Want to be wealthy? Here's the answer...

Put living examples of your goals around your house and work. Every time you see them you visually reinforce your dreams.

For example, you can put pictures of your dream house on:

• your screensaver
• a whiteboard
• the fridge door

 An additional way to reinforce your goals is to carry a "feeling" of wealth around with you. For a while I used to carry around $500-$1,000 in folding notes in my wallet.

But now it's pretty much empty of cash.

Here's the reasons...

• I'm a naturally cautious guy, and I was worried about leaving my wallet around where someone could empty its contents.
• The same goes for being robbed. For many years I used to carry around low denomination Fijian banknotes which looked very similar to ours. After 50 and more years of never being attacked, that idea died naturally.
• And lastly, it's wasted money because it is never in circulation.

Like all reserves, it's best to have your money as a form of credit instead of cash. I've written about that in another post.

But the most important reason for not carrying cash was what I call the Leaky Wallet Syndrome.

That's my term for the money being TOO available.

When you have it, there's a great temptation to use cash. But you should really be using your credit card for getting Air Points and other forms of spending reward.

For a while I used to make my cash available to my wife. If she needed money, she could take whatever she needed from the wallet.

Bad idea. Because she's not as frugal or tightfisted as me, I was always topping up the amounts frequently.

What's this got to do with lotto? The same applies. If your prize money is too accessible, it's going to leak out everywhere. You need to put a hold on it.

Here's my suggestion:

1. When you first win a sizeable prize, put everything except 10% into a bank account which can only be jointly accessed by yourself and your accountant.

2. After six months thinking about it, you will have decided how to spend your windfall. Only then withdraw the amount as you need it for investment or light spending.

So if you have Leaky Wallet Syndrome, use these tips to control your spending - and your life.