I Feel Poor: Why and How to Stop

I feel poor is a very common theme ever since 2022. The biggest reason why you feel poor is because you compare yourself to others. 2020 and 2021 brought about one of the biggest salary increases in the history of the world. There’s a good chance your friends are doing quite well.

Multi-millionaires feel poor when they are around billionaires. Billionaires feel poor when they are around multi-billionaires. Wealth is relative that matters who you are surrounded by. Multi-millionaire is literally the top 1% of the world. Yet they still feel poor if their friends are doing better than them.

Personally, I feel poor because I’m not at the height of where I want to be right now. My net worth is almost at half a million yet I still feel poor. I know that I can do much more and I know that I should be doing much more greater things.

Not necessarily work harder but work with a better efficient output ratio.

Therefore, when I know that I’m not at my full potential is the reason why I feel poor. I’m working every day and putting in effort to rise to the top. To a place where I know I belong to be placed in. The great news is, your circumstances are completely within your control.

Not feeling poor is not a project that will be completed tomorrow. Or in just a month. Or even a year. It’s a project that takes years and years to achieve. The great news is that it’s an achievable goal. There’s a way to know how to achieve anything in life.

I Feel Poor: 3 Reasons Why

Below are the 3 reasons why you say I feel poor. Understanding the problem is just as important as solving the problem.

1) You Compare Yourself to Others

This is the biggest reason why you say I feel poor. Social media made this problem exactly worse. People don’t understand that people lie and put up a false image in social medial The number of Twitter users who say they’re a millionaire is somewhere close to 80%.

The percentage of the population who are actual millionaires is closer to 9%. The statistics and numbers just seem way off base. You compare yourself to others because you see others getting houses and fancy cars and think that you are lagging behind them.

There’s a good chance that these people are lying. Even though 9% of the population are millionaires, even fewer of those people are younger than 50. All of that fictional image you see on their feed is only a snapshot of their entire life.

You don’t know if they are on the verge of divorce, bankruptcy, or anything of the kind. There’s no reason why you should draw conclusions based on the social medial image.

2) You’ve Been Patient

I’ve been on the personal finance journey for six YEARS and I feel poor because I’m not as ahead and I would have liked to be. It took me six years to be at almost a half a million dollars. I don’t know if I can last another six years to get another half a million dollars to complete the million.

Although compound interest is supposed to alleviate that burden significantly, it doesn’t always come through. Compound interest can work against you just as much as it can work for you. The reason why you feel poor is because you’ve been patient.

Patiently waiting years and years for the big payday to happen. However, it just hasn’t. It’s not for a lack of trying or effort. But for whatever reason, it just hasn’t happened yet. There are people who wait an entire decade and still end up at the same place as where they started.

Patience is a good thing but it certainly can contribute to frustrations.

3) Internal Unhappiness

This reason is one where it transcends everything. You’re just an unhappy person who is inherently unhappy and say “I feel poor” no matter how much money that you have. This is the biggest negative mindset that has to be broken at all costs.

There are billionaires who actually feel like they don’t have enough money. Imagine being in the top 0.1% of the world and still feeling like they are poor and need more money to make them happy! That’s just not the right mentality and mindset.

Inherent unhappiness can be fixed by asking , “When do you feel happy?”. And figuring out the solutions and the steps to get there. Everyone has a way to feel happiness, no matter how much or how little money they have.

Although money can buy happiness, it’s only a small component of the bigger overall picture.

I Feel Poor: What to Do

So then if you say I feel poor more often than you would like, here are 9 things you can do to fight that feeling.

1) Look at the Data

Many people on Twitter will have you believe that if you’re not a millionaire by 30, you are doing life wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Becoming a millionaire in and of itself is a rare feat. It’s an even rarer feat if you do it by the age of 30.

You may actually already be in the top 10% of your peers in your age group and not even know it. Although I feel poor with my half a million dollar net worth, I remind myself that I am within the top 3% of net worth amongst my peers in age 28.

Not only is my net worth amongst the top 3%, my income is amongst the top 3% as well. That’s just not an easy feat by any measure. Few people will replicate my successes and an even fewer people will beat my success. And I’m not even close to being done.

Although you may feel poor today, it may just be because your friends are high caliber. Which is a good thing.

2) Shift your Mindset

The YouTube video of Indigo Traveler below gives you an idea of the level of privilege you have if you live in a developed country like the United States. If you have food, running water, and a roof over your head, you are doing just fine and are living like a king or queen.

Whenever you catch yourself saying the words I feel poor, you are doing so far ahead than the majority of the world that it’s inconceivable. This gives you a level of perspective that you’re not really worse off than the vast majority of the world.

You shouldn’t take the luxuries you have for granted. Many people are willing to do anything to be in your situation right now. It’s amazing just how much privilege we have in our world. Just by having food on the table, we are living quite well.

Once we broaden our perspective do we really appreciate just how good our situation really is.

3) I Feel Poor: Increase Your Income

When I used to make $100,000, I didn’t know it at the time, but I felt poor. Although a minority percentage of households make six figures, it still didn’t feel like I was making anything meaningful. When I increased my income is when I started to feel like I had a margin of error.

After 401k, HSA, and Roth IRA contributions, I didn’t really have a lot leftover. I was basically living paycheck to paycheck with the level of income that I was at. Once you increase your income to $150k, $200k, or even $300k, then you will stop feeling so poor.

However, the downside is that you shouldn’t go overboard with this. There’s no point in sacrificing health for wealth and there’s no point in sacrificing happiness for wealth. If you enjoy and like your free time, then all the more power to you.

Once you increase income meaningfully and once you actually have leeway in your budget, do you feel rich. Like you have breathing room to go about your day to day.

