The Rules of Wealth

by Richard Templar

  Anyway here are a few tips for choosing a good charity – a good one for you:

  Decide what is important to you – the planet, saving whales, small children, the poor, cancer research.

  Work out what you want to do – just give money, get involved, be an adviser, raise funds (I’ve always wanted to drive one of those inflatables for Greenpeace; I just think those boats are so cool).

  Check out charities you might think suitable on the internet and see if your ideals fit in with theirs.

  Check out the charities themselves – financial statements, accounts, brochures, campaign information, membership, mission statements.

  Trust your gut feelings.

  DECIDE WHAT IS

  IMPORTANT TO YOU

  Personally I reject any charities that directly approach me. Not because it makes me cross but as a way of weeding out the ones I don’t want to support. I have my own mission statements when it comes to charity giving and not being approached is part of that. I also like charities that set out to help directly instead of merely churning out aid – teaching villagers to fish and all that. I also only support small charities as I figure they need it more.

  And I will only support small charities that are doing things that seem attainable. I figure feeding the poor of the world requires a bottomless pit. Not that it isn’t a decent objective but one I find too remote. But one that seeks to provide fresh water for a particular village I can relate to; or providing a breakfast for an inner-city schoolkid.*

  * www.magicbreakfast.com is something I can get my head round.

  RULE 104

  Spend your own money because no one will spend it as wisely as you

  What! Surely we all spend our own money? No, we don’t. As we get richer, the need to have others spend it for us grows stronger. Believe me, it becomes a real risk to hand things over and lose value and wealth because of it. It is so easy to figure that because we are busy and someone offers, it is a good thing to hand over.

  I have noticed that the successful rich don’t hand over anything; they carry on paying attention to detail all the time. Obviously there might come a time to hand over as we grow too old to administer our own affairs but until then, give up nothing.

  I HAVE NOTICED THAT THE

  SUCCESSFUL RICH DON’T

  HAND OVER ANYTHING

  Examples? Of course. I have a friend who has considerable wealth and who is happy to hand over his spending to anyone around him who offers to do it for him. His gardener buys all his equipment, including mowers and chain saws and the like. Top of the range? I should say. This gardener is driving around on mowers that are the gardening equivalent of a Rolls Royce. My friend just signs the cheques and the gardener is laughing all the way to the tool shed. My friend also pays caterers to come in and organize meals every time he wants to entertain. Again he signs the cheque and the caterers supply him with a complete dinner party.

  Ah, but I hear you say, ‘So what? He can afford it.’ Yes, indeed he can but he is also:

  being ripped off repeatedly

  not getting good value for money

  slowly losing control over his own financial affairs

  losing the respect of his employees and hired service companies who see him as a bit of a joke – too much money and not enough sense.

  He’s the same when it comes to buying a new car. He just rings up the showroom and they deliver what he wants. Trouble is they frequently deliver what they’ve had sitting in their showrooms for too long and can’t shift. Ask him about the pink Bentley he bought that no one else was going to touch in a million years. I tease him and ask him if the showroom had a big glass office where they could sit and see him coming.

  You’ve got to retain control of your own spending if you want to retain control over your finances – and dignity. No pink Bentleys for you. Don’t hand out credit cards. Don’t give anyone authority to sign personal cheques. Don’t use a personal shopper. Set people proper budgets. Get them to submit proper proposals for spending. Check the small print. Check everything. Question everything. Stay on top. Stay in control. And if you want my advice – no joint accounts, ever. There’s no need for it in this day and age.

  RULE 105

  Take responsibility before you take advice

  This is a follow-on from the previous Rule. If you are going to take advice you need to know in advance:

  what you expect to get

  why you are asking

  your exact position – if you don’t know, how can they advise you of anything?

  what you want to happen next

  what role the adviser will play in that

  what action you can take if their advice is wrong/out of date/ harmful

  what further advice you might need.

  And before you can do any of these you need to take responsibility.

  We all start out – or at least I did, and so did most people I’ve ever talked to about it – somehow expecting that we would end up rich. It was/is an assumed process, sort of by osmosis. As you get older and add years to your life, so in theory you add riches. Then you wake up one day and it isn’t/is just like that. For me it wasn’t, so I went into hyperdrive to change the situation and am now fabulously wealthy.* But it took hard work and tremendous effort. Now you’ve made it, it is time to review. Time to take responsibility. Time to take stock.

  You need to know:

  where you are

  how you got there

  what you are worth – both financially and spiritually

  where you want to go next

  how you expect to get there.

  When you have answered these questions you are ready to take advice about your plans. And it doesn’t have to be advice of the paid kind, the expert kind, the man-in-a-suit kind, the all serious and heavy kind. Sometimes advice can come from unlikely sources and unlikely people. Learn to listen. Learn to take in what is not being said. Learn to be happy (gosh, that’s a big one for all of us).

  The wealthier we become, the easier it appears to be to hand over our affairs (financial ones) to people we think have our best interests at heart or who we assume know what they are doing or are on top of the latest developments and laws. My observation is that (a) they’re not and (b) the shrewd wealthy ones don’t hand over anything unless they are really, really sure of their advisers. And that’s my advice.

