Picture your life as a millionaire for a second. What did you think of?

Like many of us, you looked around for a second and thought of improvements you could make. You looked out at your car and thought of a new, $30,000 sports car with every gizmo imaginable. Maybe even a garage full of other cars? Or you looked around your house and pictured a big, fancy-looking mansion with a swimming pool and hot tub in the back yard. You pictured a giant LCD television with every channel imaginable and a home theater set-up stocked with Blu-ray movies.

You’re doing it wrong.

While it is fun to imagine that kind of life, it’s just not realistic – and if you have aspirations of being financially independent, you have to wave “bye-bye” to those ideas. The problem is, the media has skewed our idea of what being “rich” is all about, and it has brought us horrible, materialistic expectations of what it’s like.

Heck, just think of celebrities. Everyone pays close attention to how much money they spend on everything, but you don’t hear as many conversations about the aftermath of those financial decisions. Case in point: Michael Jackson. The recently-deceased King of Pop had no reason to be broke at this stage of his life. The man was not only a terrific performer; he was a great businessman. He earned millions every year just by owning catalogs of music – including The Beatles’! Add to that one of the highest royalty rates ever paid to a performer and world tours that sold-out everywhere on the heels of the best-selling and most successful albums of all-time, and Michael Jackson was richer than any of us could have dreamed.

But behind that was horrible financial decisions. He famously built a theme park in the backyard of his lavish mansion. He spent millions of dollars in one sitting. He ended up with more stress in his life – and it ultimately cut his life short.

“If only I had a millions dollars…” How many times do you find yourself saying that? Yet you hear stories of Jackson – who had hundreds of millions of dollars – dying bankrupt. Or you hear about the miserable lives of lottery winners who wind up in more debt and wishing they had never won the lottery in the first place. Yet people go back and buy them every freaking day.

As the media eats it up, or shows like MTV’s Cribs air and show people how great it is to be rich, we all suffer. The second we get our hands on some money, we think, “What can I buy with this?” The world creates status symbols that people feel they “need” to have. Never mind that civilization has gone literally thousands of years without iPhones – they’re so trendy, we need them! Forget the fact that there are people who are lucky to have a few outfits to change into while you are cramming clothes into your overstuffed closets – we need to go shopping! There are sales!

Our attitude towards wealth and money needs to change. A great way to start that is by running to your library and getting The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley. In it, he interviews people who are rich, yet they don’t place their value in their possessions. They drive humble, reliable cars. They cut their own lawns. They don’t have servants or giant houses. Their cars are paid off. They have no mortgages on their houses. They saved money and kept it in the bank, even investing it. They know that the joy in being a millionaire is knowing that you and your family are provided for in times of need.

“What’s the fun in that? What’s the point of having a million dollars if you can’t spend it?”

Right there: that’s your problem. Ask yourself, “What exactly is the point of having a million dollars? Why do I want it?” Do you just want it so you can spend it? Then you have to be aware of what that spending will cost you in the long run. Is there any guarantee that you will always be making that kind of money? Is there any guarantee that you won’t have skyrocketing medical bills at some point in your life? Of course not.

You want a million dollars because you want to be free of the financial stresses in your life. But that means that your attitude about money has to change. You need to focus on spending less money. You need to focus on hanging onto it for emergencies. That doesn’t mean you can’t splurge once in a while, but take a good, long look at what you’re buying and its long-term value. Having a million dollars, in the end, doesn’t solve the real problem. It takes an attitude adjustment and a change in your spending lifestyle.

It’s nice to have nice things, but is it worth nickel-and-diming your way to bankruptcy? Is it worth not having the peace of mind that would come with having a solid emergency fund to back up your day-to-day life? Michael Jackson is not the only celebrity that blew through his money and died in debt. Many others have too. It’s a sad way to wind down your life. Rein in some of your spending now and start laying some building blocks for financial freedom down the line. Do it now, and you might actually be a millionaire down the road. Remember: for every million dollars you spend, that’s a million dollars you will never have.

Your thoughts?

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