Jeffrey Strain over at TheStreet has a great article titled: 10 Reasons You Aren’t Rich. Here are the 10 reasons but you need to go over to the article to see the detail behind each one. Great post and it’s so simple. This really is the secret in a nutshell.
1. You Care What Your Neighbors Think
2. You Aren’t Patient
3. You Have Bad Habits
4. You Have No Goals
5. You Haven’t Prepared
6. You Try to Make a Quick Buck
7. You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money
8. You Invest in Things You Don’t Understand
9. You’re Financially Afraid
10. You Ignore Your Finances
AMEN
Reason 1-10 don’t apply to me but….
reason 11
Got a divorce, live on 1 income instead of two with two children
reason 12
Insist on living in one of the more expensive areas of the country (and spending around 45% of my take home pay to do it) because the children’s father lives here and I want them to have a relationship with him, because the public schools are good here, because the weather is amazing here, because there are more jobs here etc. etc. I am not rich financially by any means but I am rich in love for and love from my children.
Reason 13
Did not finish my education and therefore don’t have a very good paying job.
Rita, from your comments about reasons 1-10 shows why you and people like you will never be rich. Those were all excuses, not reasons. Tell me, are there divorced people that are rich? Are there people that live in expensive areas that are rich? Are there many, many people with no “tradional” education that are rich?
If you want to become rich, don’t do the top 10 reasons, there is no need to make up your own reasons.
Do you have goals? Are you financially prepared? Are you financially afraid?
Make things happen, don’t make excuses.
I guess I’ll jump in here. I posted a link to that article and the top 10 reasons because I think they are great things that we should all strive not to do. I don’t think this list is necessarily exclusive and there are certainly other things I would say you would want to avoid. Divorce is definitely one of them and we all know that it takes two to have marital problems but that one person in the marriage can certainly cause a divorce with no fault of the other.
Bottom line is that there are exceptions to every set of guidelines or ideas. Trip makes very good points. I am doing all I can to be financially responsible, have a net worth higher than most people my age and have health insurance etc. There’s nothing to say that it can’t all come crashing down if I have an unusual situation that drives me to financial hardship. Lots of people have health insurance when they get sick and then subsequently lose it because they are sick. Then they face the full wrath of the expenses and lose it all. Frankly, that freaks me out.
Rita,
I would say, do what you can to make good financial decisions with the deck you are dealt. Jon’s point, although harshly worded, is to be sure that you are making good decisions that will give you more financial independence and try to minimize the situations and decisions that can hurt your overall financial health.
Easy Jon, she is obviously frustrated and it is healthy to vent a little once in a while. Dr. E. Warren (Harvard Prof) did some research on bankruptcy and discovered that 90% of all bankruptcies are caused by one of three things 1)major medical problem, 2)job loss 3)divorce. Rita deserves a little slack. Not only that, it is darn hard to rear and educate humans, of which she has two.
I would argue that there are many fold more wealthy individuals who are married and/or educated than not.
I have to say I agree with those 10 things. Number 6-7 are the ones which stand out for me, that a lot of people do.