Ways to Become Wealthy
This site being Elusive Wealth, I felt it important to cover some of the various ways to become wealthy. Certain ways may be rather unorthodox, but perhaps that means they are the road less traveled and as a result there is more opportunity in them! Or maybe it means that a particular approach is really harder than it seems. When its all said in done, maybe you won’t have learned much from this post — but hopefully it is fun nonetheless 
So here we go…
1) Win the Lottery!
The upside of this approach is simply outstanding! Basically being handed millions of dollars for almost no work at all, how much better can it get? Some lotteries get into the hundreds of millions. If you are considering this route, the basic approach to achieving your dreams is to go to a store, typically with a “Quick” “E” and “Mart” somewhere in the name. Once there, ask the person behind the counter for a ticket and hand them money.
There is a lot about the upside, but are there any drawbacks to this approach to financial freedom? Well a few to keep in mind:
- You have to pick the winning numbers for the big lotteries. It turns out they don’t just give you a check.
- If you win the money, you have to do some math to figure out if you should take the lump sum or receive money over many years.
- You might have to share if someone else wins! Yuck…
- Things don’t always turn out well for the winners. Many times they end up worse off after winning than before. Maybe it was all about the experience!
Oh and one more thing… The chance that you become wealthy with this approach is somewhere around one in 195,249,054.
So for winning the lottery, Elusive Wealth says:
Don’t play the lottery unless you are also equally willing to set the dollar that would pay for the ticket on fire.
2) Sue Someone into Oblivion!
So winning the lottery isn’t for you, you need other options. Another way to score some fast cash is to sue someone. You can either take the “easy” way by falling on someone’s sidewalk, suing them, and hoping they have a lucrative umbrella policy. Or you could go the more ethical route of accidentally spilling hot coffee on yourself and bringing litigation against McDonalds for not stopping it somehow. Yes, this can be quite an attractive approach to wealth building! However, with this there are also a few caveats:
- The odds of winning a baseless lawsuit probably are not much better than winning the lottery. I couldn’t find any good statistics on this, I am sure it depends on the lawyers and the particular case.
- Some lawsuits may require actual physical injury before they can seriously be considered.
- If you are considering this, have you ever heard of ethics?
Well, you can also consider a combo play by actually suing the lottery. This especially comes in handy if you play an instant lottery game where the last winning ticket was already played somewhere.
Elusive Wealth says:
Stick to suing only when you have a legitimate gripe that seriously caused a financial loss. If that is the case though, go for it!
3) Get a Scam Named After You
Financially this one may rate above both suing someone and winning the lottery, if you have got what it takes. Once you get a scam named after you, you know you have it made! Madoff, Ponzi, and Stanford (Group) all know what I am talking about. Not only does this path to wealth come with riches, it is matched equally by fame! Unfortunately there are some downsides:
- You can’t actually get the scam named unless you get caught.
- This is a touch less ethical than suing someone for no reason.
Elusive Wealth says:
Don’t even try scamming, unless you can make the scam both legal and official sounding, like “credit default swaps.”
4) Get a Job, Save Your Money
This option may look a bit out of place on this list, because it is the only one that results in actual, legitimate earned wealth. However, before I encourage anyone to go this route, I have to honestly lay out all of the downsides:
- To get wealthy with this approach, you might just need an education. The good news is, this isn’t always true. In fact many people do quite well without a college degree.
- To get a job, you have to apply for them and compete for them.
- Once you have a job you have to work.
- Saving money means not spending some of it.
Seems like getting a job has as many negatives of anything else on this list! Maybe it is not the best way to go. But consider this: people have done amazing things with the U.S. average household salary ($50,000) and even less. The truth is that by staying away from debt and making good choices, you stand a better chance of getting wealthy this way than any of the above options. Sure there can be some serious road bumps along the way, especially health issues and healthcare. If you think it can’t happen though, then that may be a major part of the problem. This IS how most people become wealthy.
Elusive Wealth says:
This is really the only option worth considering… what did you expect?
