What I found is that many wealthy people have lived and still live below their means. They live on much less than they could, and by doing this, they can save the rest of their money and re-invest it or let it grow by compound interest (interest upon interest upon interest), which allows their wealth to grow much quicker.

Live minimalistic until you have the means.

This is of course my view about becoming wealthy, and it is the plan I’m following until something better presents itself, but everyone needs to have a plan. Let me explain how I see it:

I’m going to take Amsterdam as an example.

In Amsterdam it is easy to get a simple job, maybe in a supermarket or newspaper route and make the minimum wage of around 1000 euros a month.

Here is what it costs to live very basically:

Rent: 400-500 E a month for a room
Food: 300 E a month
Transport: Zero because you would walk or get a bicycle
Possibly phone and internet: 50 E a month
Some people don’t do this but I would also opt for a health insurance plan, even if you are young, you never know if you may get into an accident. I have no idea on this kind of cost but I think it would be 100 E or less per month.

So all that in total works out to that 1000E a month that you can earn from a basic job that you need no qualifications for, and the work-week is pretty low, around 35 hours a week.

One thing that I am assuming here is that you already have enough clothes/shoes and a laptop or computer but if you do not, then you will have to save up in order to get those things and it will just slow down your building up for a few months.

Now that you devote 35 hours of your week for being able to survive, with good food and a warm dry bed, you have the rest of the week to work to save and build at your wealth. When it comes to food, the idea is that you buy vegetables and food at the supermarket and cook for yourself. Eating out will be more expensive, because my budget allows for 10E a day for food.

Okay, so now what to do with the rest of the week.
You could find another job, whether it be a full time 35 hour job or part time at a restaurant/bar. The money you make on this you stick in a separate bank account and save.

My alternative would be working on affiliate and internet marketing.
If you haven’t heard of this, it means setting up websites or building email lists, and promoting other people’s products and getting a commission for every sale. The beauty is, once you have a site up and running that pays for itself, it requires little maintenance, and you can literally build up a portfolio of hundreds of sites all bringing in money.

As you can see, this is not going to make you rich overnight, it will probably take a good 4-10 years to seriously make money, but with the internet marketing, the earnings potential is pretty much endless.

Within 8 months you can go from knowing nothing about making money online to making a few hundred dollars a month (I know this because I am at that stage now) and from there it goes quicker and its up to you to build it up. The hardest part is the beginning, because you are learning how to do it and having to do the work, many times not knowing the best way to do something and trying to reinvent the wheel.

You can totally learn internet marketing for free on the internet, the are many good forums and blogs out there, like Warriorforum or Wickedfire.(not affiliate links) I would really stay away from programs telling you how to make thousands of dollars online in your first weeks, those products will cost you valuable money and not give you what they promise.

One book I really do suggest, because I have read it and know that the methods and techniques described are actually used by the writer of the book, is Cloud-Living by Glen Allsopp. It costs $37 and will teach you everything you need to know about setting up a website, choosing a product to promote and getting it ranking in search engines so you can get targeted traffic who will potentially buy your product and thus bring you commission. It also describes the other way of making money online: how to set up a blog. Once you have a successful and popular blog with thousands of readers, you can be making $10000 or more a month just from that one blog, but gaining that many subscribers and having a successful blog can take years instead of making money from websites which may take weeks or months. If you would like to know more about Cloud-living, read the review here.

Of course, the extra job and internet marketing are just my two ways of how I would go about it, you can be creative and do anything else on the side to build up an income, and as long as you live from as little as possible, you are able to save and reinvest those savings, and over time this will lead you to being well-off if not wealthy.

You could start making tshirts, art, start a hand car-wash, become a rep for a product, make door-to-door sales of something, it’s totally up to you how creative you are.Another thing I should add to this is that I know not everyone is in my position regarding age. I’m just 22, so my point of view is that I have 8 years or so to build something up before I start with a family. For those of you already with a family, it will not be as easy, but the principle still applies.

Live on as little as possible until you have enough to live the way you want to. This means no vacations, no dining out, no gadgets or excessive items you do not need. Take for instance a habit like smoking or drinking. Smoking 5 packs a week at $2 a pack is $10 a week which is $520 a year. Maybe you enjoy it, but it’s expensive, not neccessary and bad for your health:) (I use this specific example because I really do not like cigarettes)

Maybe it’s not so pleasant, but after time it will be worth it, especially later when you are older and heading to retirement. Maybe the rewards of living this way will come a lot quicker than you think. Who knows. Be prepared for the longer haul though.

I do not know if I am talking nonsense, and if you will or will not agree with me, I will only be able to show you my results after a few years, but either way, I would love to hear your view!!
Feel free to leave a comment below!

I feel a little bad for asking this, but I would really appreciate if you could share this post on twitter or Stumbleupon, as I would like to get more readers to notice UpgradeReality.
Thank You!

Have a Rockin’ day
Diggy