Are you familiar with the term “rat race”? It is the comparison of many people’s lives to a rodent running in a wheel. You expend endless amounts of energy while standing still. Most often the term is used in the context of wealth and financial situation.
How do you know if you’re running a rat race?
The rat race is far from being run only by relatively poor people. On the contrary, it can involve even the wealthiest individuals. In fact, people tend to increase their spending as their income increases.
Thus, a person earning the minimum or average wage will live in a small, modest apartment outside the city, buy basic groceries at a discount, and take vacations only in the Czech Republic or to classic cheap destinations within Europe.
A richer person running the rat race may well be earning many times the average wage. But he spends all his money on a big house, luxury cars (he has multimillion-dollar loans to pay off), exotic holidays, luxury mobile phones, watches, jewellery and more.
As a result, both individuals need to work to live, otherwise they will lose their standard of living immediately. Meanwhile, many such people are doing work that does not fulfill them. And so, for the sake of the money they spend, they spend a significant part of their lives doing activities they do not want to do. After a few years, they feel that they are losing out in life.
If you have similar feelings and are in a similar situation, then you are probably running a rat race.
How to jump out of the rat race?
Your goal should be that at some stage in your life you will have assets and funds such that you are not dependent on a regular income from your job or business. This does not mean that you have to sit at home and do nothing. But you will have absolute freedom in what you want to do and nothing will stop you from changing anything if you need to.
As you may have guessed from the previous lines, you will have to learn to put money away to achieve this goal. Thus, in the case of the first “poorer” person mentioned above, you will need to find new sources of income. The above-average earner, on the other hand, will have to learn to cut back on his or her spending.
You have to achieve that your personal and family budget will be in surplus. You will not spend the surplus money, but you will invest it.
You need money to work for you
The more money you can put aside, the better. But a checking or savings account won’t get you out of the rat race. You need to invest your money in the financial markets, in real estate, or even in art and collectibles. It depends on what you understand and what can bring interesting appreciation.
Cryptocurrencies can also be an opportunity
In addition to traditional investments in, for example, stocks or bonds, you can also try more modern alternatives. The price of bitcoin has fallen quite significantly in recent months. So there may be opportunities to quickly appreciate even small amounts of money. You can also trade cryptocurrencies for Czech crowns on the leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinmate.io. Cryptocurrencies can be part of your way out of the rat race.
