Living Rich for Less

By Arthur Thares

What if you could save $10 a week? What about $100? What if you could even finally afford that dream vacation or a down payment on a house? This is not a get rich quick scheme. This is not a sales pitch. What it is is a secret that is finally ready to be revealed. The book itself may as well be free because you will make the price of the book back and more in just the first week. The author mixes in helpful tips with his own brand of humor to both educate and entertain you while you learn how to keep more of your hard earned money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arthur Thares
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311667984

Arthur Thares

Arthur Thares is a passionate writer with the goal to entertain and maybe teach a little something along the way. He loves to write everything fiction and when it comes to non-fiction he has found niches in home, fitness, technology, and parenting categories. Arthur lives in Minnesota with his wife and two daughters and is always working toward his goal of being a full time writer and dad. Arthur has been lucky enough to write for many websites, some major and some not so much as well as writing or his own blogs awesomehouseblog.com and movingpicturebox.com. He has also published multiple books including How to Host a DInner Party, Living Rich or Less, and Monsters Don'e Exist and 11 Other Stories with Killer Endings.

Book preview

Living Rich For Less

By Arthur Thares

Living Rich for Less

Copyright 2014 Arthur Thares

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

Chapter 1

Let’s not kid ourselves that our economy has gotten any better. I don’t mean within the past four years; I mean ever. Unless you are in the one percent you have before and will continue to struggle. Myself, for example, I grew up with little and sometimes nothing. Though I have come a long way from where I was I still am not where I would like to be. I have a feeling that most people feel the same way. In fact; isn’t that the true American dream? It’s not only to make something of yourself, but to do better than your parents did. With what we have been given lately that seems nearly impossible, but I am here to tell you that it’s not.

It may take a little work but you can have a lot for a little. You may not have caviar and the whole nine yards but you may find yourself in some designer duds. There are two very important factors to living rich for less. Number one is getting everything you can for as little as you can and the other is feeling like a million bucks while doing it. This book is not about pinching pennies, it is about living a richer life in both goods and in spirit.

If you have not gathered by the words you have read yet I am a writer. As a writer I am somewhat of a perpetual starving artist. While that works great in your early twenties I have found that you can’t pay the mortgage on dreams alone. With two kids to support I was struggling to meet even the most basic of needs and with no way to make an extra income and very little fat left on the budget I had to figure something out. One day while skimming through craigslist something dawned on me. What if I could get things for free? Not from the government, and not someone else’s garbage, but actual brand new, no strings attached, free things.

After a quick search of the internet I was surprised to see just how much I could get for absolutely free. For instance I do not think I have paid more than 10 dollars for personal hygiene items since I started my transformation. It is not just free samples either; many of the sites I visited made it easy to use coupons to get free full sized items in the store. This is not extreme couponing, I do not have the time or the patience for this type of thing, and I am willing to bet that you do not either. From there other opportunities began to pop up and my life and my money began to start moving in an upward fashion for once.

I should probably go back to the very beginning; my Genesis of sorts. I grew up poor. Not we always had used cars poor; more like free lunch, WIC, Red Lobster is too expensive poor. With that kind of upbringing you would think that I would pinch every penny, but the problem was I was raised in a way that said a penny earned should be spent on something. I lived that way until my wife became pregnant with our first child. That was the first time that I REALLY realized the value of money. At that time I was working a dead end job with zero extra income and no choices.

I tried hundreds of different get rich quick schemes and looked into hundreds more between the time my daughter was born and the time she was about a year old. Then I had an idea, and idea that happens to be the first piece of advice in this book. What if I do something I am passionate about? That thing was writing. So I did some research…Well, a lot of research. And found a place that was willing to hire me to work for pennies on the dollar. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! However, those pennies on the dollar quickly became a portfolio and sooner than later I was already commanding lower than average pay. The point is if there is something that you can do in your downtime that you are passionate about and can make you a few bucks then do it.

When my wife became pregnant with baby number two it was obvious that what I was doing just wasn’t going to cut it. That was the moment that I made the revelation that if I could not make more I would spend less. While the get get rich quick schemes didn’t work the get poor slower schemes kicked in within a month.

I am not going to promise to change your life because I do not know you. This book will not make you more attractive (I am sure that you are attractive enough already.) What this book is going to do is hit you at three different levels to make you the best you that you can possibly be. At one end you will learn how to live as poor as you possibly can, at the other end you will learn how to live richer than you could possibly imagine. The glue that holds them both together is making the positive changes in your life that make you the best possible person you can be.

Overnight transformation is nearly impossible, and I would be selling you a bill of goods if I told you that it was. What I will promise you is that if you follow all of the tips in this book you will start living a happier, more fulfilled life. Best