“Many a mickle”, or the road to becoming a millionaire
How anyone, no matter what they earn, can get onto the road to wealth. The next time you’re eyeing up that $10 in your wallet and thinking hmm…, remember these 6 words that have changed many people’s financial lives for the better.
Have you ever looked into your wallet or bank account, saw just a few dollars sitting there, maybe 10 maybe 15 dollars and thought, wow what a great opportunity to grow my personal wealth and retire early? No, of course not. You’ve probably just gone through in your mind all of the ways you could spend it.
“Man, a pizza would go down pretty good right now”
What if I told you spending that money on pizza now would mean you’d be eating tinned beans when you’re retired? Ok, maybe I’m being a bit too over the top, but the point is, ask a financially successful person how to become wealthy, and the first advice they’d give you would be “save your money”.
Ten, twenty dollars might not seem like so much of a big deal but the factor we don’t often think about at the time… is time. How many times, over how many months, years, have I or will I spend that small amount of money on something trivial instead of locking it away somewhere?
Gordon Jackson was a Scottish actor who is best remembered for his parts in the 1960’s films “The Great Escape” and “Mutiny on the Bounty”. In the 70’s he was hired by a UK supermarket chain called “Fine Fare” to do a TV ad. Fine Fare was the first supermarket in the UK to bring out a budget range of own-brand products. In the ad, Gordon dispenses some sage Scottish advice to a child:
Many a mickle makes a muckle!
Which he’d then kindly translate for English viewers as look after the pennies, and the pounds look after themselves.
If you haven’t worked it out, a mickle is a small amount of something and a muckle is a large amount of something.
You probably don’t realise it, but small amounts if saved daily are powerful. You might only be able to put away $5 or $10 each time, but each of these tiny investments are little seeds. Seeds that with time, and with being left to grow (or “compound”), become giant oak trees.
But you’re thinking — “I barely make enough money as it is to start putting away $10 regularly” — and — “when did that ever make anyone rich”.
The answer is plenty of people! The internet is littered with stories of ordinary folk on very modest wages who (through saving whatever small sums they could, and then investing them) managed to amass enormous sums of money. Most (sensibly) don’t shout about it and it’s only when they make a huge donation or leave massive amounts in their will to universities and hospitals that their stories make the headlines.
Take for example, Ronald Read, a Vermont janitor and gas station attendant who, by the time he passed away in 2015 had managed to accumulate $8 million. Or Genesio Morlacci of Montana, a dry cleaner who, during his retirement, donated $2.3 million to fund university scholarships for less privileged students.
If you made a list of the world’s not-so-famous wealthiest people who started with nothing, you’d find most of their rags to riches stories involve at least 2 things: putting away money regularly, and the power of time, or “compounding”. The trick is to get into the habit early, of saving little and often.
So, next time you’re eyeing up that $10 in your wallet and thinking hmm, New York-Style or Chicago Deep-Dish, remember those 6 words that have changed many people’s financial lives for the better — “Many a mickle makes a muckle!”
Hope you found this post useful, let us know in the comments if anything stood out as most interesting to you.
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