Seven habits that make you poor, and seven that don't
A man's salary goes from 8,000 to 12,000 AED and the month stays as tight as it was. It goes to 18,000 and it's still tight. The trouble is habits that stretch with the figure and eat it. This lesson goes through seven of them, each with what to do instead. Don't try to change all seven in a week. Pick two.
What you'll have at the end
A list showing which of the seven you have, and two you start changing this week with a dated first step.
Habit one: "I don't know where the salary goes"
The line everyone says with a smile, and the most dangerous of the seven because everything else is built on it. The replacement is simpler than any spreadsheet: log at the moment it happens. Out of the supermarket, log 65. Ordered dinner, log 120. At the end of the first month you'll have a below-the-line figure on your map that surprises you, and you'll see most of the gap is purchases under 100.
Habit two: saving whatever is left
Nothing is ever left, for anyone. The replacement is a fixed share taken in the first hour after the salary lands, 10 percent if you can, 5 if you can't, into somewhere you don't see in your wallet. That cushion is what the whole of module 4 gets built on, and if you take one thing from this lesson, take this.
Habit three: cheapest price instead of best value
A pair of jeans at 250 AED that lasts four years is cheaper than a pair at 90 you replace every year. Same sum for shoes, a washing machine, a phone. The useful question is "what does it cost per year?". Divide the price by the years you expect it to last, and compare.
Habit four: adapting by going without
Income is 6,000, so you go out less, then put off the dentist, then drop the fruit. It's a battle you lose every month, because prices go up while you go down. The replacement is to put half your effort on the other side of the sheet: raising income. An hour a day learning a skill that sells, or a small piece of work at the weekend. Lesson 1.4 is entirely about that side.
Habit five: saving on healthy food
Fat, salt and sugar are cheaper today and far more expensive in ten years, when the difference gets paid to a hospital. Vegetables, pulses and salad are already cheaper than ready meals in most of the region, and the difference shows in sleep and concentration long before it shows in medical bills.
Habit six: the hours on the screen
Three hours a day on the phone after work is a thousand hours a year. The wealthy whose habits were studied across millions of cases in twenty-five countries read and learn in those hours, and 65 percent of them built three income streams. You don't need all three hours. Take one.
Habit seven: blaming what's outside
The country, prices, family, the spouse, an illness. All real, and not one of them will fix things on your behalf. The moment you say "this is my situation and I'm responsible for it" is the first moment anything can change, and before it, nothing in this course works.
What you don't do for money
The worst mistakes on the way to wealth are the ones that look like success. A father spends his life buying a flat for each son, and the sons grow up unable to earn and complaining about the location. Another skips prayers and misses his children for twenty years, then comes home to a house he doesn't know. Wealth that costs you your faith or your children is a loss under another name, and a large fortune left to children does them more harm than good. Earn, and teach them to earn.
Where most people trip
Trying to change all seven at once, then dropping the lot after two weeks. Habits one and two are enough for the first month: log everything, take your share on payday. The rest follows.
Tonight's exercise
Tick the ones you found in yourself. Pick two and write the first step under each with a date: "From October's salary I transfer 500 the same day." "From tomorrow I log every expense before I walk in the door."
Questions I get asked
I can't set aside 10 percent, I barely finish the month.
Start at 2. A hundred out of 5,000. The figure doesn't matter in month one; the habit is what we're building.
This abundance mindset I keep hearing about, is it empty motivational talk?
Most of the famous books are, and some rest on invented stories. What's true in them is one sentence: there are more opportunities around than you think, and you won't see them while counting what you lack. The rest is work.
Should I teach my children this now?
Yes, and there's a whole lesson for them in module 7. For now it's enough that they see you logging what you spend.
Start 30 days with Fawatery and flip habit one in a week: voice logging at the moment it happens, and a real figure at month end
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Based on: "How to become poor in 7 steps" and "The wealth mindset, wealth books summary part 2".
The next lesson takes habit four seriously: how a household goes from one income source to two and then three, without leaving the job.