Have you ever wondered where all your money went to? Do you often ponder why there is no money in your bank account at the end of each month? Money habits keeping you broke are all around you and you need to be able to recognize them for what they are. Learn 20 money Habits that are Keeping You Poor.
Have you found yourself frequently thinking about the invisible holes through which your funds vanish? If yes, then you have landed at the right place.
I can tell you exactly the reasons why you are unable to amass money despite earning a decent income.
Better Money Habits is part of Bank of America’s commitment to fostering economic mobility and financial education.
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Have been broke, but never been poor. “There’s a difference between being poor and being broke,” “Poor is a State of Mind; broke is I’m passing through.”
Personally I sees three basic reasons people are poor:
- Their government is corrupt, and there is no economy to participate in.
- People are oppressed and taken advantage of.
- People make bad decisions with their money and lives.
You don’t have much control over Nos. 1 and 2, but we have a lot of control when it comes to No. 3, the decisions we make.
A big part of building wealth is simply your mindset. And, there may be habits keeping you broke if you have the wrong mindset.
There can be the limitations of having a low salary or being up to your eye balls in debt. But, there are certain money habits that can lead you to wealth or keep you broke.
Related Post: Reasons Why People Are Poor: “I Have No Money!”
We have plenty of people out there who make enough money but just don’t practice good financial habits.
We may think consciously about saving enough for retirement and building out wealth but it’s usually the unconscious habits that carry us through each day.
Here are the top habits that can sneak into your hard-earned income and eat up your funds. What are some bad money habits to avoid? Learn bank of America better money habits to improve on your financial management today.
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20 Money Habits Keeping You Broke
1. You Spend Money Blindly: Bad Spending Money Habits Keeping You Broke
If you don’t have a budget, it’s like planning a trip across the country to a destination you’ve never visited and expecting to arrive without a hitch.
If you have no clue how much you pay out in bills every month or how much you earn, then kiss getting ahead good-bye. It’s not going to happen.
Make a list of all your expenses and when they are due. Mark down when you get paid, and how much you will take home. (Salary)
Then, work to make sure you have enough money to pay your bills on time. Set aside money each pay period to pay the rent (or mortgage) and car payment. Be sure to budget money for savings.
2. Spending more as your Income Increases
There’s no harm in raising your standard of life when you can.
However, if you are a person who is constantly looking for ways to spend your money. You will probably find yourself in a difficult situation soon enough.
If you continuously raise your expenditure along with any increase in your income (or even without it). It would be hard to have any real savings.
Try to keep your expenditures at a constant level. Along with exploring ways to increase your income. That’s the route to success!
3. Debt Happens When You Spend More than You Earn – Money Habits
I get it, sometimes there just ain’t enough money. So, what do you do? Charge your purchases to a credit card. Avoid things that keep you broke every month end.
Imagine, you buy a home you really cannot afford. You buy a car that’s out of your price range, but you just can’t live without it.
You will remain broke and poor if you don’t change your ways. Get that budget done.
4. Focusing on the present without caring about the future
Usually, when people find it hard to tackle a problem, they choose to ignore it. That’s a sure recipe for disaster.
The same is the case with your finances. Generally, people focus on their present needs, wishfully thinking that future needs will somehow be met in some way.
You need to take the future into perspective whenever you are making any financial decision. Although it is good to take care of everything in the present, do your best to save for your future.
5. Stop Making Impulse Purchases : Bad Financial Habits keeping You Broke
This is a tough one. Sometimes the impulse is to go out for dinner because you are too tired to cook. At times its something cheap on Amazon. Learn Better Money habits that keep you poor.
Sometimes it’s buying one extra cup of coffee for the day. None of these are expensive by themselves. But impulse buys, if left unchecked, will keep you in the poor house.
A good way to keep yourself from making impulse purchases is to put more steps between picking out an item and buying it.
When shopping online, that could mean leaving it in your cart for 24 hours before purchasing. It could also mean price checking and looking for promo codes.
6. You think it is too Early to Start Saving Money Habits
When you are young, it is easy to get carried away by the various pleasures money can buy.
People often think that right now is too early to start saving or investing. Wrong! It is never too early to save a portion of your income, no matter how low or high your income is!
Start saving today! In fact, experts say that you should save before you spend. Keep aside a portion of whatever money or income you get, and then spend the rest!
7. You’re Not Investing Extra Money
Do you have money sitting in a low-yielding savings account? If so, why? If you don’t need that money in the near-term, you should be investing it in assets that provide a better return.
The goal of banks is holding your deposits (cash) for as little cost as possible. It’s how they are able to make money.
So, don’t hold your money in cash or in a savings account. Invest your extra money. It is one of the few ways that you can build your wealth.
Investing involves risk. But, you likely will not achieve your financial goals without investing your money.
8. Failing to Learn from Mistakes: Spending Money Habits That Keep You Poor
I have made a lot of mistakes in life. College was start and stop for me. I yet to earn a bachelor’s degree.
Most have theirs by the time they are 22 or 23. So, my opportunity for tremendous income growth was severely limited because it took me so long to get a degree.
I eventually discovered what I wanted to do, but it took a while. I was terrible with money until I took a blogging course. It was later in life before I wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck.
Consider each mistake an opportunity to learn something new. Thomas Edison once said: “Never get discouraged if you fail. Learn from it. Keep trying.” Better Money habits that make you wealthy.
9. You Don’t Pay Off Your Credit Card Balances
Keeping a credit card balances and paying interest is one of the worst money habits keeping you broke.
