5 Ways to Get Rich Without Stocks

In my ongoing effort to shock you with contrarian (and sometimes counterintuitive) truths about building wealth, I give you this little nugget to chew on today:

You cannot become wealthy by investing in the stock and bond market.

(Please keep this on the down low. If my colleagues in the financial services industry knew I said that, they would have me tarred and feathered!)

The financial services industry—and by that I include brokerages, private bankers, and insurance agents, as well as investment newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and Internet publications—is a huge multibillion-dollar business based on hard work, clever thinking, and sophisticated algorithms. But also on one teensy-weensy lie.

The lie is that you can grow wealthy through investing in stocks and bonds.

It’s not a big, black lie. There is plenty of evidence that strategic stock investing can provide returns that exceed investment costs (brokerage fees, management fees, subscription fees, etc.) and even produce positive returns after inflation.

But to do that, you need time. More time than you probably have. Today I’ll explain how you can become wealthy when you don’t have a lot of time.

Let’s say you have $50,000 to invest. And let’s say you invested it according to a really good investment strategy. And let’s assume that things go well. And by well I mean that you make, on average, 10%. If you had started on January 1, 2015, by December 31, 2024, your $50,000 would have increased to $129,687.

That’s not bad. But it hardly makes you wealthy. So let’s say you were willing to extend your investment horizon to 20 years. Beginning at the same time with the same $50,000, you would have $336,375 on December 31, 2034.

That’s better, but it’s still a far cry from making you wealthy. So let’s push the investment horizon to 30 years. By December 31, 2044, you would have $872,470.

If you made 10% on that $872,470 nest egg, you’d have a yearly income of $87,200. After taxes, you’d take home about $65,000 per year. That’s okay, but it’s hardly wealthy. And that’s after investing for 30 years!

Most of the people reading my blog don’t have 30 years to wait. Based on what I know about my readership, I’d say my readers’ average wait period is 10-15 years.

So what’s a middle-aged (or older) wealth seeker to do? You can start by deconstructing the little lie. Building wealth involves much more than just investing in stocks and bonds.

Most rich people get that way by consistently doing the following five things:

1. They understand and manage their debt. They don’t let debt manage them.

2. They are not self-indulgent spenders, but aggressive savers, far outpacing their peers.

3. They invest in stocks and bonds with discipline. But they don’t expect stocks and bonds to make them wealthy.

4. Their primary focus is on increasing their active income. Usually, this comes from a business they know inside and out.

5. They invest in real estate and other “outside Wall Street” opportunities.

As you can see, investing in stocks and bonds is only one of five strategies you must follow to become rich.

In fact—most of the rich guys I know spend little or no time investing in stocks and bonds.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that investing in stocks and bonds has no value. It is essential. But it was not and will never be my core strategy for accumulating wealth.

It is certainly possible to become wealthy through stocks and bonds. But you have to devote 40-plus hours per week to it. And you have to be very disciplined. And you have to do it for a long, long time.

If you don’t have that time, you have to take another course. And the entire reason for my writing "Seven Years to Seven Figures" is to help you supplement your stock and bond investing by putting into play the strategies that will help you to become wealthy.

If you want to get wealthy in fewer than 30 years, you should pay attention. Devote a couple of hours per week to managing your stock and bond investments and spend the rest of your working time on the other wealth building strategies listed above.

You may be thinking, “I don’t need to be told to limit my spending or manage my debt. I already know how to do that.”

My response to that: Do you?

Or you may be thinking, “I already lost money in real estate. I have no interest in doing that.” My response: If you lost money, it is because you did exactly the wrong thing. Real estate investing, if you do it the right way, is the easiest way to build wealth. That is why most self-made billionaires have large real estate portfolios.

Or perhaps you don’t like my idea that you must—must—increase your income. Most people reading Seven Years to Seven Figures have been working hard for 30 or more years to raise families and put their children through school. They want to stop working for income. They want to quit their jobs and invest in stocks and bonds. They want to take it easy.

Giving up your active income is the single biggest financial mistake you can make. Your active income is essential to building your wealth. If you want to retire someday and don’t have at least $250,000 put aside for that purpose, you need more income.

The good news is that there are all sorts of ways to do that. Just as there are all sorts of clever ways to manage your debt, get more value out of your spending, and ratchet up your savings.$

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