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If you ask ‘who wants to be rich?’Everyone would say that they want to be rich, wouldn’t they? However, if you are ‘who wants to be wealthy’ Everyone may confuse how rich and wealthy differ. Don’t these two terms have the same meaning of having a large amount of money? Most people only seek for ‘richness’ and overlook the ‘wealth’ that creates more sustainability for yourself. Why is ‘wealth’ better? Let’s find out.
Wealthy and Rich are similar in meaning to having a lot of money, but what makes ‘wealth’ more sustainable than ‘rich’ is that wealth or money acquired will come continuously and tend to continue in the long run.
In ‘The Psychology of Money,’ financial expert Morgan Housel explained that the reason most people are not financially successful is because of the confusion between ‘wealthy’ and ‘rich’.
Housel defined ‘wealthy’ as someone who has a lot of money saved in the bank, while ‘rich’ refers to someone who earns a lot of money only for a certain period. We can tell who is rich through the lifestyle of high-end goods, luxury cars, and big houses. We may not know whether this is borrowed money or not, and we can’t tell if they’re really rich or have a lot of money in their accounts.
Another definition of the difference between ‘wealth’ and ‘rich’ from the author of ‘Rich Father Teach to Investment’ by Robert Kiyosaki explains, “The rich have a lot of money, but the wealthy do not worry about money.”
The rich are the ones who have a lot of money, but as time goes by, they also run out of money. On the other hand, the wealthy don’t worry about money because they can live without physical labor and maintain their original quality of life.
Robert Kiyosaki also said, “Richness is measured by money, but wealth is measured by time.” For example, if we have one million baht, people will think of us as rich, but if our monthly expenditure is 100,000 baht a month, it means that the length of our wealth is 10 months (1 million / 100,000 baht). So the definition of wealth is as long as we do nothing but still have money to spend.
We can calculate our own wealth by the important ratio that is often used to measure wealth.
Wealth ratio = Income from assets / Expenses
If the wealth ratio is greater than 1, then we have financial freedom, or we don’t have to work but still can live on the income from assets that we have for the rest of our lives. If we get close to 1, we can only survive without working for a certain period, but if it is much less than 1, we may still have to work to survive.
Another important ratio that can calculate the living rate with sufficient money is called
Survival ratio = (Employment Income + Asset Income) / Expenses
This survival ratio has to be greater than 1 so that we can survive on our own without incurring debt or relying on others. And if we take out the income from work, we will get the same result as the wealth ratio.
Understanding the difference here will help us make more decisions about our money. Wealthy people tend to have longer-term financial success and greater financial freedom just like a lot of people dream about.
A journey to wealth requires planning and a good situation assessment, as creating wealth requires time. Wealth can be built through income planning, savings, and investments, whether it is investing in assets, stocks, mutual funds, debt instruments or even investing in itself. It depends on the individual’s goals and acceptable risks.
