Four Options

When it comes to your finances, we all fall into one of four categories.  Without exception, you fall into one of these four.

 

1.  Broke and Getting Broker

       Common in our world today is the idea of "just getting by."  7 out of 10 families are living a cycle of paycheck to paycheck.  Their mantra is "Thank God it's Friday...Oh God it's Monday."  These are the folks who accept average (debt is normal, "you're always going to have a car payment," build your credit score by using debt, etc) and are dooming themselves to financial mediocrity for the rest of their lives. 

 

       Some of the people in this category may look like they are doing great (two new cars, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, kids in private school, etc), but the truth is they are struggling with a large mortgage payment, car payments, 10+ year old student loan payments, credit card debt and stress.  The saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" comes to mind.

 

2.  Broke and Getting Richer

       Nearly 80% of America's millionaires are first generation rich.  This means that they started out like most of us, broke, and made smart decisions with their money.  They listened to the council of people who were winning with money, took these principles and started living them.  They naturally begin to win in the area of their finances by living on a budget, getting out and staying out of debt and saving/investing for future needs. 

 

       These people may seem a little weird sometimes because they may be driving cars that may not be as new as yours.  They may bring their lunch to work instead of eating out every day.  They may talk about a BUDGET in a positive sense.  You know them...Heck I'm one of them.  We are currently working our tails off to pay off our house so we'll be 100% DEBT FREE!  ONLY 17 MONTHS TO GO!!!

 

3.  Rich and Getting Broker

       The wealthy are not immune to the math that is involved with stupid money decisions.  The very dangerous part of being in this category is that it may take a while to feel the STING of the bad decisions that are being made because the money is there to cover the misbehavior in the beginning.  Sooner or later, though, that safety net will disappear and you'll finally see the mess you've made.  Any rich person who starts playing around with the scum bags at the title pawn/check advance places, playing the stock market with day trading or numerous other bad decisions will soon be headed toward the type of life they are emulating, the broke.

 

       Think about the statistics of lottery winners.  There are numerous stories of families winning millions of dollars by buying a $1 lottery ticket (most of us would call that "life changing money") and being completely broke and even filing for bankruptcy a year or so later.

 

4.  Rich and Getting Richer

       Most of these people are not what you'd think.  I know a lot of you may think of actors or musicians getting paid millions per year, but the vast majority of the people in this category are "regular people" you wouldn't know were rich just by looking at them.  They may be a  small business owner or just plain old hard working team members.  Most of these people don't live in mansions, drive Maserati's and fly around on private jets.  Why?  Because they don't care what YOU think.  They've made good decisions with their money throughout their lives and now are enjoying the rewards of those decisions.

Which one of these categories do you fall into?  Do you like the one you're in?  There's good news!!!  You can make changes today that will begin the path to a new category.