- Your Friends:
You don’t realize it, but your friends are part of the reason. Peer pressure is a big deal. Every time there is a party, there is a gift to purchase and there are new clothes to buy. We have weekly happy hour to attend, group dinners, and fun trips. It all adds up. We want to dress up to be fully accepted. Whatever circle of friends we have there is a dress code. Groups of friends tend to dress similar. Maybe the attire are certain brand names that everyone in the group wears. It might be that your sneaker heads and can’t wear the same one twice. Over the past 10 years it’s also been about having the latest consumer tech. If our friends have nice cars, we want to drive nice cars too. I want my apartment to be just as nice or better than my friends. Try to avoid the need to keep up with the circle. Instead invest the money. You can show off by owning some shares of your most favorite luxury brand. It will feel good owning luxury that will potentially make you richer in the process.
- Your Parents:
We get a lot of our habits from our parents. They we walk, the way we talk, the way we argue and what ever that little quirk is that we do that our significant others can’t stand. There is the parent that has no idea what a savings account is. That same parent would over draw their checking account on a regular basis. That parent just buys and has never had a budget for anything. There is the parent that is looking for the long shot that is going to make them rich. That parent has some great business idea but never bothered to actually research it or write a plan down on paper. We have the parent that used credit cards to live on or borrowed from friends and family but didn’t pay them back. We try our best not to grow up and become our parents but with some situations we still end up like them. Money habits tend to be one of those. Even though most of us earn more money than our parents ever did, we don’t exactly have higher net worth’s than our parents. We are not exactly that much further financially then they were. They heads were under water and now our heads our under water. They were not financially secure, and we are not financially secure. We now have more debt than our parents ever did. Let’s discuss how to fix it. Talk to your parents and grandparents about the mistakes that they made financially. That information will help give you a road map to avoid the mistakes. There is not reason to repeat the cycle and then pass it on to your kids.
We all love our friends and family. Let’s make sure they don’t make us Broke and Clueless.