Rustig rijk worden

Gelezen bij Busi­ness­week: vijf een­voudi­ge regels om op een veilige manier te bouwen aan een vet­tere bankreken­ing op lange ter­mi­jn. Het lijkt alle­maal zo logisch, maar omdat ik genoeg mensen ken die bin­nenko­rt afs­tud­eren is het miss­chien toch de moeite waard om deze tips eens te over­lopen.

1. Live below your means

   Liv­ing below your means is the way to avoid unnec­es­sary debt. Christo­pher Zook, chair­man of CAZ Invest­ments in Hous­ton, rec­om­mends bor­row­ing mon­ey only to pur­chase a home or fund your edu­ca­tion.

   Rule 1 also means sav­ing a por­tion of your earn­ings. Here’s an easy way to make that hap­pen: Sim­ply set up an auto­mat­ic invest­ing pro­gram with a mutu­al-fund com­pa­ny so that a cut of your pay­check — let’s say 10% — is socked away each month. The key is to make it hap­pen auto­mat­i­cal­ly.

2. Take calculated risks

   To make seri­ous mon­ey, you’re going to have to take some risk. That could mean career risks — such as start­ing your own busi­ness. But it might be safer — and suit your tem­pera­ment bet­ter — to take invest­ment risks.

   Tom Taulli, co-founder of CurrentOfferings.com, says the investors he knows who are reap­ing the great­est rewards now are the ones who made some small invest­ments in tiny star­tups and then for­got about them. “If one or two ideas hit pay dirt, that can have a huge impact on a rate of return,” he says. “That’s what ven­ture-cap­i­tal invest­ing is all about.”

3. Diversify your investments

   By pur­chas­ing a mix of assets and hold­ing them through mar­ket cycles, you can take enough risk to actu­al­ly earn a decent return on your invest­ments — but won’t get hurt too bad­ly by a melt­down in a spe­cif­ic stock or asset class. BusinessWeek’s Midyear Invest­ment Guide offers some sug­ges­tions for alter­na­tive invest­ments.

4. Keep your nose clean

   Too many peo­ple today try to get ahead in life by cut­ting cor­ners — cheat­ing on an exam, cook­ing the books, or steal­ing an idea from a col­league, says Calla­han. Despite some recent high-pro­file con­vic­tions of top exec­u­tives caught with their hands in the cor­po­rate till, the risk of get­ting caught today is still pret­ty low (one rea­son Calla­han thinks cor­po­rate malfea­sance is so fre­quent).

   “The real risk is los­ing your soul,” he says. “Peo­ple think they can catch up on their val­ues lat­er. But cheat­ing can be a slip­pery slope, and you may regret it even if it doesn’t lead to big trou­ble.”

5. Keep your eyes on the prize

   Isn’t it hap­pi­ness, not rich­es, we’re all real­ly after in the end? A grow­ing body of aca­d­e­m­ic research shows that an individual’s lev­el of hap­pi­ness usu­al­ly doesn’t improve with a rise in income.

   The rea­son peo­ple don’t get hap­pi­er when they get wealth­i­er is that they spend mon­ey on things like big­ger hous­es and more expen­sive cars that don’t improve their qual­i­ty of life.

   Instead you should use your income to buy “incon­spic­u­ous goods — such as free­dom from a long com­mute or a stress­ful job.” It’s a goal worth keep­ing in mind as you accu­mu­late wealth — the slow­er the bet­ter.

Bij het investeren op de beurs heb ik voor­lop­ig nog serieuze twi­jfels. Dat zie ik mezelf niet meteen doen. Wan­neer ik er enigzins tijd voor heb dan hou ik de beurs wel in het oog, maar voor de rest weet ik er niet zoveel van. Ik kan je wel vertellen dat de Dol­lar nog steeds relatief laag staat.