• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

  • About
    • About us
    • Why SeedTime?
    • Our Beliefs
    • The Story of SeedTime
  • Podcast
  • Free Book
    • Get your 1st copy free (+S&H)
    • Order multiple copies here
  • Programs
    • Login
    • Mission-Driven Millionaire
    • True Financial Freedom
    • The Real Money Method (unbudgeting) course
    • The 10x Investing course
  • Churches
  • Blog
    • The 14 Financial Tools We Actually Use
    • Our strategy for giving away millions
    • 5 Bible Verses You Should Know (Free PDF)
    • 25 Ways to Save Money
    • Why we began giving our age as a percentage
    • My Checklist To Financial Freedom (Free PDF)
    • Tithing: an honest look and what we do
    • Why I took a Sabbatical YEAR (and how I did it)
    • How to travel for FREE [161 hotel nights and 103 flights all free]
    • 4 Financial Lessons from Solomon: The Richest Man Ever
    • How to become a millionaire by turning $2k into $1 mil
    • How to get out of credit card debt (Free PDF)
    • How I made $2,145 Last Month by decluttering
    • How I Broke Free From the Rat Race (in less than 2 years)
    • We just checked off the biggest goal in our life
    • Our Honest Medi-Share Review after 14 years
    • 4 Money Habits To Start (that basically guarantee financial success)
  • Email

9 of the Best Money Habits of the Wealthy

written by Kevin Mercadante | Debt Help

9 of the best money habits of the wealthy
While it’s tempting to believe that wealth is about being lucky, the reality is that it’s mostly about using God-given wisdom and developing the smart money habits. If you can do that, and avoid too many foolish mistakes with your money, there’s a very good chance that you will have more money than you need. And that is a good place to be in. Because, while I strongly believe in sacrificial giving (giving when it hurts), there is no denying that when you only have 2 nickels to rub together, you can only give 2 nickels – at most. But if you have a lot more, you can give a lot more.  That is what I am aiming for. So here are 9 money habits for you to start implementing today:

1. Live Beneath Your Means

This is the most fundamental habit of the wealthy. That’s because no other wealth building strategy is likely to work if you don’t get this one under control. Quite simply, living beneath your means will provide the capital that you will need to do everything else that will be necessary in order to become wealthy. This means that whatever you earn, you will live on something less. You can set up a percentage, such as 70% or 80% of your income, that you will live on. The rest will be used to fund your efforts to build wealth. This will mean living in a less expensive home than you can afford, driving an older car, preparing meals at home, and learning to enjoy inexpensive pleasures.

2. Pay God First

“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Matthew 6:20-21
Not nearly all wealth exists on earth. You should want to allocate some of that wealth to your Eternal future. There’s an earthbound benefits to this as well ”“ when you give money, you are demonstrating your ability to live without it. That’s an important part of learning to live beneath your means, and avoiding the human tendency to allow money to rule your life. Think of it as a process of letting go, so that you can concentrate on more important things.

3. Pay Yourself Second

Just as with the case of giving to God, when you “pay yourself” – which is allocating a percentage of your income to savings ”“ you prevent yourself from spending it. That will help you to develop discipline to both live beneath your means, and to accumulate money. Just as important, it’s a form of automating the capital accumulation process. When you immediately put money into savings, you develop a fast, efficient way of building capital. Basically, it takes the money out of your hands, and puts it where it will do more good.

4. Become Self-Funding

Or put another way, you should avoid debt. Any debt you avoid now will mean more cash flow in the future. That’s because debt payments reduce cash flow, and make it more difficult to accumulate savings. This is another aspect of living beneath your means. You”ve heard it before, and you need to incorporate the concept into your own life – if you have to borrow to pay for something, you can’t afford it. And if you can’t afford it, you don’t need to have it. Debt creates future obligations that you don’t need if you want to become wealthy. It also creates the kind of debilitating stress that keeps you from reaching your goals.

5. Invest, But Don’t Speculate

This means investing your money in assets that have a proven track record. That can take the form of investing your money in high dividend paying stocks or in index funds, rather than in individual stocks. While it’s sometimes true that speculative investments can make you rich, it’s far more likely that they will crash and reduce your wealth. And since we all have a limited amount of time in this life, you don’t have time to be losing money. Better to invest on a slow and steady course, then to subject yourself to wild swings in investment values. If you are new to investing, let me be your mentor through my 10x Investing Course.

6. Diversify Your Investments

There’s no such thing as a truly all-weather investment. That’s why you need to have your money spread across different asset classes. People sometimes get carried away during bull markets in stocks, and put all their money into the market. That can produce miraculous returns on the way up, but it can lead to painful crashes in wealth when the market reverses. Spread your money across stocks, interest-bearing investments, real estate, and even commodities. Each of those markets will go through a bull phase at some point in the future. But since you can’t know when that will be, you need to be positioned in advance. I walk you through all of this in the 10x Investing Course. Diversification will make that happen.

