The formula for accumulating enough wealth to retire comfortably is fairly simple: Learn how to earn more, spend less, save consistently, and invest wisely.

But just because something is simple, it doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Even those who have learned how to earn more struggle to control their spending. Then, only the few who manage to control their spending can begin to save. And, finally, it’s only those who have sufficient savings who have enough capital to invest in commodities like gold bullion.

Since the road to wealth consists of navigating across four roads—earning, spending, saving, and investing—let’s take a closer look at what toll price you have to pay for each road.

Earning More

The way to earn more is to learn more. When you know your job better, when you understand its breadth and scope, its pitfalls and potentials, you can add more value.

If you work for someone, your learning adds more value to your employer. As a result, you are likely to be promoted and advance in your company. If you work for yourself, then you add more value to your business. As a result, you are likely to get more customers and make more sales.

Learning more can be done in a number of different ways. You can learn on the job, noticing what works and what doesn’t work, then decreasing what doesn’t work and increasing what does work.

You can also learn through formal and informal ways. Formal learning consists of taking professional classes. Informal learning consists of self-study.

Spending Less and Saving Consistently 

Spending less and saving more usually work together. There is no point in spending less if you’re not going to open up a savings account. Spending less starts with noticing where your money goes and finding free or cheap ways to achieve the same goals. The next step, of course, is to control your spending by budgeting. This, you should be warned, is not easy. With the ever-increasing cost of living, it’s always difficult to live below your means.

Still, with effort and persistence, it’s possible to finally figure out how to create a realistic budget, which is one that works most of the time. Of course, your success with spending less will automatically leave you with surplus money, which you can then start socking away into a saving’s account.

Investing Wisely

At a certain point, you will have enough saved to begin investing. This, the last mile of your wealth-building journey, is usually the hardest.

Here are four major difficulties you will encounter:

1. Deciding what type of investments to specialize in. For instance, should you buy commodities or American gold eagles? There are numerous ways to invest and it can be a little bewildering figuring out where to start.
2. Let’s say you decide to learn how to trade in the equities market, then the next question to ask is where you can learn how to trade. While some stock market training courses will be taught by people with a genuine interest in sharing their knowledge, others will be taught by charlatans.  How do you avoid getting scammed? It may be difficult to decide who is telling you the truth.
3. Yet even after you’ve found an honest teacher and become good at paper trading, you’re not entirely out of the woods. You now have to figure out what brokerage to trust. Again, you’ll find some fair and honest people and others who are just pretending to be interested in your success.
4. You have one last obstacle—your own emotions. It doesn’t matter how much you know about trading, you will still have to deal with strong and conflicting emotions. One emotion is the desire to avoid the pain of loss while the other is the desire to rush toward pleasure. Over time, you must gain sufficient emotional intelligence in investingto make increasingly better decisions.

In conclusion, think of wealth as a journey. Navigate each sector of the road well to get to your final destination. The toll you have to pay along the way will be worth it.