Students, get ready for the best free financial advice of your lives.
If there’s a secret to getting rich — this is it.
Here it is: Spend your money on things that make you more money.
That’s it. No, really.
People in the middle and lower classes, upon receiving cash, usually spend it on things that cost them more money.
For instance, their paychecks turn into cars, boats, houses, etc.
But you can easily gain exponential amounts of cash if you were to spend your money on things which produce, rather than take, your money.
Let’s say you come into a large amount of cash, $100,000. You then decide this is a great opportunity to pay off some school loans, buy a car and put a significant down payment on a house.
What a situation you’ve gotten yourself into now.
You’ve lost the cash, and with the small income you have, you took in two new large debts and paid off long-term debts far before it was feasible. On top of those bills, you now have more expensive electricity bills, even more expensive repairs on the car and no cash to pay them with.
So what should you have done instead?
I’m glad you asked.
You could instead buy, start or invest in a small business. Stocks also have potential, but be very careful with stocks, and don’t put any cash down that you can’t afford to lose completely.  
So you’ve instead picked up a small investment, and it’s now doing fairly well. It could be anything — a karate or dance school, a small coffee shop or even a sign printing business — anything that brings in money.
And this is the main point. You don’t even have to manage it if you don’t want to. You can hire a manager to run it, given it’s economically feasible to do so, and just collect the cash. The point is, the investment is making you cash for little to no work, or at least it should be.
Now, let’s say you’re collecting a modest $1,000 a month from that investment. You could use the income to pay off student loans, an apartment or whatever the month calls for. It could just be drinking money — it’s your call.
But that wouldn’t make money for you, it would cost you more.
Instead, you could take the $1,000 dollars and put it into a high-yield savings account. Let it build for a couple of years, then buy something else to bring in money, or even expand the first investment. Now you’re bringing more money in with little to no work for you.
There’s the secret. Buy things that make you money, not take it away.
Go forth, and do likewise.
Devin Graham is a 21-year-old business management senior from Prairieville. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_dgraham.
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Contact Devin Graham [email protected]