Lottery Ticket Mentality, Keeps many poor...

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Now before you get angry at me for this one, hear me out. I get so frustrated every time I am in line behind some MochaFolk at the bodega and I see then carelessly purchase at least $10 dollars worth of lottery tickets. I remember one of my coworkers used to buy additional tickets with the $5 dollars he won from the tickets he just bought. It seemed so silly to me and I couldn’t understand how someone could even rationalize how buying lottery tickets was a sound financial strategy?

Instead of spending $10 dollars on something that may or may not give you more money in return, why not take all the money you would spend on tickets and put it in a savings account that will guarantee that the money you put in will be there when you want to take it out? If you take the $10 dollars a day spent and do that for 30 days, you have just improved your net worth (the true indicator of wealth) by $300 dollars.

It seems so simple, but there are some deeper psychological principles at work here. Most people that buy the tickets know that saving the money would be smarter, so why do they buy them? Moreover, if lottery tickets were a means to being wealthy, why don’t the wealthy by them? The answer is quite simple…..

The wealthy know that wealth is acquired overtime.

The wealthy believe in delayed gratification and know that wasting money on lottery tickets is for people that don’t want to take the time to build their wealth. The wealthy know that the lottery relies on CHANCE. There is a chance that you will strike it rich, but there is a GREATER chance that you will continue to waste money that could have been saved. They know that the best method of relying on chance with their money is through investing in businesses through stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401K, Roth IRAs, etc that will make more money in the future. So, in essence, the wealthy have their own form of “lottery” but theirs has been shown to be effective over time.

A lottery ticket mentality means you think that all your money issues and life problems would be resolved if you could just get a hold of a million-billion-trillion dollars! It means you think that wealth is a matter of chance as opposed to a set of disciplined decisions. It means that you are allowing greed to cloud your judgement. It means you are part of this “instant gratification nation” that wants everything NOW. And WHEN was the last time you heard about someone winning the lottery and then being able to become mega rich off their new found wealth? Not many, because without developing a wealthy mindset–or hiring people that have one—you will repeat your same ol’ broke tendencies. The wealthy have developed some key principles about money. The same principles used to manage $100 dollars must be used to manage $100 million. Once you master the little, you can handle the big.

So, if you want to continue the cycle of brokeness, continue to invest in lottery tickets. You may or may not be wealthy. If you want to become wealthy, start considering investing in their lottery–the stock market. You already have the mindset of taking risks with your money in the hopes of making more in the future, why not try it out in the stock market? If you want to build true wealth, start making conscious decisions with your money. Before spending your money, consider asking yourself, “Will this INCREASE or DECREASE my net worth?”

Staff Writer; Diana Rivers

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Also connect with her through twitter; D. Riverton.