Accumulating Wealth: Series Conclusion

Ok, so I may have modified this poster slightly.  That said, I am excited and thankful you decided to read the final article in my series entitled, 'Accumulating Wealth'.  I will do my best to make it well worth your time.

To conclude this series, I'll review a few major points from my first three articles and then I'll offer several new thoughts and ideas; one's that I believe will help you to successfully increase your wealth, and as a result, eventually achieve a fulling and enjoyable retirement.

In my first article, I addressed the fact that oftentimes Americans do not sufficiently prepare for retirement.  I provided an article from msnbc.com entitled "Will You Ever Be Able to Retire?" and outlined my plan for the series. If you missed this article, it can be found here.

In my second article, I revealed what I believe to be The Only Two Ways to Increase Your Wealth.  Specifically, I addressed the first of these two 'methods' for increasing your wealth - Decreasing Your Expenses.  If you missed this article, it can be found here.

In my last article, I spoke on the second method for increasing your wealth - Increasing Your Income; the more difficult of the two, in my opinion.  I think this article is worth reading if you missed it, and it can be found here.

To conclude this series, I'll review a few major points and offer several new ones:

By now I think it is clear that the only way we'll ever increase our wealth, or have enough money to retire one day, is to do this: to spend less than we earn, and then invest the rest.

Now, in order to spend less than we earn, we'll either have to decrease our expenses to a point where more money is coming in than going out; or we'll have to increase our income to a point where more money is coming in than going out. Essentially, Decrease our Expenses, or Increase our Income.

As an avid Dividend Investor, I recommend investing in high quality, dividend growing companies such as these. Ultimately where you decide to put your money though, will depend upon your risk tolerance, when you'll need the funds, your foreseeable expenses, etc. Since I am not a licensed professional, I can only tell you what I'd do, and I'm always open for discussion.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in." I hope you are at that point now. If you need to make a change in your life, I'd encourage you to go for it. Don't wait until tomorrow.

I'll close briefly with a slightly different note: Jesus once said, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). Think about that for a second. What good will it be if we gain the whole world, yet forfeit our soul? Though we should be diligent with our resources, there are many more important things this side of eternity than accumulating wealth.

Thanks for reading,

DivPartisan