[csicseri]

One thing I'd encourage you to ask yourself is: what concretely are the things you would like to have in your life that you perceive as currently unattainable because you don't have enough money?

Your answer might simply be "a humongous bank balance" - and if so that's perfectly fine; money is (one way) that people "keep score" in life, and some people are motivated simply by trying to bag that high score. We've all heard of people who spend all their time accumulating enormous sums while living frugally, and die without apparently ever really getting to enjoy the fruits of their labor -- in many such cases I would argue that this is simply because it's the labor itself they enjoyed most, the chase after wealth, rather than what the wealth could buy them.

But let's be honest: many, if not most people who wish they were richer aren't looking at that bank balance as an end in itself. They want certain things from life, and those things vary a great deal from person to person. You might want to buy a big house. You might want to be able to indulge your expensive hobbies. You might want to travel the world. You might simply want to quit working and go lie on the beach and drink Mai Tais all day. Or perhaps it's the exact opposite: you have a big idea that you desperately want to work on you need the money to invest in that. Or you might actually not care so much about buying stuff: maybe you long for the feeling of having other people perceive you as rich, for example, or you want to exert power over other people in your environment.

I think it might be helpful to try to challenge yourself to identify what you would like to achieve, without reference to money. (Assuming you aren't one of those rare people for whom the bank balance in itself is the only goal - if so, ignore this exercise entirely.) Make a list, prioritizing it to the extent possible. Be honest with yourself (you're the only person who has to see this list): if, for example, the status of having other people perceive you as wealthy is important to you, write it down.

Then, go down your list and try to estimate how much money, realistically, you would need to attain each item.

Finally, go down the list again and, for each item, think about whether there are ways you could achieve it without getting rich. Write down all your ideas, even if they seem ridiculous or impractical. For example, you might want to travel the world, and being rich would certainly make that possible in a straightforward way, but plenty of people throughout history have "gone nomad" on little or no money. It might seem unthinkable given your current situation, family, etc. - or it might be that your idea of traveling the world is first-class airfare, not hitchhiking. That's fine. You should still write it down as a theoretical alternative, along with the objections. If (sticking with the example) world travel is is high on your list, it's helpful to clarify to yourself exactly what is keeping you from "just doing it," that is -- in the extreme case of not being able to afford it -- wandering the world with nothing more to your name than a backpack and a willingness to do odd jobs and see where life takes you. Is it because that's not what you mean when you say world travel, or is it because you have obligations you feel you can't throw over, or is it something else?

You may find that there are alternative, no- or little-money solutions to many of your goals, at least some of which may not be entirely impractical. Lots of times, befriending the right people can get you access to resources and experiences you might otherwise have to spend a huge amount of money. Are there things on your list that you could attain this way?

Other times, you might find something that isn't within your personal reach achievable if you join forces with others. For example, you might really, really want a plane. That can be pretty expensive of course (not so much the purchase, but everything else that goes around it), but lots of pilots pool their resources and own planes jointly with others, or simply join a flying club. You mentioned woodworking; let's assume for the sake of argument that you yearn for a really well-equipped woodshop. That can be expensive (especially if you need to buy a bigger house so you have room for it!) But -- be creative. Is there a makerspace near you? If not -- what if you founded one? (Aside from the "joining forces" aspect, makerspaces can often attract valuable equipment and space donations.) Go beyond the obvious if you can: could you, say, wangle yourself into a part-time job teaching woodworking to students at a school with a well-equipped shop but no one to use it?

Even if one of your goals is "have others perceive me as being rich" -- throughout the ages, lots and lots of people have been very successful at presenting themselves as much wealthier than they actually are. It's a skill you may be able develop, if that's actually what you want, what makes you happy.

At the end of the exercise, try to come up with a plan. You may have certain goals that you realize you can potentially attain via alternative methods. If they're important enough to you, you might even realize in the course of examining things that your best road is to disrupt your current life in a way that you previously thought unthinkable. You might have other goals that you decide aren't so important after all, that perhaps you're willing to abandon for the time being. And undoubtedly there will be some goals that are both very important to you and that you feel, realistically, are only attainable by amassing enough money - the amount that you estimated in your first pass over the list.

Arrange those goals in the order you want to achieve them - some things, after all, you might be able to delay for a significant time (e.g. tuition to college of choice for currently school-age kids), whereas others you might be unwilling to delay any longer. Try to assign approximate timelines for each.

If you plot these on a graph, you arrive at a very rough estimate of future expenditures. You now have a concrete target -- not just a single number, but a time series -- for the wealth that you want to accumulate. If you're lucky, this isn't overly front-loaded. If you need a million dollars for something you feel you just have to have tomorrow, you might just be out of luck. (Although, depending on what it is, you might be able to use appropriate leverage. Starting a business is your goal? What sources of credit could you potentially scare up?)

Best case scenario, your graph starts relatively low and trends up over time (that is, you can delay progressively larger expenditures for longer). Then, draw a curve based on your current wealth and investable income, projecting growth forward at a reasonable rate of return, and taking into account your projected future expenditures. If you're really lucky, then that curve stays above the expenditure timeline the whole way. Then you're done -- no need to worry any more about getting rich, because by your definition of being rich (being able to afford all the things you want, when you want them) you already are. :-)

[csicseri]

[continued] Seriously, that probably isn't your situation. Even after exploring alternative paths to your goals, there are expensive things you want that you will never be able to attain based on your current wealth and income. Assuming you don't win the lottery, receive an inheritance from a long-lost uncle, or find a giant bag of money on the street, you can't change your starting wealth, so project the curve forward again using various incomes. Don't forget to take into account the possibility of not changing your gross income, but increasing the proportion of it you can invest, if that is a possibility.

Eventually you should arrive at roughly the income that you need to be "rich" (in the sense of being able to afford everything you actually want). In my experience, this number could very well be much smaller than you would have guessed before you did the whole exercise. It might seem much, much more attainable than it was when your only goal. This is important, because sometimes realizing your goals are more attainable than you thought is the thing that will propel you to take that first step.

What that first step should be? I honestly can't say. I don't have any real insight into how to get rich quick; I doubt anyone does.

For me personally, the process of assessing what I really wanted from life and how much money I'd need to do it led me, about ten years ago, to make a career change. It wasn't anything super-dramatic or risky, and I had no expectations of becoming wealthy. That wasn't my intent per se - what I wanted was a reasonable assurance, as I approached middle age, that I'd be able to achieve certain goals that were important to me. I left my life of genteel poverty (a.k.a. academia) and joined a small company, and did my best to help make it a somewhat larger company. I succeeded pretty well in that and made more than enough to achieve all the things on my personal list. The remainder, for me, has been gravy. To be fair, I've mostly avoided "shifting the goalposts," that is, wanting more and more expensive things as my wealth increased. That's a trap that is easy to fall into.

I think the average person, somehow seeing my bank balance toay, would class me as rich (not obscenely so by any means, but I'm definitely more than well-off). The point is: I never set out to be rich. Ten years ago, I would never have even dreamed of ending up where I did. I didn't join a small company thinking "startup, I might cash out and be rich." I thought it was just... a "small company." I didn't even know what stock options were when I got them - I threw them in a drawer and forgot about them. If they had never amounted to anything and I had just continued to draw my salary to this day... well, I'd probably be just as happy as I am now. Why? Because I evaluated, ten years ago, what I'd actually need to be happy, and realized that I could make a few changes in my life and be fairly confident of being able to afford those things. If the stock-option windfall had never come, I might not be "rich" today by the average person's definition, but I'd still all the major things that I wanted from that list, and more. In other words, I'd be rich by my own definition.