Thursday, October 23, 2008

Ten Reasons You Aren't Rich

Here are ten 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.

- This is what we called 'envy'. Envy could even make you go bankrupt without you knowing.


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.

- Lots of people spent beyond what they could afford to pay. They are not worried that they are owing the banks due to the excessive usage of their credit cards. Such consumers thought that being able to pay the minimum monthly payment and interest charged are considered good enough and they considered themselves 'risk takers'.


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.

- Will consumers realise this? Or the related advertisings are so good that it continued to draw more attention.


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.

- Most people will tell you that they barely survive with their current salaries especially with the higher cost of living nowadays. Besides the cost of living, some have to squeeze out from somewhere to pay for their 'bad habits' as above.


5. You Haven't Prepare: 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.

- At times, we may have to acquire the right kind of insurance that meets our needs.


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.

- Many people who have fell for those quick bucks scheme are easily susceptible to another scheme if not careful. Why lotteries can afford high pay outs to one in a million winner is because it's very rare to win.


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.

- You need to know what kind of investments is suitable for yourself as others won't know what sort of commitment you have.


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.

- In any investments, it's good that you know how it operates and you have to keep track of its performances as it's your hard earned money.


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.

- Put it this way, this group of people is not risk takers. On the other hand, they build their financial wealth slowly slowly ........ can't be millionaires but can live a moderate life without much worries.


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.

- Lots of people failed to plan. They couldn't care less about obtaining the easiest financing schemes and would pay more for services compared to others.

(extracted from TheStreet.com)
Tags: Millionaire, Finance, No Goals, Credit Card Debt, Building Wealth, Financial Health

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very good for thought that everyone should ponder upon. -suituapui

Borneo Falcon said...

Just like to add one more thing. Some people just don't get rich as one do not have such luck.

Anonymous said...

Ouch, it is such a pain to read this post of yours..... I strike quite a few of the points you mentioned.... Ouch ouch ouch... :P

Johnny Ong said...

suituapui - hopefully it makes sense to many ppl

borneo - totally disagree on the luck. those rich fellas were not lucky but they took every single opportunity that they had. they have made more mistakes than anyone on the face of the earth

cazzy - better correct the situation fast then

foongpc said...

Hey, I've read this list before! It makes a lot of sense : )

Johnny Ong said...

foong - just putting up as a reminder

Anonymous said...

In December 2004, a study was published by the Nicotine & Tobacco Research Journal that alarmed physicians. This U.S survey suggests that despite years of consumer education in print and TV ads and in-office patient education, the great majority of smokers are misinformed about the health risks of their habit. http://www.chantixhome.com/

Johnny Ong said...

newt - thks for the lead

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