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    How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad
    How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad
    How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad

    By Robert Sullivan

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Some people are just naturally good at not getting rich. They didn't buy Microsoft when a friend mentioned that he was helping start up a new software company. They sold their apartment in Manhattan for a song in the seventies, instinctively believing the real estate market would never, ever come back. These people have built-in wealth prevention systems that steer them safely away from big money even in the most wealth-rich intersections of their lives.
    In this book, Robert Sullivan, an expert in the art of not getting rich and staying that way, shows us some simple, non-time consuming ways to cultivate a basic day-to-day attitude that will lead to not getting rich, as well as a few long-term strategies that will help you stay that way. For instance, a good well-rounded education is a must if you are planning on working your entire life and ending up with little or nothing. Choose a field of study that will be personally rewarding but has no apparent application in the real world, such as medieval literature or traditional music. And by all means choose an investment strategy that will definitely not get you rich, such as following the herd. Along the way, spend your money unwisely, read novels and books (a habit that will greatly aid you in your pursuit to not be rich), marry for love, and waste otherwise money-making hours throwing a Frisbee in the park or even playing with your kids, becoming the kind of role model that will never be featured on Forbes's list of the wealthiest people in the world. Sharp, funny, and ultimately comforting, How Not to Get Rich is a guide to happiness without wealth, not that the author wouldn't mind a little wealth with his happiness. How Not to Get Rich is probably not worth the price, but what is?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateDec 5, 2008
    ISBN9781596919150
    How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad
    Author

    Robert Sullivan

    Robert Sullivan is the author of Rats, The Meadowlands, A Whale Hunt, and most recently, The Thoreau You Don't Know. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York, A Public Space and Vogue, where he is a contributing editor. He was born in Manhattan and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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    • 3/5
      This is a clever satire of the how to get rich books that popped up when I tried to search for this one. A very few people, if any, who read this will really be searching for ways not to become wealthy, but most others who pick it up without this intention will discover, as the title says, why being bad off isn't so bad, a modern revival of Thoreau's basic message. The author is witty and, like many people who are not forcefully goal-directed, is typically in no hurry to get to the point, another endearing quality of those not seeking to become rich.

    Book preview

    How Not to Get Rich - Robert Sullivan

    How Not to Get Rich

    By the same author

    The Meadowlands

    A Whale Hunt

    Rats

    How Not to Get Rich

    Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad

    Robert Sullivan

    Illustrations by Scott Menchin

    BLOOMSBURY

    Copyright © 2005 by Robert Sullivan

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury Publishing, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

    Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York and London Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers

    All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Sullivan, Robert, 1963-

    How not to get rich, or why being bad off isn't so bad / by Robert Sullivan; illustrations by Scott Menchin.—1st U.S. ed.

    p. cm.

    Includes bibliographical references.

    eISBN: 978-1-59691-915-0

    1. Finance, Personal—Humor. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Humor. I. Title.

    HG179.S852 2005

    332.024W0207—dc22

    2005040992

    First U.S. Edition 2005

    3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

    Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

    Printed in the United States of America

    by Quebecor World Fairfield

    For Suzanne

    Contents

    Author's Note

    Foreword by Peter DeLuvy

    How Not to Get Rich

    The Not Rich and History

    How to Cultivate the Attitude That Will Lead to Not Getting Rich

    How to Act in Given Situations While Attempting to Cultivate the Attitude That Will Lead to Not Getting Rich

    How to Choose a Career That Will Not Get You Rich No Matter What Anyone Tells You

    How to Choose an Investment Strategy That Will Definitely Not Get You Rich

    A Brief Note on the Importance of Upbringing; or, Are We Born Unrich?

    Another Brief Note, This Time on Loyalty, Which Seems to Pertain to Our Goal, Though Perhaps Only Tangentially

    How to Spend the Bulk of Your Leisure Time If You Are Not Going to Get Rich, Probably Ever

    How to Handle One Particular Life So That You Don't Wake Up One Day and Suddenly Discover That You Are Rich

    How Not to Not Get Rich

    How to Manage Your Time in General So That You Don't Wind Up a Billionaire or Anything Even Close to It

    Wrapping Up on How Not to Get i.e., Concluding That Even If You Do Your Best, Something Might Go Wrong and You Could End Up Being Compared to a Rockefeller or Someone Even Richer

    Terms

    Appendix 1

    Appendix 2

    Appendix 3

    Notes

    Your Notes on How Not to Get Rich

    The life that is unexamined is not worth living.¹

    — Plato, as quoted by Phil McGraw, the television

    therapist who is better known as Dr. Phil, in his

    best-selling how-to book Life Strategies:

    Doing What Works, Doing What Matters

    A perfect solution is being a multimillionaire. I'm perfectly happy with not being a multimillionaire.

    — My wife, when once we were trying to figure out

    what to do in a situation where we needed money

    but did not have it and couldn't really expect to get it

    Author's Note

    THIS BOOK is intended to help you not get rich or, if you are currently not rich, to stay that way. The author makes no claims as to the effectiveness of the advice herein and in no way does he guarantee that by reading this book, the reader will stay not rich. If, for instance, the reader comes up with an idea that changes the world—gourmet coffee comes to mind, as well as Velcro and baby monitors—and in executing said idea subsequently strikes it rich, then the author cannot be held liable in any way. If, likewise, the reader has an extremely wealthy relative who passes away and leaves an enormous amount of money to the reader, then the reader should not come knocking at the author's door. The fact is, there's not a lot the reader can do about suddenly coming into a load of money, short of giving away all that money, which, if you ask the author, is not a good idea. Don't get me wrong; I'm for charity and giving and so on. But giving away all of your money would be a little nutty. But we're getting off the point, which is, if you go and get rich after reading this book, it's not my fault. I certainly didn't have anything to do with it.

    Foreword

    By Peter DeLuvy

    LET ME begin by saying that I was persuaded to write the foreword to this book on pretenses that, while not false, were at the very least unclear, and while it is true that I can't prove that the publisher or anyone else said anything about a free sports car, one has to wonder about an author who calls up a person of my stature in the professional moneymaking world at three in the morning and wrangles an agreement of any kind, much less a foreword. I should add that even after conferring with my lawyer and discovering that I was legally obliged to pen these words, I read the manuscript and attempted to dissuade the author from going ahead with publication. A question that repeatedly arose during my consultations with the author was What's the point in all this? It goes without saying that the author did not have much to say in his defense, if anything. True, he did sound distracted on the phone, but I wonder if the moving men were merely arranged for effect. On the other hand, there seems to be a theory behind the book, though what it is I am not equipped to say. I would further posit the existence of some deep if useless understanding of precisely how not to get rich on the apparent author's part. At the very least, I can attest to the indisputable fact that

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