  SOMETIMES ADVICE

  CAN COME FROM

  UNLIKELY SOURCES AND

  UNLIKELY PEOPLE

  * If you are the tax collector I was only joking and/or I’ve already paid my tax bill.

  RULE 106

  Once you’ve got it, don’t flaunt it

  Wealth is lovely. Having money is great. Getting rich is a worthwhile and enjoyable activity. Buying the pink Bentley is just plain gross. As is a lot of other things that shout nouveau riche, over-the-top, flaunting, bling. So tacky. Take lessons in how to handle wealth by all means but do handle it well.

  I read a nice story the other day of a young lad who got to stay in a millionaire’s mansion – a relative I assume – and when he went to bed he left the light on. The millionaire popped his head round the door and told him it was wasting money and he should turn it off. He even threatened him with a $1 fine. But instead he tossed him a $1 coin and turned the light out himself. The kid never forgot the incident and is still turning lights off when he goes to bed or leaves a room to this day. And he still doesn’t know why the reverse psychology worked. As he says, he went from a possible $1 fine to a big windfall (it was 1953 when a dollar was a lot).

  Be frugal. Be careful with your money. Don’t flaunt it. And as you now belong to an exclusive club, could you please observe a few rules:

  no flash cars

  no castles, ranches or ranch-style house – this isn’t Dallas you know

  no bling

  no glitz or showing off

  no impulse spending

  no wild animals as pets

  no buying islands


  no private jets

  no flying all your relatives to a foreign country for a party

  no flying your relatives to a foreign country for your latest trophy wedding

  no huge diamonds – or big jewellery of any sort, it’ll only attract the robbers and thieves.

  Be a discreet, tasteful, refined, cultured, less-is-more, more-is-tacky, quiet sort of rich person. Someone we can all look up to. Someone who will inspire and not cultivate ridicule – they do laugh at those leopard skin trousers I’m afraid (not that you’ve got any). Someone who will set a good example to the young, the impressionable, the not so well-off.

  We’ve all seen those who come into money too suddenly and flaunt the fact that they have loads and we all think ‘God, how tacky’. I know we shouldn’t sit in judgement on others but I do find my toes curl at...no, I can’t say in case you’ve got one.

  Flaunting it creates envy, jealousy (different from envy), criticism, snobbery, condemnation, censure – and all quite rightly. Discretion, on the other hand, encourages respect, admiration and emulation. Don’t ever mention how much you’ve got, what you are worth or how much you earn. Ever. If you tell people, half will despise you for not having more and the other half resent you for having so much. Only reveal such information to your bank manager and even then they should have to drag the info from you.

  DON’T EVER MENTION HOW

  MUCH YOU’VE GOT, WHAT

  YOU ARE WORTH OR HOW

  MUCH YOU EARN

  RULE 107

  What’s next? Pacts with the devil?

  We’re near the end of the Rules and I guess we can have some fun. Creating wealth is as varied and different an adventure for each of us as anything else. We can work for it, win the lottery or a poker game (mind you, it would have to be a pretty big one), inherit it, steal it, be awarded it as a prize (Nobel Prize for literature – you do get around $1.1 million.* Gulp. Put my name forward at once please, somebody. Or what about the Templeton Prize, which gets you $1.6 million**), or find it in the street (lots of examples on the internet of people finding huge wads of cash), marry into it, you name it. And of course if you are really desperate there is the old pact with the devil – but beware of gotcha clauses.

  The Chinese believe, via feng shui, that if you leave your loo seat up, your money will get flushed away. I wonder if this is a modern invention because I have no evidence of flushing loos in China when feng shui was being established in the Taoist eras.

  Then there are affirmations – you write down the wealth you want and pin it up so you can see it every day and chant it out hundreds of times. Might work.

  Then there’s the cosmic ordering service – you tell the great cosmic bank how much it owes you and it repays you immediately – there has got to be a catch there somewhere knowing banks; they’re all the same I reckon.

  THERE IS THE OLD PACT WITH

  THE DEVIL – BUT BEWARE OF

  GOTCHA CLAUSES

  Then there’s crystals – you wear one/sleep with it/carry it around. Certain crystals resonate with the cosmic bank (them again) and it’s a sort of rock cheque I guess.***

  Dowsing? You follow hazel rods (or bits of bent coat hangers and empty Biros depending on which books you read) which twitch when you are above buried treasure or a seam of gold or one of those ring-pull things off the top of a beer can. Bit like a metal detector but doesn’t need batteries.

  I suppose you could buy a racehorse but it seems so very risky to me. Laying down fine wines? Could work but I couldn’t resist the temptation I think.

  I am not scoffing at any of these methods. However, you intend gaining prosperity, you should get on with it, believe in it, follow it, give 100 per cent to it and not listen to others. Including me. Especially me. Good luck.

  * 8 million Swedish krona – the actual value changes with fluctuating currency conversion rates.

  **The Templeton Prize is awarded annually by an international, multifaith panel of judges to a living person of any religious tradition who has made a unique contribution to progress in research or discoveries about spiritual realities.

