Looking Poor: A Challenge That Would Make You Rich

I see a lot of my childhood friends getting better things in life. You know, the usual car, house, big bikes, travel, jewelries, nice clothes, nice watches, nice gadgets. While these are good things. These are just that... "things".

While me, this...

I have another way to look at it. If I buy a car, its not a one time expense, I also pay for the maintenance, the accessories (for the avid fanatics) and the gas price. Same thing for the other nice things. All of those are not just one time expense. They are recurring expenses. When I buy something, I already think if there are future expenses to own those things.

Does all those things, when purchased, help me reach my goals? If buying these things wouldn't make me rich, then why are people buying it? Perhaps it is to "look rich".

Warren Buffett said, "You can either look rich or be rich. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time to be both."

Here is my challenge...

Look poor.

Wear worn out jeans, wear slippers to the mall, ride a bike that you yourself maintain, borrow tools from relatives, buy used gadgets, buy broken gadgets and repair them, eat at cheap restaurants or better yet, learn to cook. Be creative at looking poor. There's a lot of fun in doing it. I myself enjoy it.

I remember the time when a friend asked me, "you seem to be doing good, you have your own business, but you don't look like your getting anything out of it. Where's the car? You walk everywhere. Where's the house? And why don't you get rid of that awful cellphone? ". I own a Nokia 3310. I still own it to this day. The only reply I told him was that I don't need it and I'm just doing "alright" not good but alright.

I would like to reply that I invest all my money in the stock market and other things. But I don't want to look rich nor look intelligent.

He has a nice car. A Subaru STX. Nice clothes, phone and everything that rich people own. I don't want to tell him that he's making a mistake nor to enter a pissing competition.

I don't want any attention.

There's a great feeling in doing all of this. You get to meet genuine people who will not judge you based on how much money you have in the bank. And thus, you'll have friends / relationships that will want to be with you not because of your money. No one will ask you to help them in their financial needs. Everyone will look down on you. You will be misunderstood. But its great training. In life, you can't explain yourself to everyone. You will learn to let go of your ego and your eagerness to explain yourself. You don't have to. You don't need to.

Looking poor gives you that freedom that rich people don't have. You can walk anywhere without worrying if you'll be robbed. Imagine that, you can now travel anywhere you want, with peace of mind.

You will be rich. Because there's not much money involved in maintaining your status or appearance. You'll save a lot of money without everyone noticing it. More money means, earlier to buy your freedom from the rat race.

And most of all. Its really fun to look poor. There's a feeling that when you look poor among your peers, you don't look like a threat to them. They'll like you more. Much like insecure people like dumb people, cause they make themselves look smart. :)

Oh, maybe you could do both. Look poor and dumb. That could be fun.