Awful at Managing Money?

Managing our money is one of those things that is really important. Money is, after all, what we earn from our employment or what we get in that pension or SS check if we are retired. As such it is the "fuel" for all things as a consumer. Yet, managing money is something that seems to elude many of us, and nearly all of us have some difficulty dealing with money.

"People usually get better at things over time.....But there's something about money that gets the better of us. If you look at the rate of personal bankruptcies, financial crises, bubbles, student loans, debt defaults, and savings rates, I wonder whether people are just as bad at managing money today as they were in previous generations, maybe even worse. It's one of the only areas in life we seem to get progressively dumber at." So says Morgan Housal and he recently published a list of the "77 Reasons You're Awful at Managing Money."

I've included a link to the original article. It's one of the best summaries I've ever seen. You and I may not agree with everything Mr. Housal says, but he does provides something to think about.

Here are ten of my of my favorites from Mr. Housal's list. I suggest you use the link on this page to read all of the 77:

2. Your definition of "long term" is the time between now and the next bear market, whenever that is.
10. You get upset when you hear on TV that the government is running a deficit. It doesn't bother you that you heard this on a TV you bought on a credit card in a home you purchased with a no-money-down mortgage.
11. You take out $200,000 in debt to earn a degree in a subject you're not interested in, doesn't offer marketable job skills, and for which you have no intention of working in -- all by age 22.
12. You're part of the roughly half of Americans who can't come up with $2,000 in 30 days for an emergency, even though you're also part of the roughly 100% of Americans who will need to come up with $2,000 in 30 days for an emergency at some point in your life.
13. The single largest expense you'll pay in life is interest. You'll spend more money on interest than food, vacations, cars, school, clothes, dinners out, and all forms of entertainment. You do this because you don't save enough and demand a lifestyle you can't actually afford. The future owns your income.
14. You're thrilled that the credit card you're paying 22% interest on offers 1% cash back on all purchases.
21. You associate all of your financial successes with skill and all of your financial failures with bad luck.
22. Rather than admitting and learning from your mistakes, you ignore them, bury them, make excuses for them, and blame them on others.
35. You think you're doing great by building up an emergency fund that covers three months of living expenses when the average duration of unemployment these days is more like nine months.
50.  You think it's impossible to live on less than $35,000 a year without realizing that literally 99% of the world does, even adjusted for purchasing power parity.

Here's more food for thought from another Housal article:
'As author Matt Ridley put it, "Today, of Americans officially designated as 'poor,' 99 percent have electricity, running water, flush toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 percent have a television, 88 percent a telephone, 71 percent a car and 70 percent air conditioning. Cornelius Vanderbilt had none of these." Nor does much of the world.'

Here's the Link to the Original Article:
Clicking will open a  New Window> 77 Reasons You're awful at Managing Money