Young people are already rich but don’t know it

Young people are already rich. You don't believe me? Just take a look at Facebook.

If you are a bit older, let's say in your 30s, you can see the wealth gap. For example, when I was in college, very few people owned a laptop, heck even a car!

Today, a lot of these teens have one or the other, some even both! Well, you can say that their parents are rich. Yes and no. There's a lot of factors at play. One is access to cheaper technology. Another is the more flexible or even lower entry pricing for vehicles. Whatever people say, some see technology and vehicles as a sign of wealth.

Another evidence is access to information. As more people become content creators, more information or knowledge is spread. Don't know how to cook? You can watch a tutorial in Youtube. Don't know how to invest or make money on the side? There's plenty of blogs and vlogs for that too!

Economics of the time is also different. We are definitely a bit more prosperous today than let's say 10 years ago.

There's more international companies coming to the Philippines today, compared to those years ago. Young people have plenty of career options too. You don't necessarily want to become and OFW - Overseas Filipino Worker, you now have the option to be an OFW 2.0 - Online Filipino Worker. Instead of slaving at outsourcing firms, you cut through the middleman and become an outsourcing firm yourself.

Plenty of Unknowing Millionaires

Still don't believe me? Because of these BPOs or KPOs or Online-Homebased Freelancers, the capacity and access to higher income is unlocked.

If you have a salary of 21k per month, you can already earn a million after 4 years. Yes, technically you have earned a million but it all depends if you either saved some, invested or spent it all. Heck, with the TRAIN Law, if your annual income is less than 250k per year, you don't even pay income tax, so that's an advantage right there. But then again, it really depends on our expenses on how much take home pay we retain.

If you manage to save 50% of that and even invest all of it. Assuming you didn't increase your income after 8 years and maintained such a savings habit while maintain your good health, then you would have saved a million while having already invested half of it.

It’s an uncomfortable truth but it’s true nonetheless.

Power of Perspective

With the perspective of time, I realize that I really didn’t need to spend much on clothes, gadgets and other useless things in my twenties. I’m putting this out because it is something I have learned about life that could make a difference to people’s financial futures, if they’ll listen.

Would I have listened when 25? Probably not, but even as a man I did go through a somewhat materialistic phase myself, I had plenty of stuff that I did not need. Looking back, I should have stuck to t-shirts, and jeans.

Enjoy your youth, and save the money instead. I don’t think youth is wasted on the young, but I do think a lot of money is. That difference in spending during your twenties and investing it instead will make to your future is incredible.

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Vernon Joseph Go, RFP®, REB, is a Public Speaker, Content Producer and  Author of the book

“A Lazy Investor’s Way”.