20 Things the Rich Do Every Day

[Matt Collins]

[h=2]20 Things the Rich Do Every Day[/h][h=3][/h]So what do the rich do every day that the poor don’t do?
Tom Corley, on his website RichHabits.net, outlines a few of the differences between the habits of the rich and the poor:
1. 70% of wealthy eat less than 300 junk food calories per day. 97% of poor people eat more than 300 junk food calories per day. 23% of wealthy gamble. 52% of poor people gamble.

2. 80% of wealthy are focused on accomplishing some single goal. Only 12% of the poor do this.

3. 76% of wealthy exercise aerobically 4 days a week. 23% of poor do this.

4. 63% of wealthy listen to audio books during commute to work vs. 5% for poor people.

5. 81% of wealthy maintain a to-do list vs. 19% for poor.

6. 63% of wealthy parents make their children read 2 or more non-fiction books a month vs. 3% for poor.

7. 70% of wealthy parents make their children volunteer 10 hours or more a month vs. 3% for poor.

8. 80% of wealthy make hbd calls vs. 11% of poor

9. 67% of wealthy write down their goals vs. 17% for poor

10. 88% of wealthy read 30 minutes or more each day for education or career reasons vs 2% for poor.

11. 6% of wealthy say what’s on their mind vs. 69% for poor.

12. 79% of wealthy network 5 hours or more each month vs. 16% for poor.

13. 67% of wealthy watch 1 hour or less of TV. every day vs. 23% for poor

14. 6% of wealthy watch reality TV vs. 78% for poor.

15. 44% of wealthy wake up 3 hours before work starts vs.3% for poor.

16. 74% of wealthy teach good daily success habits to their children vs. 1% for poor.

17. 84% of wealthy believe good habits create opportunity luck vs. 4% for poor.

18. 76% of wealthy believe bad habits create detrimental luck vs. 9% for poor.

19. 86% of wealthy believe in life-long educational self-improvement vs. 5% for poor.

20. 86% of wealthy love to read vs. 26% for poor.

 

[PRB]

what about doing drugs, complain about the government, and pay taxes?

 

[PaulConventionWV]

It seems like most of the things on that list could actually be consequences of being wealthy, rather than the other way around.

 

[LibForestPaul]

Its hard reading when you have four kids in toe and your picking up your third welfare check for the week.

 

[Saint Vitus]

73.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot by 64% of people that produce false statistics 54% of the time they produce them.

 

[MelissaWV]

Kind of a bullshit list without revealing the definitions for some of their terms. I am sure the gambling in #1 includes the lottery, for instance, but does it include the stock market?

How many of the rich are able to compile lists? The first item appears to have two separate items included in it, making this a list of at least 21 things "the rich" (not defined) do every day.

 

[Kodaddy]

3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population...

 

[RickyJ]

15. 44% of wealthy wake up 3 hours before work starts vs.3% for poor.

Not hard to do when you work from 12pm to 1pm everyday and still make 3000 times what the average employee makes.

 

[Kotin]

That is some collectivist bullshit.

 

[donnay]

That is some collectivist bullshit.

Really.

 

[Matt Collins]

That is some collectivist bullshit.

lolwut?

 

[ClydeCoulter]

That is some collectivist bullshit.

I know, right?

Because you can take 100 people, categorize them per question, and make a really cool list. Thing is, it's a different set (meaning not all the same people) in each of the items in the list. So, when it comes down to it, it's an individual thing, but the poll list makes it look like it's the same group of x (rich poor or whatever).

edit: It may be that there are a couple of the poor that were polled that align 100% with all the items in the rich list, where not a single rich one does align 100% and still get those numbers.

 

[oyarde]

Kind of a bullshit list without revealing the definitions for some of their terms. I am sure the gambling in #1 includes the lottery, for instance, but does it include the stock market?

How many of the rich are able to compile lists? The first item appears to have two separate items included in it, making this a list of at least 21 things "the rich" (not defined) do every day.

Good one , I buy no lottery tickets , gamble in the paper market a wee bit , but mostly buy commodoties which is not gambling because I take possesion , if I buy pork, corn I have them

 

[oyarde]

what about doing drugs, complain about the government, and pay taxes?

This is no good unless you smoke a cigar ea day , repent for prescription drug use , stick rusty pins in a govt voodoo doll, smoke a cigarette , eat lots of red meat and stop paying taxes

 

[SilentBull]

That is some collectivist bullshit.

Not sure you know what Collectivism is.

 

[CaptLouAlbano]

Pretty good list. Two points I want to make.

The first is a definition of terms. The way I have always viewed it is that the "rich" are those who earn a lot of money from their work, where the "wealthy" are those who have a lot of money from their assets. A rich person can quickly become poor, where a wealthy person earns passive income from multiple sources, and is far more diversified.

Second, is one thing that is missing on the list, which really defines the difference between the wealthy and those who do not have wealth. The wealthy focus on acquiring assets, the non-wealthy focus on acquiring possessions.

 

[jtap]

Pretty good list. Two points I want to make.

The first is a definition of terms. The way I have always viewed it is that the "rich" are those who earn a lot of money from their work, where the "wealthy" are those who have a lot of money from their assets. A rich person can quickly become poor, where a wealthy person earns passive income from multiple sources, and is far more diversified.

Second, is one thing that is missing on the list, which really defines the difference between the wealthy and those who do not have wealth. The wealthy focus on acquiring assets, the non-wealthy focus on acquiring possessions.

My guess is that poor = anyone below the poverty line in America, but yeah, they should spell out what the definition of rich and poor that they are using is if they want this to be of any value other than "shock value".

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Some of these list items are good. Others, I think are unlikely to lead you to be wealthy.

I have not read his book, Rich Habits, but I have now searched through it briefly. I did very much enjoy The Millionaire Next Door, which is the results of a study about the habits and way of life of American millionaires. This looks like a similar book. It's not.

Most of the complaints you all have made about this list are somewhat invalid, though those skeptical of statistics are right to be skeptical. Obviously it is just a synopsis of the book. As such, it is not going to have definitions, footnotes, and sources. The question is, are the statistics valid at all.

Here is how they were supposedly obtained:

For five years, Tom studied the daily activities of 233 wealthy people and 128 people living in poverty. He asked them 20 questions. During his research he identified over 200 daily activities that separated the “haves” from the “have nots”.

Now this raises some questions for me. How do you identify over 200 activities based on 20 questions? What were the 20 questions? How rich were the rich, and how poor were the poor? Were the rich surveyed becoming richer, or poorer? Where did they start out: middle class, rich, or poor?

There's a lot of downward mobility among the rich in America. As such, some of the habits of the rich are instrumental in the loss of assets and destruction of wealth. Those habits should be avoided by anyone seeking to instead increase their wealth. So, more useful would be to find the habits of people who used to be poor and now are rich, if you are poor and looking to become rich. Or who used to be middle class, or who used to be rich and are now more rich. You want to follow successful habits of those on an upward trajectory. The trajectory matters, not just the current status.

Also, this is an unacceptably small sample size, in my non-statistician opinion, to be reliable or significant.

I have tried to find any sources or references or details about how the "study" was conducted. I can find no such information. The book itself certainly doesn't seem to include any.

In conclusion: This book is junk. Read The Millionaire Next Door.

 

[SilentBull]

The classic book "Think and Grow Rich" is very good. It can be found for free online.

 

[Todd]

It seems like most of the things on that list could actually be consequences of being wealthy, rather than the other way around.

I was thinking the same thing.

I think it's fair to assess that people who have higher standards for themselves generally tend to do better.