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• How to get rich: tips from Warren Buffett

Last week was a real bastard for the stock market. Stocks were going down quicker than a porn star on a tight schedule and the government was left to try to keep the whole thing from falling apart. It was sort of scary, I suppose, since I don’t even trust the government to do small things, let alone keep an entire financial structure from crumbling. It was sort of a nice time not to have any money though. “Oh, wow, that sucks for them. I’m so glad I don’t have any money tied up in investments. That can really drag a person down.” I was thinking, though, that it might actually be nice to have some money to lose somewhere down the road.

Fortunately for me, I was reading some magazine that talked with super rich fella Warren Buffett about his keys to making craploads of money. He’s got an estimated fortune of 62 billion dollars. It’s a pretty safe bet to say you’re plenty rich when your fortune has to be estimated. I would wager my “fortune” could be correctly calculated down to the penny at just about every moment in my life. Anyway, I figured it might be nice to share Warren’s tips with you all, just in case you’d like to have money to lose in the future also.

1) Reinvest your profits. Geez Louise, a person can do something like that? I’ve always sort of been under the impression that any extra money fell under the category of spending money. Getting really rich doesn’t really seem like a crapload of fun already.

2) Be willing to be different. A person shouldn’t base his or her decisions on what everyone else is doing. This is complicated for me since virtually everyone in the world is smarter about money than I am. If I try to venture out completely on my own, things could get pretty gruesome pretty fast. Maybe I should just do what Warren Buffett does. It seems like that would work.

3) Never suck your thumb. OK, I didn’t really get that one at first, and I’m not sure I was even much of a thumb sucker as a child. In case you’re as stupid as I happen to be, it basically means a person shouldn’t dick around too much. Decide your course of action, and follow through with it. As an added bonus, it’s also a good idea to have an intelligent course of action.

4) Spell out the deal before you start. I’m sure we all have a story about getting screwed out of money after we’ve performed a task, so this is probably a fine idea. I should point out, however, that the ridiculous amount of work I used to do for a dollar as a child was a little hard to negotiate. Every time I demanded more, Dad would point out that I wasn’t being charged for room and board.

5) Watch small expenses. Actually, I’m awesome at this. In fact, I only really have small expenses, so they’re fairly simple to watch over. It really just means not to waste money on things you don’t really need. One glance at my Pez dispenser collection would tell you I need some work on this particular trait.

6) Limit what you borrow. A better way to look at this might be to be very accurate on what you’re actually able to pay back.

7) Be persistent. Whatever, that’s hard.

8) Know when to quit. Oh, I’m a quitter, except when it comes to drinking and cigarettes, so I know what he’s talking about there. Get out while the getting’s good. One time at a casino, I won about a hundred dollars in the first five minutes. Needless to say, the next two hours and five minutes were not nearly as productive. Sadly, I tried to make up for my losses by swilling as much free liquor as I could stomach.

9) Assess the risks. Obviously, it’s a smart idea to do things that have a good chance of succeeding. Still, if there’s even a chance I’m losing money, that seems plenty risky to me already.

10) Know what success really means. I assume they’re looking for something a bit more than a dictionary definition here. The idea, I think, is to know what you’re really looking for. Warren Buffett points out that he has no desire to have statues of him built. He wants his fortune to help other people. I gotta be honest, I’d really like at least one statue of myself. After that, the needy can have whatever’s left. Let’s just say it’s probably going to be a pathetic little statue to begin with, so I wouldn’t count on a whole bunch coming their way if I were them.

There’s an old Jason and The Scorchers song that says, “If money talks, I wish it’d speak to me because I need the conversation, it’s plain to see.” Well, like Jason, money really never spoke to me much. As long as I have just enough of it, I’m usually pretty content. Obviously, that’s really not a particularly smart way to conduct business. Maybe I’ll suck it up and try harder to make a fortune. Still, I can’t help but notice the word “lottery ticket” didn’t appear anywhere in Warren’s tips. Geez, how hard does a fella have to try anyway?