Getting rich and wealthy is something which everybody wants, but they spend half their lives (sometimes whole lives) trying to find short cuts.

Sir Issac Newton, Mark Twain, Scott Adams – all have long tales of losing money. Luckily all of them did not lose their learning! Here are a few steps. Short and sure, NOT EASY, but can be done by all:

1. Shun debt: the REVERSE of compounding, you must get into debt only, only, only if it is a must. Not for luxuries or depreciating assets like a car or a foreign vacation.

2. Stop searching for secrets. There are none. Read, read, read – elsewhere on this blog I have complete list, but at least start with 1. Random Walk Down Wall street and 2. Richest Man of Babylon. Then grow your reading. Comment on that blog if I have missed something OBVIOUS.

3. Happiness comes from managing expectations and desires, NOT from buying everything and hoarding it at home.

4. Spend for YOUR happiness, not to impress others. They soon find out.

5. Cut expenses ruthlessly, Online buying is far more lethal an addiction than tobacco!

6. You can have many things that you want, but not EVERYTHING that you want!

7. Implement your financial plan. The perfect is an enemy of the best / good.

8. Stop blaming your parents, caste, creed, community, the Prime Minister, the regulator – NONE of them care.

9. A fallout of 8 is – ONLY YOU, AND YOU ONLY are (or should be) worried about your Wealth increase. Do it well.

10. Start now and today – NO MORE EXCUSES for delaying your SIP in an index fund, term insurance, etc.

this is shorter than Dilbert’s 287 words I guess!