I came across this interesting piece of linkbait on Digg, 10 Reasons Why You Aren’t Rich. I found it to serve as a base coat, but I have four more reasons why you still aren’t rich. I agree, its not the lack of money; its our consumer behavior in handling the money. 🙂
Here are 10 possible reasons you aren’t a millionaire:
1. You Care What Your Neighbors Think: If you’re competing against them and their material possessions, you’re wasting your hard-earned money on toys to impress them instead of building your wealth
2. You Aren’t Patient: Until the era of credit cards, it was difficult to spend more than you had. That is not the case today. If you have credit card debt because you couldn’t wait until you had enough money to purchase something in cash, you are making others wealthy while keeping yourself in debt.
3. You Have Bad Habits: Whether it’s smoking, drinking, gambling or some other bad habit, the habit is using up a lot of money that could go toward building wealth. Most people don’t realize that the cost of their bad habits extends far beyond the immediate cost. Take smoking, for example: It costs a lot more than the pack of cigarettes purchased. It also negatively affects your wealth in the form of higher insurance rates and decreased value of your home.
4. You Have No Goals: It’s difficult to build wealth if you haven’t taken the time to know what you want. If you haven’t set wealth goals, you aren’t likely to attain them. You need to do more than state, “I want to be a millionaire.” You need to take the time to set saving and investing goals on a yearly basis and come up with a plan for how to achieve those goals.
5. You Haven’t Prepared: Bad things happen to the best of people from time to time, and if you haven’t prepared for such a thing to happen to you through insurance, any wealth that you might have built can be gone in an instant.
6. You Try to Make a Quick Buck: For the vast majority of us, wealth doesn’t come instantly. You may believe that people winning the lottery are a dime a dozen, but the truth is you’re far more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery. This desire to get rich quickly likely extends into the way you invest, with similar results.
7. You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money: You believe that others have more knowledge about money matters, and you rely exclusively on their judgment when deciding where you should invest your money. Unfortunately, most people want to make money themselves, and this is their primary objective when they tell you how to invest your money. Listen to other people’s advice to get new ideas, but in the end you should know enough to make your own investing decisions.
8. You Invest in Things You Don’t Understand: Your hear that Bob has made a lot of money doing it, and you want to get in on the gravy train. If Bob really did make money, he did so because he understood how the investment worked. Throwing in your money because someone else has made money without fully understanding how the investment works will keep you from being wealthy.
9. You’re Financially Afraid: You are so scared of risk that you keep all your money in a savings account that is actually losing money when inflation is put into the equation, yet you refuse to move it to a place where higher rates of return are possible because you’re afraid that you will lose money.
10. You Ignore Your Finances: You take the attitude that if you make enough, the finances will take care of themselves. If you currently have debt, it will somehow resolve itself in the future. Unfortunately, it takes planning to become wealthy. It doesn’t magically happen to the vast majority of people.
And here’s my four additional reasons:
- You buy into pop-culture. Why buy brand-name items? Most generic products have about the equal value as brand name products, minus the cost of advertising.
- You don’t maintain your possessions. Even I’m a glutton of not maintaining my possessions. A $20 oil change every few months is cheaper than a $500 repair down the road. Maintaining your stuff is cheaper than replacing it. Simple as that.
- Your passive approach to comparative shopping. If you happen to “walk past” a sale, then thats pretty passive. Doing your homework, and even purchasing online is an easy way to save a few bucks here and there. You don’t have to buy, but just look to have an idea of how much something is and check elsewhere.
- You spend now, not save. I’m a victim of my own compulsiveness to “spend first and research later.” Maintaining your self control to save now, research now, and spend later will save you invaluable amount of money and stress.
That’s my four addition reasons you’re still not rich. If you have any you’d like to add, then share them in the comments! 🙂
