Most of us, in one way or another, wish we were wealthy. We might not have aspirations to be billionaires, but I work under the assumption that pretty much everyone would like to be comfortable, to be able to cover their needs, have a little luxury, and have a secure and steady financial situation that provides enough. What "enough" is might differ person to person, but let's just go with an unstated ambiguous amount that provides.
I was reading an article from Finland today that was based on a survey of 3000 Finns as to what they deemed "acceptable" ways to become wealthy, and the results were unsurprising, but still interesting.
29% stated lottery is the most acceptable
22% stated entrepreneurship is the most acceptable
18% stated inheritance is the most acceptable
I don't know what the other 31% said.
What I find interesting is that I get why people will put lottery above inheritance as more acceptable because the work was performed by others, but why would lottery be above entrepreneurship? I can imagine that the respondents might believe that to become wealthy through entrepreneurship requires immoral activity, but anyone, including themselves, are able to play the lottery.
The survey was performed by a bank and the original article can be found here in Finnish. But there were some other interesting numbers involved.
Finns still consider investing to be a much less possible way to get rich than traditional saving. 14 percent of Finns feel that they can become wealthy by investing less than 500 euros per month in shares or securities, and 10 percent feel that they can become wealthy by investing more than 500 euros per month in shares or securities.
I have read it in Finnish a few times, but it doesn't make complete sense, but what is clear is that in Finland at least, the belief that investing will lead to wealth, is not so strong. This is actually quite interesting in itself, because once upon a time, Finns were very good savers, but have not translated that as heavily into investing as other Nordic countries, like the Swedes and the Norwegians. And I think that this also has impact on the way inheritance is seen publicly.
It could be that part of an investment mindset isn't just about risk and reward, but it is also about preparing for the future, including maintenance and growth of assets, but also succession planning on how to maintain and grow after death. In Finland, there is still perhaps the attitude that an individual should be "self-made" and make their own money, rather than benefit from the investments and planning of those before them. It seems that the lottery counts as being self-made.
If this is the case, it has likely hamstrung the investment mindset for many, because "we can't take the money with us", so it is better to spend whilst alive. And then, this in turn will have impacts on the way people teach their children about money, investments and how to plan for their financial future. Perhaps this saving mindset from the past was driven by environmental needs, where cold winters required preparation, but nothing grew in that time. Come spring, growth was only considered as far as making through the next winter.
Thinking about acceptable ways to get wealth, I think that I would probably put entrepreneurship at the top, but I don't think it matters all that much for me as an individual. The ranking is for other people. Would I feel very different about my wealth if I won the lottery or inherited it? Maybe - but I think that if the source is known, I might judge others differently on how they got their wealth.
Would you?
What has more clarity in my opinion, is that how we think about money has an impact on how we are going to manage our financial lives, and probably our careers as well. If we are expecting that windfalls are the best way to build wealth, are we as likely to invest? If we aren't thinking about passing on financial inheritance, are we teaching our children the lessons they need to have healthy financial lives?
Money is not the most important thing in life by most people's measures, yet it often has profound impacts on the things that we value above it. Because of this, even if "not interested" in money, we should probably all spend some time considering how it affects the things that we are interested in, and impacts on the things that are important to us. If we leave our financial wellbeing just up to chance, chances are we aren't going to have our needs met, nor our wants.
Taraz
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