Have You Failed Financially?
While the economy seems to be getting a little better each passing day, the past few years has been hard on most of the world. Financial websites/bloggers are giving the best advice they can, on how to survive the worst of times with what little we are getting. It seems like even multi-billion dollar companies cannot avoid financial failure. How are our meager salaries suppose get us through what is eating banks and auto makers alive. This had me thinking, Have you failed financially?
I am not asking about your yearly goals, but rather have you failed
financially in life. Did you achieve the financial goals you set for
yourself or did you set any to begin with. Is this the reason your are
reading this article right now or are you just looking for better ways of
managing your financial finances? In a way you can say, your financial
failures are the reason I write about personal finance, but can you call
it failure if you are still trying to be debt free and eventually achieve
financial freedom?
Our financial needs and goals are always changing, what we needed in
college is nothing close to what we need today. In college we dreamed of
riches and fast cars, now we drive minivans and dream of going on
vacation. Does this mean we have failed? No, it just means we have grown
up. Failure is hard to judge, but if not fulfilling the dreams we had in
college means failure then 90% of us have failed and will continue to do
so.
I don’t know if it’s just me or does every self help book tell us that the
number one reason for failure is laziness. Are you lazy? Have you been
lazy through out your life? If we failed, more than likely it has very
little to do with laziness and everything to do with being lazy about
watching what we spend. The book The Millionaire Next Door points out that the people who are best at managing their finances live well below there means and that even if you are pulling in 5 figures yearly you can still fail financially. In my opinion determination is the number one cure for failure. If you are determined to complete something no matter how long it takes, you have not failed until you have quit. You may have failed to meet your deadlines, but when it comes to finances, deadlines are set by a dollar amount.
Everyone has a different set of financial goals and their goals cannot be
measured by others financial success. If you are measuring your goals by
the success of others you have set yourself up for failure. Lawyers and
Hardware store owners have different financial needs, a hardware store
owner does not need to drive a nice car, buy expensive clothing or have a
posh office in the heart of a big city. So, their goals should not be
the same. The same goes for you, your goals should be tailored to your
needs and wants in life.
The point I’m trying to make is, financial failure is easy. It is around
ever corner, investing in the wrong company, choosing the wrong bank or
the wrong credit card. While these things will not leave you in the poor
house, too many small mistakes will lead to bigger and bigger problems