Get rich quick schemes: Why I believe they are not a way to your becoming wealthy?

Once upon a time in my High School I betted on Senegal winning the 2002 World Cup and lost half of my pocket money simply because a week after I placed the bet Senegal lost to Turkey. It is from that time I said NEVER in my life will I ever bet a gain.

Over time I have been meditating on get-rich-quick schemes and the viability of their money especially given the new schemes that keep coming up each and every other day. It is common to find youth spending all their money (most of them actually use their pocket money or even worse tuition) on schemes such as Sports betting, Forex trading, Telex FREE, WIN competitions by different telecom companies, lotteries etc. During my meditation I was reminded of this verse in the Bible.

Proverbs 13:11 Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears; wealth from hard work grows.

 

I believe this statement/verse is true. I have always observed even in my personal life that there is a difference between the way I spend the money I earn from a hard project I worked on and the money given to free of charge. I always find it way easier for me to spend money I have been given and actually never even care what I spend it out after it comes unexpectedly and there is no sense of the need to account for it. I believe this is one of the major reasons we actually have no rich man around who can attribute obtaining all their wealth from a get-rich quick scheme. There are also a number of other reasons that came to mind as I tried to think about the reasons why people never get rich from these schemes. These include:

1. The lack of knowledge and experience by many of winners/ earners from such schemes on how to handle and manage money. There are specific techniques of how handle and manage money and most of the people who actually get huge sums of money from these schemes do not have these. Most of these skills are learnt from having small sums of money and as the Bible mentions “if you are faithful with little, you can be entrusted with much”. This is the principle where such people lose all the money they have won or “earned” from the schemes.
2. Lack of a plan on what to spend on. Most people have neither a spending plan and then even if they had an investment plan most of them do not know the basic rules of investment such as partnerships, mergers etc. This also clearly explains why people don’t become rich from these schemes.

Over time I have observed common characteristics especially the ones on-line and I would summarise these below:

• They will imply that anyone signing up will become rich within months to a year.
• They will tell potential victims that the route to success is by following “secret formulas” that no one else knows about.
• They will often claim they have been seen on various websites such as Google and YouTube, causing the viewer to assume said websites endorse the product.
• They will use pressuring tactics to get the vicitim to sign up quickly, such as claiming that there are only a certain amount of copies of a CD left, or using special discount prices that are only available for a short amount of time.
• Schemes such as this will often employ the tactic of displaying testimonials from “previous users.”
• When trying to navigate away from their website, users are often presented with popup windows offering further discounts, in an attempt to make the user feel special.
• They use happy faces on the websites and keep using words like “Earn dollars with no efforts”, “Get extra income from the comfort of you home.” etc.

Finally, I call upon all the young people in my generation and those below, lets not be deceived into laziness or even make irrational decisions because of the high unemployment rates. We need to appreciate that money that is going to be beneficial to us comes from hard work so lets go back to the basics, the basics of saving, the basics of not living superficial lives we know we cannot sustain, the basics of planning our expenditures, the basics of prioritization. Let us not just focus on getting rich but have a plan and purpose for our lives and even finances. You do not just want wealth no body only wants that. We all want sustainable wealth and this only comes through hardwork and setting aside certain principles to guide your life. A good place to get principles is the Bible. Get yourself one and READ it. You will be amazed and how much you will then. Now, do not just stop at read, APPLY the principles in your personal life they will help you live a much better life.