Every day I tend to focus on personal finance topics and random social media snippets that my eyes happen to catch for a brief moment. I’ve noticed a theme and its a bit funny and comical at times. The personal finance contradictions have me wondering will we ever change? I mean if we are humans who can recognize things and study if a behavior is not serving us appropriately, shouldn’t we (stop the presses) so to speak.
I am all for living a fun life but to live that life with personal finance contradictions is totally laughable. We all make blundering mistakes from time to time but lets make an attempt to learn from them in order to supersede past them. If you take a few moments before making a personal finance contradiction, it will thoroughly assist your mental state of mind to revert back to what is the beneficially right for your money management strategy.
If it would serve you best for me to post a few examples of the personal finance contradictions I’ve witnessed in the past 6 months should I? I guess I am second guessing if discussing others so called fun filled life, while living financially risky is worth while for anyone to read. Oh well Let’s just do it and make light of it and I’ll let you be the judge of that.
A person Dreaming to live in a mansion, but can’t manage to move out of Mom and Dads Casa to pay rent in a 1 bedroom apartment.- Steps like this cant be sidestepped.
A person desiring an Expensive luxury car that costs 60 grand or more, and only makes 35K annual income. – I’ve made car mistakes, but this is ludicrous. Never spend more than 20% annual income for a car.
A person who wants to become a millionaire, but continues to have credit card debt year after year. They see nothing wrong with holding debt forever. – There’s good debt and bad debt and you’ll see the difference once you graduate from personal finance school.
A person who wants to avoid living pay check to pay check but can’t find it in the budget to save 10% of gross or net pay. – Its simple read a budget book, get on a budget, and avoid living like that by setting aside the 10%. The 10% will eventually help you avoid the paycheck to paycheck cycle.
I can go on and on but why belabor the topic of personal finance contradictions when you can now see the point I’m trying to express. It really is simple, think twice before making a mistake and you will succeed. If you have to spend dollars on a big purchase use the percentage system to keep things in line and in-order to set yourself financially right.
I know you can laugh a bit at the personal finance contradictions and I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of them. How can you help stop the spread of this infectious syndrome plaguing humanity, by living financially intelligent everyday.
Let me know how I can help you in anyway by email – moneywatch101@gmail
Comment if you want to share Personal Finance Contradictions to help America Improve?
Rich Uncle EL
A person who smokes but claims they don't have any discretionary income to invest.
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Yes because of the addiction they see it as a fixed cost in the budget even before saving or investing. Thanks for stopping by Jc.
I agree with what you have written. There is a bad debt and good debt. I choose good debt.
This is a great idea to ponder. I'm a big fan of "scalability"; meaning that the logic that goes into one thing should be applied to any other thing, whether related or unrelated. Personal finance contridictions would be the opposite of that.
Here's a PF contridiction:
On one hand – Adamant to invest only in index funds because statistically they outperform actively managed funds (No one can beat the odds.)
On the other hand – Uses credit cards for rewards despite statistics showing that very few people “take advantage” of CC companies (I can beat the odds.)
Thats a good one Luke. Thanks for stopping.
I like this. See it a lot.
Someone complaining to me about how tight money is and then booking a big trip. Some people can't see the connection between their spending and their money woes – like they are somehow not related. Deep down I think it is a problem separating wants from needs.
Also – sometimes you see contradictions in the personal finance media too. No wonder people are confused.
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Yeah one day the media is touting something positive the very next day they say something negative to scare everyone. I think its best for people not to listen to financial media often. If you cant look in the mirror and realize you live with money contradictions, you can't improve finances
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