The most important money principle you ever have to LEARN and implement is: 10% of all you earn is your to keep!
Many of us have heard that or read it in numerous books and I’m sure some of us practice or think we’re practicing it. Well is that ingrained with you? Do you understand exactly how important that is to both your mentality and your future? I sure didn’t!
Back in high school while I was reading Think and a Grow Rich, Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Richest Man in Babylon I ‘learned’ that “10% of all you make is yours to keep.” I read it and a memorized it. I even set up my ROTH-IRA to take about some money every month that justified that rule. But did I learn it? No!!
I didn’t absorb it down to my most inner principles. When I read Save and Grow Rich I finally learned this principle. 10% of everything I EVER, EVER receive is mine to keep FOREVER. Really FOREVER. AND THAT MONEY GETS PASSED DOWN TO MY CHILDREN AND THEIRS. In order to keep it forever my job is to teach my children to know how I keep that money working. And it will be their job to teach their children. Infinite money!! 10% of everything includes all earned, passive, interest and even gifts!
Once you put 10% in your account you can never, ever touch the principal. (This 10% is investment savings and separate than emergency savings.) 10% of every dollar that passes through your fingertips or bank account needs to remains yours ever.
It now physically makes me sick thinking about all the previous money I’ve let slip away into the world. Childhood allowance, teenage babysitting, and jobs from age 16 to now! I’ve given (spent) every single dollar away I’ve ever received. Even savings – as the majority of us view savings as we we’re taught growing up. Save up for the item we want, then go spend it all on that item. Even emergency funds and retirement accounts are techniquly the same thing. You save up to spend at a later point in time.
This 10% that’s yours to keep is just that – to keep permanently! If you can really grasp and LEARN that concept your life will be transformed. Or at least that’s what I’ve been reading about, now it’s time for me to put that into practice and make it a permanent habit. And I need to ingrain this habit for my kids now. This really hits home the fact that a poor person raises their child to be poor, middle class to middle class and the rich raise their children to think rich. It’s all about the mindset and I believe this 10% rule is apart of it.
Now I understand how money can be attracted or repelled. Since I’ve been holding onto nothing (money-wise) then nothing sticks!!!
