Building wealth: What no one wants to tell you
The world we live in has trained you to spend money.
Wealthist
Financial insights for everyone
There are very few voices telling you how to save money. We're one of them. The life hacks you're seeing on TikTok aren't going to make you rich — they are designed to make you click, scroll, and shop.
Building real wealth comes from making hard decisions that don't feel good in the moment. Things like cutting down on scroll-time and making plans to increase your income. The hard truth is that delaying what you want right now is the only way to build a future that doesn't suck.
So what are the bright spots? We have data, patterns, and lifestyles that really do build wealth and assets over decades.
Growing wealth: Rules that always apply
- Traditional milestones still matter — marriage and shared finances tend to lead to higher net worth.
- Education still pays — college and advanced credentials boost lifetime earnings.
- Where you live influences income potential, but also cost of living.
- Certain jobs and career paths grow wealth faster than others, especially ones tied to knowledge economies.
- Short-term comfort shrinks long-term wealth — delaying consumption allows you to build wealth.
Marriage and money: It's not just about romantic. It’s about financial strength.
Why do traditional life choices matter in today's world? It's not because we need to blindly follow old norms, but because research keeps showing a strong link between long-term partnerships and wealth growth.
Longitudinal studies consistently find that married couples accumulate wealth faster than singles. Individuals who cohabited with one long-term partner before marriage often show higher wealth trajectories than those who remain single or cycle through relationships.
Another economic study shows that married households tend to have higher earnings and net worth, a lot of the time 30+ % higher - even after controlling for age. If you're thinking life is easier on your own, we can pretty confidently say that it's not.
Why? Shared expenses, dual incomes, coordinated planning, and joint savings can create compounding effects that are really hard to replicate alone.
Hard-truth:
Being single isn’t a failure. But if your goal is to build serious capital, getting together with someone deliberately and aligning your financial goals usually accelerates wealth growth compared to doing it all by yourself.
Education is still one of the best investments you can make
There are a lot of voices talking about whether or not college still works in today's world. But the data hasn’t changed as much as social media suggests.
People with bachelor’s degrees earn significantly more than those without across pretty much every stage of their careers. Federal lifetime earnings analyses show that this advantage persists not just early on, but over decades.
Professionals in high-growth fields like engineering, finance, healthcare, and technology earn hundreds of thousands more over a lifetime than peers without degrees. Even when student debt is involved, the earning premium usually outweighs the cost.
And you don't need to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to get your degree. There are tons of low-cost options that give you a degree while training you to make the most of your career.
Hard-truth:
Skipping education might feel like the right move in the short term, but statistically, it will reduce your lifetime earning power.
Where you live definitely matters
It’s tempting to romanticize "city hustle," but the math matters.
Wages are higher in larger cities, especially for high-skill jobs, but expenses rise just as fast. City size can improve job matching and opportunity, but you have to pay attention to how much of your salary goes to life and how much you can keep, save and (hopefully) invest.
Remote work and trends in where people are living have complicated this equation. A lot of workers can now earn larger city-level salaries while living in smaller cities or lower-cost regions. Check out Bankrate's Cost of Living Comparison Calculator to find out how much you'd need to earn in another city to keep up with your current salary. You could also figure out where you could stretch your dollars farther.
- Remote work allows access to high-paying jobs without the highest costs of living. Use this to your advantage.
- Housing costs in major metros can completely erase wage advantages.
- Lots of workers are starting to relocate to more affordable regions to keep their purchasing power high.
Hard-truth:
Geography matters, but so does cost. If you can get high-paying work without paying high living expenses, your money goes farther and compounds faster.
Career choices matter
Not all jobs are equal when it comes to wealth acceleration.
Skilled professions like technology, healthcare, finance, and engineering tend to offer higher incomes, stronger benefits, and clearer paths to long-term savings than lower-wage service roles.
The basics are easy; higher wages allow you to save more, invest more, and keep your money growing instead of struggling to pay bills. Higher-growth employers are also more likely to provide retirement plans and faster advancement. So make some moves that you get you into a faster lane to grow your wealth faster.
Being passionate about your work matters, but passion doesn’t always build your future.
The Matthew Effect — Advantages create more advantages
Sociologists call this the Matthew Effect: advantage compounds advantage. It basically means that if you can start out with a slightly higher salary, you'll find it much easier to continue the trend.
It works the same for habits like saving and investing.
Hard-truth:
Time matters more than perfection. Waiting until you feel “ready” usually means never getting ahead. Start saving a small amount now. Getting that safety net sets you up for the next habit - investing.
The best advice you aren't getting
| Advice | Why it's important | Why it builds wealth |
|---|---|---|
| Chase income, not spending | Your budget should be what you keep and invest, not just what you can buy. | Money that is saved and invested compounds; spending doesn't. |
| Compound savings always wins | Even modest, consistent saving habits grow wealth significantly over time. | Compound savings always beats a keeping-up-with-other-people style of spending like lifestyle upgrades. |
| Relationships can be financial assets | Partnerships build wealth when financial goals align. | Aligned partners save, invest, and plan more efficiently than mismatched ones. |
| Geography can shape long-term wealth | Live where your financial benefit is the highest, not where life looks cool or fun. | Lower costs with stable income accelerate savings and investment ability. Memphis usually beats Manhatten for middle-income people. |
It’s not glamorous, but it’s practical
Building wealth isn’t about perfection. It’s about making decisions your kids or grandkids will thank you for. Thinking decades ahead is the only way to understand how to build a comfortable life. And we can help.
- Use Wealthist education as a lifelong tool, not something you check off and ditch.
- Choose work that pays well and builds long-term skills.
- Live strategically, not Instagram-ably.
- Don’t underestimate shared financial life choices.
You don’t have to follow a traditional path, but you do have to understand the rules that have always governed wealth. Making smart choices early isn’t always sexy. It just works.
Keep learning
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