The high interest rates on credit cards can significantly damage your finances, causing you to spend extra money on interest each month.
If you can, you should be paying off your credit card balance each month. Some people just don’t realize that they’re wasting money because they think they only need to make the minimum payment.
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Or, they don’t realize how much extra money they’re spending on interest. A lot of people do struggle to pay off their credit card balance though.
If you are struggling to pay off your balance each month, you may have to create a temporary plan until you can pay down the balance.
It may require you spending only on the essentials until the card is paid off. But, this will save you money because you won’t be paying interest anymore.
10. Not Keeping a Record of Your Money Habits
We all think that we know where our money comes from and where it ends up.
Sadly, that’s not true for most of us. We might be aware of our major expenditures, but the small things usually eat up our finances more than the big ones.
It is an excellent idea to start keeping a journal for all your income and expenses, whether they are huge or small. This way you will have a much better idea for controlling your finances.
11. Check Your Diet: Healthy Financial Habits Of The Rich
Food is dang expensive. So if you’re eating more than necessary, it’s costing you… a lot (Money).
To save money on food, try counting your calories. By limiting your eating to what your body needs, you’ll save a money on food AND get healthy. Talk about a win-win.
12. Wasting Time and not Improving Your Skills
Just as we always have money for fast food or coffee but not for savings. It seems like we always have time for video games and Facebook. But not to improve our skills. Ask yourself what keeps you poor.
Many States issued stay-at-home orders, but how many really spent that free time learning new skills to be better positioned to earn more money when the economy opened up?
The founder of zerox24.com was on different career track until I took a course on launching a blog, driving Pinterest traffic, and becoming a six-figure blogger.
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I didn’t give up professional career to start blogging as many say. I utilized that period to improve my skill sets. It changed my lives forever.
13. “Save What Remains” Does Not Work: Saving Money Habits of The Wealthy
Do not wait to save money at the end of the month! “Save what remains” is not a saving strategy that works.
Instead, make it habit to save money before you spend it. When your paycheck hits your checking account, transfer 5% of that money into your savings account.
Then do not touch it! It’s your emergency fund. Discipline yourself to live on what remains, and your emergency fund will grow.
14. Being unclear of your needs, wants, and finances!
In order to save money and build wealth, it is of the utmost important that you absolutely care about the must-haves, good-to-haves, and not-to-haves!
You need to prioritize your financial targets. If getting rich is a top priority for you, then you need to sacrifice some of your present pleasures, whether you like it or not.
Be clear about your goals and write them down. Review them at regular intervals to keep yourself on track.
15. Ignoring your Debt: What keeps you poor? Bad Money Spending Habits
For a lot of people in today’s world, interest eats up a huge portion of their finances. It’s a painful fact. Still, they don’t know how to get out of this vicious cycle, leaving them with little to no savings.
First of all, make paying your debt a top-of-the-list item on your agenda. Work out a plan for this and stick to it, no matter what. You don’t want to believe that you’re poor, do you?
16. Constantly upgrading your Electronic Gadgets
There is no limit to it.
While there is no harm in buying gadgets that you actually need. Buying only because there is this next version of mobile available in the market will definitely cause you more harm than good.
Take charge of your life today. Do what needs to be done right now. You can do it.
Do yourself a favor and start your journey of becoming wealthy today. As William Shatner said, “If saving money is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”
17. Saves Money Faster With High-Interest Banking
How much do banks pay in interest? The national average is 0.08%. That’s nothing. $10,000 in savings will earn you $8 in interest after one year. Whoop-die-doo… bad habits keep you poor
18. Lack of budgeting and/or poor budgeting – Money Habits
You might be documenting everything. Then again, you might be missing the starting point — a budget! Having a realistic and well-documented budget is the foundation of all your financial planning and success.
Make a budget and stick to it! I can say this from my own experience: it makes a huge difference in how you look at your money. In the absence of a budget, it is very easy to get carried away and commit unnecessary expenditures. This is keeping you poor.
19. You Don’t Value Your Time: Money Making Habits Keeping You In Debt
We wanted to save this one for last. Your time is the one of the most valuable commodities that you have in life.
For a job, we exchange time and skill for money. But, you can easily develop or already have the habit of not valuing your time.
Filling out surveys is a great example of not valuing your time. While the little bit of money sounds nice, think about what you could be doing instead.
If your true goal is to make more money, you should be using that time completing surveys on developing your skills and knowledge.
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Your time is your greatest asset. It can be used to build something or learn something.
If you spend ten hours filing out surveys, think of what else you could have used those ten hours for to better yourself.
Focus on the big-stuff, not the small stuff. A survey may make you $5 today but a new skill could make you $5 more an hour for the rest of your working life. What are bad money habits that keep you poor according to you?
20. You Don’t Feel Confident Discussing Money
Unfortunately, a lot of us don’t feel confident talking about money and finance. This habit can be keeping you poor because it’s a negative mindset.
Most of us did not grow up in an environment where financial literacy was important. You probably remember learning about the make-up of a cell and the differences between a plant cell and an animal cell.
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But, compounding interest or debt amortization were not covered. This has created a lack of confidence in talking about money and finances. But, how are you going to achieve your financial goals when you’re afraid of money?
Once you learn the basics about money and that a lot of it is about how you spend and save, you gain some confidence. That confidence is key reaching the financial situation you desire. Buy assets that make you rich.
Final Thoughts on Better Money Habits Of The Wealthy
There are plenty of potentially harmful habits keeping you broke. The goal is to be aware of them and try and to form habits for building wealth. Learn more here. Name better money habits that rich people have? Comment below.