“Taking a nuts and bolts approach to your money is a pretty good indicator that someone is going to be successful. If you know how much you earn, what you need to live on, and where your money is going, you have a foundation on which to build your financial future.” ~ Paul Sullivan, “Wealth Matters” columnist, The New York Times
Between New York Times columnist Paul Sullivan’s ”Wealth Matters” first column in 2008 through of his final column in October 2021, he cataloged the shifting attitudes surrounding what it means to be wealthy in the U,S., the money habits of the rich, and which billionaire excess is worth the money. Among his biggest takeaways: “I always drew the line between people who are wealthy and people who are rich,” he says.
The No. 1 money habit of wealthy people
“You can be wealthy ‘whether you’re a schoolteacher or a billionaire’” ~ Paul Sullivan
- Wealth can be defined not as a dollar figure but in terms of what your savings allow you to do.
- Lack of control over your own financial decision-making can be a key indicator of not being wealthy.
- The number one money habit of wealthy people is to write everything down.
Over his tenure writing the column The New York Times, Sullivan talked to nearly several thousand about wealth in America. Unsurprisingly, his No. 1 piece of advice from this collective money wisdom boils down to a rather simple idea. “Have a plan. Write everything down,” Sullivan says.
“As simple as it sounds, it’s important to know how much I’m making, how much I’m saving, how much the house costs,” he points out. “It’s a tedious exercise, but people are always shocked.”
“The wealthiest and most successful people have a plan,” he said. “And it’s not necessarily rigid. They’re regularly looking at it, revising it, and they know where they stand.”
By writing everything down, Sullivan says, you can establish the beginnings of what he calls a “locus of control” — an intentionality around money that is common among people who have the wealth to freely spend on the things that they want.
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