Stupid Ideas come in all sorts of packages. Bad debt, various
loans, purchase decisions, and delayed savings. Most people reach
the age of 65 with little or no savings. They live off social security
and what little else they have. It is no wonder the golden arches are
filled with workers in their golden years.
Anything that wastes your money and prevents you from
becoming debt free can be a stupid idea. The only way to save and
invest money is to not send it to creditors each month. Only when it
is yours to keep can you put it aside to work for you as hard as you
have worked for it.
It is not your job in life to make your creditors rich. The goal is
to make you rich. If you are going to make that happen, stay away
from bad decisions. Decisions made in the absence of good, or
even any, information. Time pressured, desperate decisions are
seldom made with enough information.
Anything that slows down spending and requires you to think
twice before parting with your money is a good idea. Fill out a
Purchase Checklist for any decision that requires spending more
than what you have in your pocket. Some questions you need to
answer:
Cost?
Is it on sale?
Is this a need or a want?
Can you pay cash?
Where will the money come from?
Do you know the cost of credit if you dont pay cash?
With that cost added in is it still worth buying?
Could you justify this purchase to another person?
Would you accept these reasons from someone else?
Stupid Ideas abound when ignorance, greed and pride,
(definitely not the common sense triplets) form the basis of your
decisions. Ignorance is simply an absence of knowledge or
information. Greed is nothing more than wanting more than you
should. Pride is caring what your neighbor. or someone you dont
even know, in an advertisement, thinks of you.
So, knowing there is no winner in the contest to see who is the
most stupid, here are some things to avoid in your financial life.
Bad Debt. Defined as any debt other than a home mortgage,
education loans and some business debt. Bad debt should be
avoided. If you have it, getting rid of it should be your number one
priority. Then get rid of your other debt. The more money you can
put away as opposed to sending to your creditors will make a
dramatic difference in your financial progress.
These particular types of bad debt need to be avoided at all costs.
Auto title Loans
Payday Loans
Rent To Own Stores
125 Loans
Credit Cards
Pawn Brokers
If you find yourself even considering using any of these call a
friend and have them talk you out of it.
Other bad ideas include some of our habits. This is not
moralizing here, just a hard look at how bad habits drain your
financial resources. Smoking, alcohol consumption, buying coffee
and a donut on the way to work, lunches at work, and anything
else which has become a habit can cost you a tremendous amount
of money per month. Money you could be putting away.
Make a fast calculation of what you spend each day on these
habits. Then times it by the number of working days in a month
(usually around 22). This is the money you waste each month. You
need to put it in your pocket not someone elses. And lets face it,
you will feel better too.
There are plenty of people willing to benefit from your stupid
ideas and bad decisions. If you find you have already embraced
some of these stupid ideas, change your choices. Dont double your
mistake. If you make a stupid decision, you dont need to stick with
it. Learn from it and move on. Decide if you are going to have
some burned fingers or a ruined life. Live and learn from the burned
fingers, let someone else ruin their life.
www.debtattack.com