  ***Citrine, ruby and tiger eye are supposed to work but I figure if you can buy rubies you don’t need the wealth or you’re giving it all to the crystal seller, so I suppose it works for them.

  As you’ve read nearly all this book, I think it’s safe to assume that money is something you want to have more of. All well and good, but time for a note of caution: if money is important to you, your attitude to other people’s money will have a big impact on your overall satisfaction with life. Especially when they choose to do things with money that directly affect you. Whether it’s your children’s money, your parents’ money, your friends’ money – you need to make yourself pretty immune to other people’s decisions in order to avoid a great deal of heartache, upset and even hurt.

  So the Rules that follow are designed to help you handle your attitude to other people’s wealth while you’re building up your own. You don’t want to become wracked and knotted with jealousy, frustration, stress, bile and misery while you watch other people make stupid mistakes (or at least what you consider to be stupid mistakes) with the money they have and you covet.

  No, you want to be able to separate your own fortunes from those of everyone around you, so that you don’t take their financial decisions personally, or get hung up on how they spend their money. Then you can simply resolve to do the right thing when it comes to your own wealth, and other people’s decisions will be nothing to do with you. It’s easier said than done, but I hope the Rules that follow will help you.

  RULE 1

  Don’t judge

  I remember meeting a friend of a friend once, who I knew was seriously rich. We were invited to a party at his house and you could see from the minute you turned off the road how wealthy he was, before you even caught sight of the house. As a matter of fact, he was titled as well as rich – minor aristocracy. Very fancy. I’ll admit that the inverted snob in me had already decided I wouldn’t much like him. Out of touch, arrogant, privileged – oh yes, I’d pre-judged him utterly before we ever actually met.

  Of course, when I was introduced to him (surprise, surprise) he turned out to be a lovely chap. Down-to-earth, empathetic, amusing, a great listener. I know it’s clichéd but it’s still so easy to walk into the trap of judging people by their money. I was the one being predictable, whereas he was just being himself.

  That particular man was born into money and privilege. Most of us have a slightly different view of people who have come from a more ordinary background and acquired money later in life. There are lots of terms for them, all of which carry slightly pejorative overtones: self-made, nouveau riche, new money. Again, we make judgements about these people before we even know them. There are plenty of clichés here too: more money than sense, no taste, full of themselves. And again, the vast majority of these people don’t fit this description at all.

  If we make assumptions about people because of the money they have – earned, inherited or otherwise acquired – it’s us who deserve to be harshly judged. We’re the ones behaving predictably. Lots of wealthy people give away stacks of money to good causes. Not all of them will shout about it though, so you might not even know. Many of them are completely grounded people who do understand what life is like for the rest of us. Most of them are as sensible with their wealth as you or I would like to be in their position.

  I don’t assume that everyone I meet who has little or no money is automatically bound to be a good person, so why should I assume that someone with lots of money is a bad person? If (lack of) money has no influence on people’s basic nature, why should having money change them? Of course money changes a few people for the worse, but then fame or kids or promotion or alcohol can do that too. Most people are just themselves, whether they happen to have loads or nothing at all. So let’s just see them for who they are and not for what they have.

  IF WE MAKE ASSUMPTIONS

&
nbsp; ABOUT PEOPLE BECAUSE

  OF THE MONEY THEY HAVE,

  IT’S US WHO DESERVE TO BE

  HARSHLY JUDGED

  RULE 2

  Don’t envy it

  It’s hard to look at wealthy people in the public eye and not wish you had what they have. Mind you, you don’t necessarily know what else they have that goes with the money – they may have all kinds of personal problems or hidden angst you wouldn’t want, not to mention the direct effects of money such as being chased around interminably by paparazzi, or being obliged to live in three houses at once, which I always think must be horrible.*

  Yes, it’s tough to watch and wish. Ah, but that’s nothing to how tough it is when the person with all the money isn’t some distant celebrity but your best friend, your neighbour, your colleague, your sister...Now that gets really tough to cope with. In fact the closer they are, the harder it is. If the couple next door don’t seem to do much work yet have three overseas holidays a year, while you’re working all hours and can’t justify a week in Skegness, it can be pretty hard to bear.

  I knew someone who cut off all contact with her best friend, much as she loved her, because she simply couldn’t cope with her own jealousy as her friend grew slowly wealthier over the years, while her own fortunes dwindled. It was very sad. She ended up no wealthier, and now she’d given up her best friend as well. But that’s not all. The best friend went on to suffer a terrible personal tragedy, which she would gladly have given all her money to avoid, which is my main point.

  You see, if you don’t have money, you can imagine it’s the answer to everything. You know, ‘If only I had a six figure annual income, everything would be perfect’. But it isn’t, you see. Which means that while you’re busy envying wealthy people for their money, they’re busy envying other people (maybe even you) for their marriage, or their health, or their sporting accomplishments, or the fact that their job is so rewarding. Listen, we can all find things to envy in others, however poor or wealthy we are. Or we can be grateful for everything we have and build on it, instead of hankering after what other people have got.