When making cookies, it’s difficult to not eat all the cookie dough before cooking it. However, if you exert will power, preheat the oven, and exercise patience, you will get perfect warm cookies that are worth the wait.
For both individuals and societies, waiting is an important part of becoming wealthy. If you can afford to wait and make smart investments, you can trade consuming something today for consuming even more in the future.
You can invest money in a new business so that they have the start-up capital they need to become a profitable company. They will pay the amount of the loan back with interest because it cost you something to not spend the money right away.
Another way to invest is to buy something and then sell it for a higher price. Typically we don’t do this with noms because they depreciate quickly (a.k.a. get nasty in the back of the fridge)… but it happens all the time in the stock market.
Another method of investment is to buy commodities, such as gold or oil. The value of gold goes up and down, but less suddenly than most stocks. Savy gold investors are able to use sites such as BullionVault to monitor the value of their investment, and to trade online. Buy low. Sell high.