4) Shut Off Social Media and Disappear for a While

The popular saying is to disappear for six months and come back unrecognizable after. It’s a cliche but it certainly works. I personally cut off all contact with my friends for a solid six months and it was the most peaceful time I had to work on my goals.

When you say I feel poor, you may have friends that are distractions to you. I’m not saying cut off all contact with them but if you have to disappear for six months to a year to work on yourself, then go for it by all means. It’s just amazing when you’re moving up in the world without distractions.

Social media is a huge distraction and a huge time suck that’s taking away a lot of your opportunities for growth and upward mobility. I plan on cutting off contact and disappearing for a solid year before I can actually see what my results look like.

There’s no time for distractions, your life is too important to think about that.

5) Take Care of Your Physical Health

Physical health shifts into mental health. When you don’t have good physical health, you don’t have good mental health. It’s true. The basics will always matter. Take care of your gut health. See the sunlight every so often. Eat healthy and clean foods.

You think it won’t matter until you experience what you’ve been missing out on. Your mental health creates your world. Your physical health heavily influences your mental health. When you say I feel poor it may be because you are poor in health, not necessarily money.

You can’t conquer the world if your greatest weapon, your mind, is not sharp.

I started moving mountains when my physical health got taken care of. I worked out 5x a week, ate clean food, and went outside and got some daily sunlight. Sunlight has been a crucial and positive factor in my mentality, mood, and physicality.

The office environment certainly ruined a lot of people’s lives over this. We, humans, need sunlight and to roam around Earth.

6) Let Time Pass and Be More Patient

There may be a chance that you’re on the right path. You just need to be patient to get out of the “I feel poor” mentality and feeling. If you’re saving and investing your money, there’s nothing you need to do except let time pass. Time is the most valuable commodity that you have.

Just keep going. You may already be doing the right things. And by trying to go faster, you are risking the already good trajectory that you’re on. It’s one thing to go faster with no additional risk. It’s another to go faster because you’re impatient and risk your progress.

There definitely are ways to overcome the slow progress frustration. Your mindset and behavioral characteristics are what’s going to push you ahead. Not your intelligence and IQ. The ones who can withstand the test of time are the ones who truly come out ahead.

Millionaires are built over decades, not just over years.

7) I Feel Poor: Have a Spending Month

This doesn’t mean spend every single penny that you have and to your heart’s desires. However, it’s not a bad idea to do something extravagant for yourself for one month. It’s a way to remind yourself that you’re not as poor as you think you are.

Once in a blue moon, I’ll spend to my heart’s desires. In November 2022, I spent money on a brand new MacBook around Black Friday. I love that MacBook and I treasure it fondly and use it very well. It’s quite an upgrade especially since the last time that I bought a laptop was ten years ago.

When you say “I feel poor”, it may not be a bad idea to have a spending month where you spend more than your usual amount of spending. Obviously, only do this if you can actually afford to spend the level of money that you’re spending.

If you actually can, it’s not a bad idea to pull out your checkbook and spend for a good month.

8) Do Something Different

If you’ve been feeling poor for years, it’s time to change that by adding a different routine to your life. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you’ve been going out every weekend and not saving money at all, it’s time to change that behavior.

If you’ve been spending your weekends doing nothing but spending money, it’s time to spend that time starting a side hustles. With the invention of the internet, opportunities aren’t just limitless. Opportunities are literally right at your fingertips.

When you say “I feel poor” for years on end without any end in sight, then it’s time to do something different. You have to try anything else to earn more money or cut back on spending and expenses. Many Americans are more than capable of becoming millionaires.

However, they don’t become millionaires because their financial literacy is so poor.

9) Learn From Others

The reason you feel poor, if you already have a good enough net worth, is because of your income. Low net worth isn’t what makes you feel poor. Low income is that makes you feel poor. Why? Because there’s nothing leftover after spending on necessities. It doesn’t matter if you have $500k in the bank.

If you feel like you can’t spend any of it because you have low income, you might as well never have had $500k in the first place. Learn from others who are increasing income and are getting there. For me, my friends increased their income by at least 50% in 2021.

That motivated and fired me up to do the same. I learned how to negotiate, talk to recruiters and actually increase my income going forward by finding good jobs down the road. Then on top of that, I’m starting side hustles that I’m hoping will pay off in 2024.

The road isn’t easy, but I’m trying to make strides one day at a time.

I Feel Poor: It’s a Real Thing

When you say “I feel poor”, you are not alone. I’ve been feeling poor since 2020 but I didn’t even realize it at the time because the world was imploding and I couldn’t distract myself with such trivial thoughts. It’s a real thing with millions of people feeling and thinking the exact same thing.

Some of the feelings and thoughts are unfounded. Some of the feelings are actually true. What’s important in times as these is to look at the data and always make your decisions based on logic and cold hard numbers.

You may actually be doing better than you already know without knowing it. There’s no point in feeling poor when you’re already a millionaire or even a multimillionaire just because your friends are billionaires. It’s time to be happy with the path you’ve chosen.

There’s always going to be people in the world doing better than you. Some of those people will be your friends. Imagine Elon Musk’s or Jeff Bezos’ college roommate. They will never ever surpass them, no matter how much they try.

They will always say, “I feel poor” because they will always do worse than those two on a comparative basis. It’s just not a good spot to be in. Trust me. As someone who’s been there multiple times and know who’s going to be there multiple times, it’s not the best position to be in.

Not for your mentality or for your happiness. Your health depends on it.

I Feel Poor: What to Do Shortlist

• Look at the data
• Shift your mindset
• I feel poor: increase your income
• Shut off social media and disappear for a while
• Take care of your physical health
• Let time pass and be more patient
• I feel poor: have a spending month
• Do something different
• Learn from others