The millionaire next door.......Part III

Life is full of contradictions.......it's very irony that those jogging in a park regularly have very slim or fit bodies. Wealthy people get wealthier but they don't need money. Those have money will save even more and not spending it. Those fat people will continue to eat KFC or big Mac. Those good in play great defense game in financial management tends to allocate more time and energy to compound wealth even more by days. I suspect too those reading my entries do not need more advice. Those people who are frugal will be frugal without the need to be told.

It's a old classic argument of NATURE vs NURTURE. Are some people coded genetically good in money management or some people simply good because they were well schooled? Or is there a third explanation? That alternative is doctrine of FREE WILL. There is a strong argument in Christianity whether salvation is predestined or simply a person has a power of FREE CHOICES that unconstrained by external circumstances such as fate or divine will. It's a long story if I were to expound the origin of how human suffering started right from Adam and Eve made a wrong choice by taking the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve were told not to eat the apple. When they committed sin, they greatest blame game in the universe begun. It was the serpent which deceived Eve and it was Eve who gave the apple to Adam. It was God's design fault that incorporated the Free Will feature in mankind............

In the book of the millionaire next door, they asked 3 questions to determine whether you are qualified to start the journey to become millionaire

1. Were your parent frugal?
2. Are you frugal?
3. Are your spouse even more frugal than you?

What is the point of the 3 questions? These are  no brainer questions, 3 yes to 3 questions surely qualify a person to have a better chance to accumulate wealth but was parent and spouse frugality within your control? I mean do you decide who are your parents or who you want to marry someone (or do not want to marry someone) based on frugality? Their argument is people tend to copy their parents behavior. If they have been nurtured in a consumption-based family, it is very difficult for them to break those habits. If their spouse is social conscious, they may ended up with a big fight if he or she decide to buy a used Kancil.

We can be bombarded with endless statistics that frugality is the cornerstone of wealth building. Frugality simply living below a person means. It is a choice. C-H-O-I-C-E. Making choices in life will never be easy. The conditions in making choices come in a package involving many trade-off. Those decisions are very hard and can never be made in isolation or vacuum.  Many believe in fate. It's a fate that they are born in a family(rich or poor). It's a fate they married or dated a person. True, but changing the outcome largely depending on each CHOICE we make. Our state of life is a result of a series of CHOICES we made over time. A person may be born in consumption-based family, they do have a choice to change course.

What about marriage? When a couple is dating, they should know whether the person that they want to spend the rest of their life is compatible with many of their values, including money management philosophy. Instability in marriage can throw a spanner in the works of wealth building. This again it's a choice. If a person is a compulsive saver dating a compulsive spender, they should know there will be many differences to be resolved. Some may be lucky, in the power of love, a person may change. But changing a person can difficult and require many sacrifices. Unresolved differences can lead to serious marriage problem. If they do run into a divorce, the divorce settlement and financial burden of being a single parent(if they have kids) can be painful.

.........to be continued..........