Being rich entails spending a lot of money to fuel a flashy lifestyle (and often living in debt, as is the case of most rappers, athletes, and lottery winners), and getting rich is relatively easy to accomplish — anyone can do it. But staying rich (i.e., wealthy) requires you to live within your means and keep the money and assets you have accumulated. And to do that, you need to be financially literate. That is, being able to use the financial skills listed below.

Business Networking

Although it sounds technical, business networking refers to the practice of building up a network of contacts at places that foster a trade of ideas to sustain long-term relationships and mutual trust: professional associations, public speaking/industry events, professional development classes, conferences, charities, volunteer opportunities, etc.

When an opportunity arises, the presence of a strong business network will allow you to get in touch with relevant and influential people with insight into the appropriate fields, information, and advice.

Good Money Management

Money management is a reference to the processes of tracking your spending, investing, budgeting, saving, or otherwise overseeing the utilisation of an individual’s, household’s, or organisation’s finances. Good money management helps you set and achieve long-term financial goals that once seemed an impossibility. On the other hand, poor money management can not only lead to poor mental health but also cycles of debts and, inevitably, financial hardship.

We will go into detail on how to manage your money better.

1. Track your spending:

The truth is that by tracking your spending, you would be able to stick to a budget and save money as an emergency fund to meet financial obligations and build wealth. If you know what you are spending each month and what you are using your money to buy, then you can ensure you don’t overspend, and you will stay rich.

There are several available options to track your spending. You can choose to write them with pens and paper, or you can use money management apps like Spending Tracker, Spendee Budget & Money Tracker, and Money Manager Expense & Budget to simplify the process and automate the majority of the work.

2. Create an investment strategy:

Although investment can be a risky prospect due to the uncertainty or probability of losses rather than profits, there is no denying the opportunity to build long-term wealth. To add to that, because of the inherent risk, the returns on investments are usually higher than savings. Make sure, however, to invest in assets that will appreciate over time (like real estate, stocks, bonds, commodities, etc) and diversify your portfolio.

3. Set realistic budgets:

A budget might be the difference between figuring out your long-term financial goals and working towards them and overspending until you are drowning in debts. However, if you know exactly how much you earn in a given period, how much you can afford to spend in that period, and how much to save for emergencies, then you can not only avoid the latter but, also it will be easy to decide whether to put a down payment on a house now or wait until after you take that trip to the Maldives.

4. Start saving early:

Saving is arguably the most important of the four; though you can’t predict what exactly would happen or how it would affect your lives and properties, setting cash aside — usually about 10-15% of disposable income — can help mitigate any fallback when unforeseen circumstances strike and allows you to enjoy greater financial security and freedom. It also provided an opportunity to earn interest while keeping your money safe.

Avoidance Of Fraudulent Schemes/Consumer Fraud

Although people see these get-rich-quick schemes as a risk-free way to turn small amounts of money into high returns (with little skill, effort, or time), the truth is that, more often than not, they are too good to be true. They are scams — unsustainable, illegal business models that target the vulnerable or disadvantaged, or in the case of a pyramid scheme, funnel earnings from those on the lower levels of the organization (usually unsuspecting individuals) to the top-level members.

Some features of a get-rich-quick scheme include

• A lack of transparency.
• The requirement is a sizable initial investment.
• No IT, marketing, or technical skills are required.
• Complex commission structure.
• Clickbait headlines.
• No genuine product or service.
• The promise of high returns in a short period/an unrealistic time-frame for an unrealistically small or easy amount of work.
• Passive income/easy money.
• An emphasis on recruitment.

While you may get lucky, no get-rich-quick scheme is a sustainable path to wealth. Sooner rather than later, you may lose more money than you ‘invest’ and fall into financial trouble.

Personal Development

According to Brian Tracy, “Person development is a major time saver. The better you become, the less time it takes you to achieve your goals.”

Although the saying perfectly encapsulates its benefits, it doesn’t fully explain it. Personal development is a lifelong process that consists of conscious habits and activities: it is the development of a person’s skills, values, capabilities, and potential to realise the individual’s life goals and aspirations. If you establish clear and realistic targets, it becomes easier to set plans and fulfill them.

Although several topics exist within the umbrella of personal development, they all seem to fall under five major categories: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social.

1. Mental development:

Refers to the progressive changes and improvements due to maturation, learning, and
experience.

2. Physical development:

Encompasses the physical and biological changes (in the brain, senses, motor skills, and health and wellness).

3. Emotional development:

The gradual and integrative growth and change in the capacity of an individual to experience, regulate, express, and understand emotions.

4. Spiritual development:

Involves the development of higher awareness or higher consciousness of realities beyond the scope of human understanding; the universal search for individual and communal identity and answers to existential questions.

5. Social development:

The ongoing development of the understanding, attitude, and behaviour between individuals and others around them.

Conclusion

There’s a thin line called financial literacy — the ability to understand and effectively use various financial skills — between getting rich and staying rich. People can become an overnight success (due, in part, to popular apps like Instagram or TikTok) and gain millions, but they can also lose millions in a few months because they did not know how to handle such wealth yet. Hence, the necessity of financial literacy if you want to stay rich.