergency fund

After reducing your expenses, you should be able to put aside a small portion of your income. Put this in an account that you only touch in emergencies. Ideally save enough so that you could live from this for 3-6 months, in case you lose your job, or something else happens to you.

Become financially literate and understand how money works

Reading this page is your first step to becoming financially free and understanding how building wealth works. This topic is not taught in school, nor university, and most likely also not by your parents. The system is designed to get you on the path of getting good grades, getting a safe job, and keeping your money in the bank to earn 0.01% interest on it, while the bank uses your money to give out loans and earns high-interest rates on it. The system is designed to keep you poor and financially uneducated so that the rich can keep getting richer at your expense. So unfortunately you will have to educate yourself and find out how our capitalistic system and money work, and how you can use it to your advantage. There are plenty of resources online, through which you can further educate yourself. Never take any financial advice from someone who either doesn't understand what he is talking about, or who might want to influence you in a way that would benefit them. Always form your own opinion and check what others have to say.

Increase your income

Get a better salary

If you are unhappy with your current salary, talk to your boss about getting a raise. You are entitled to getting a raise as your experience grows and inflation goes up. If your current job is not fulfilling you, look for alternative jobs that you would enjoy, which offer a similar or better salary.

Become self-employed

As a self-employed person, you are much more flexible and have a much higher potential to grow. At the same time, it's also very risky. Don't quit your job and get self-employed straight away. Instead, talk to your employer and get an agreement that you can work alongside your primary job. The beginning will be difficult, but after a while, you will get your first clients and can grow. If your self-employment is going well, start reducing the hours you work in your primary job. Take a day or two off, to work on your own business. When you have reached the point of working at full capacity and earning as well, or better than in your primary job, it is time to end your employment contract and become fully self-dependent.

Become an entrepreneur, build your own company

Operating as a company gives you significant tax benefits compared to being self-employed. However, this also comes along with a lot more responsibilities, paperwork, and initial investments to set up your company. Thus you should only operate as a company, if you want to reduce personal liability or if your profit is much higher than your income needs to be. In that case, you keep any extra profit in the company or create a second holding company, to which you transfer the profit, and pay yourself a regular salary. As business taxes are lower than income taxes, you have more to invest as a business.

Make the money work for you

Investments

Put aside a small portion of your income for investments. Even if that is just 10% or less. Put it into a separate account, so you don't get tempted to spend this money on anything else. When you are ready to invest this money, choose an investment platform that suits you and offers projects that you would like to invest in. This could be for example real estate, renewable energy projects, or startups. Investments are not risk-free and it is possible that an investment you made fails and you lose all your money. That is why you should diversify as much as possible. Use different platforms, invest small amounts, and spread it over multiple projects.

Here are some investment platforms that I have personally invested in:

Passive income

After you've made your first investments, you will receive a small percentage of your investment as a dividend. It varies with each investment. To keep it simple, let's assume that you earn 10% interest on average, and you invest 10% of your income, and 1/6 of investments fail. This would mean that after one year of investing every month, you would already have saved an entire month of your salary and get 10% in dividend payments that year, which you can directly re-invest along with your regular investments. Keep doing this for a few years until you can live only from your passive income streams.