There’s plenty of financial advice available on the Internet and in books, so it can sometimes be hard to decide which tips to follow.
But sometimes, you’ll read a quote or stumble upon some wisdom that can make you change the way you think about how you handle your financial life. These quotes could be profound or funny, but they stand apart because they lead to a change in perspective.
While these types of quotes may be few and far between, here are five of them that might just change the way you think about money.
Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are — James W. Frick
Far too many people make budgets they don’t stick to, or claim they want to save for important goals such as retirement but end up spending their entire paychecks without putting a dollar in the bank.
This quote shows the importance of aligning your behavior to what you truly value. If you really care about retiring early or being debt-free, you’ll make the sacrifices necessary to do so. If you instead spend on frivolous things, you’re just showing that your pleasures today are more important than your security tomorrow.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants — Epictetus
If you’re constantly trying to keep up with the Joneses, you’re never going to feel you have enough. That’s why you’ll often hear stories of families with incomes in the mid-six-figures who claim to be barely getting by.
This quote shows the importance of finding joy in the simple things. If you can be happy without the fancy car or the big house, you’ll feel a lot wealthier than someone with a higher income but with greater demands.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work — Thomas Edison
Managing money successfully is hard work — it involves sacrifice, saving when you want to spend, and sometimes working more than you’d like to have the money to accomplish all your goals.
This quote underscores the importance of taking the hard road to financial success, rather than looking for get-rich-quick opportunities or lamenting the fact you’ll never be wealthy because you didn’t make that investment that would have made you rich overnight.
If you work hard and make the right financial decisions throughout your life, you will have the opportunity to build that big nest egg — but you need to seize the chances you have rather than waiting for an easy solution to financial woes.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it — Bob Hope
While this quote is humorous, there’s an important underlying truth to it. It demonstrates how opportunities to build wealth tend to collect around those who already have achieved some measure of financial success.
If you are a responsible borrower and work to build credit, for example, you can qualify for a mortgage or a student loan so you can build your net worth by acquiring an asset or increasing your income. Likewise, if you work hard to invest, you can grow your net worth by buying assets that increase in value.
If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion — George Bernard Shaw
The key lesson within this clever quote: You can’t predict the future, and you shouldn’t try. Economists know this, which is why their advice is often equivocal — and it’s a truism you’re going to have to accept when managing your own money.
Instead of waiting for perfect investments or surefire wins, devise a strategy for investing that you can stick to over time even through unpredictable economic booms and busts.
Do these quotes change your thinking?
Hopefully some of these quotes have changed your perspective on how you think about your finances. If not, there’s lots of other wisdom out there that might inspire you to look at money in a smarter way so you can use it responsibly to grow your wealth and establish a secure financial future.