7. Set Goals and Create Plans to Reach Them

One of the reasons why so many people struggle is that they set their minds on just getting by.  Goals aren’t just arbitrary ”“ they represent the definition of your endgame. In effect, they create a mission that defines your future course. And they are absolutely necessary if you want to have a future course. Once you set goals, you have to develop workable plans to reach them. A goal without a plan is just a wish. A plan makes it real, by creating a series of steps that you have to accomplish on the way to reaching the goal. Those steps are your action plan, and they should define what you do each day on the way to your goals.

8. Control Your Habits and Hobbies

We’re all creatures of habit, and that’s both a blessing and a curse. You’ll want to do your best to make sure that your habits are full-on blessings. That means that you have to develop habits that will move you in the direction of your goals. Bad habits are any forms of behavior that will either slow or reverse your direction. You’ll have to sort out your habits, and make adjustments as necessary. Hobbies are another area of major concern. Hobbies can be good if they are recreational in nature, and enable you to “recharge your battery”. Exercise and reading are two good examples. But others can be destructive. Hobbies that are enabling you to improve your game need to be emphasized, while those that drain your time, energy, and money, need to go.

9. Never Give Up!

Wealth-building is not necessarily a straight line forward. Along the way, you will experience failures and disappointments. You need to be prepared for those outcomes. But even more important, you need to be ready to move beyond them. Many people start out with solid goals, plans and intentions, but they get distracted and discouraged by troubles along the way. Never allow those troubles to take you completely off your game. If you want more on this topic, check out the video below, which is all about the habits of successful (and wealthy) people!
https://youtu.be/yOEPvRwzoGQ

What other habits would you add?

Let us know in the comments!

Related posts:

  1. How to Pick Mutual Funds Like the Pros
  2. 7 Safe Places to Keep Cash Hidden in Your Home
  3. 12 Side Hustles That Pay Well
  4. Stop Trying So Hard… (and enjoy life more)

About Kevin Mercadante

Kevin Mercadante has been writing about personal finance on rusbank.net, covering investing, retirement, taxes, credit cards, real estate, mortgages and insurance. Kevin brings many years of experience working in CPA firms and mortgage companies, preparing hundreds of income taxes, and helping hundreds more get the financing needed to buy or refinance a home. His entire career has been in personal finance. Kevin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from Montclair State University, and occasionally shares his financial expertise on his own personal blog, OutOfYourRut.com

IFCFH Book of the Year
"The best combination of personal finance and the Christian faith that I’ve read"
– James T. (SMRL reviewer)

In this biblically sound and grace-filled money book, you'll discover the NEW rules of money that will transform your financial life. Say goodbye to outdated advice and hello to a simple, automated system that helps you achieve better results with less time and effort.

"The best combination of personal finance and the Christian faith that I’ve read"
Learn more
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Primary Sidebar

Bob Lotich

Hi there! We are Bob & Linda Lotich. Jesus followers, authors, podcasters, and undying fans of Michael Scott.

This site contains the lessons we learned on our journey from being stingy, debt-ridden fools, to being able to reach our biggest financial goal of giving $1 million by age 40, having zero debt & a paid off house by age 31, and peace with money in the process.

Now we share our best lessons with people like you, groups, and churches with our Award-winning book Simple Money, Rich Life and our 6-week video course True Financial Freedom.

Grab our book!

Simple Money Rich Life

Legal Disclaimer

The articles on this site should not be taken as financial advice. Please contact a financial advisor (or coach) for specific advice regarding your situation. Any references to interest rates, giveaways, deals, products, and websites are subject to change without notice. We try our best to keep the information current, but things are always changing so it may be different now than when it was first published. Also, all the pages on SeedTime help us pay the bills by using affiliate relationships with Amazon, Google, eBay and others but our opinions are NEVER for sale. Find out more here.

Footer



SeedTime is a 2x Plutus award winning website.
seedtime money logo



SeedTime BBB Business Review
seedtime instagram seedtime money youtube channel seedtime money twitter with Bob Lotich


Our book Simple Money, Rich Life was named 2022 book of the year!
  • Home
  • About
  • Beliefs
  • Blog
  • Courses
  • Churches
  • Press
  • Shop
  • Affiliates
  • Login

Privacy Policy | Terms | Reviews | Earnings Disclaimer | Contact | 636-344-0438
625 Bakers Bridge Ave Suite 105-134 Franklin, TN 37067
©2007-2025 · SeedTime (Formerly ChristianPF)