Money excuses are everywhere and are holding you back from achieving your ideal financial life. They lead to Americans being unable to come up with a $400 emergency expense. The worst excuses are the ones that are very common such as thinking saving $10 won’t make an impact.
Americans are going through a money crisis in 2022. The personal savings rate, as of June 2022, hit an abysmally low rate of 5.1%, which is a dangerously low amount. It’s a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode as Americans rely on credit to finance their everyday purchases.
Yes, some of it has to do with the high inflation that we’re facing. However, other reasons have to do with their own choices of choosing not to save money anyway, even when they have the means to do so. Americans traditionally haven’t had a double digit savings rate.
Compare that to China, whose citizens have a savings rate of 44.9%. Building wealth depends entirely on savings. Yes, income is important, but as this astute millionaire janitor taught us, saving money is much more important than on the income side of the equation.
There are many money excuses that are really keeping Americans from building wealth and achieving upward mobility. America is the richest and wealthiest country in the entire world. Yet the wealth of the average citizen living in America is abysmally low. We need to change that.
10 Money Excuses Holding You Back
The first money excuse that you’re ignoring is that you’re not SMASHING that social share button and sharing to your favorite social media! Your friends could definitely use an article like this. If anything, please share the article for me.
So with that said, let’s go over the excuses holding millions of Americans back on their financial health!
1) “What’s Saving $10 Going to do For Me?”
This is the most classic money excuse. When I first started my wealth building journey, I tried everything to save $5 here and there. If I could bring lunch, I brought lunch. If I could take public transportation, I took public transportation. Then my coworkers got wind of what I was doing.
As a result, they bullied me and made fun of me regularly. They couldn’t possibly understand how a $10 saving would affect them later down the road. Many call this the “latte factor“. While it may be true that one $10 savings will not affect them significantly, it is true that many $10 savings will.
People say “it’s only spending $10” not once in a year, but several times throughout the year. Saying this 100 times throughout the year equates to $1,000 in savings. Which adds up to huge amounts if invested at an 8% annual rate over the long term.
This is the most classic of the money excuses that people make.
2) “My Income Isn’t High Enough”
I get it. Many people believe that in order to be rich, you need to have a high income. That’s utterly false. High income is helpful, however, it is NOT a necessity. Investing just $500/month for 40 years will change your life for the better. You can’t talk about money excuses without talking about income.
Too many people think they need to make $100k+, have no kids, and live a hermit lifestyle in order to build wealth. That’s not true. In fact, high income may even work against you because of the story of Richard Fuscone, former Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch.
After reaching the top, he eventually declared bankruptcy, giving up his mansion that he worked his entire life for. Too many people place too much emphasis on income when they should be emphasizing on factors they can easily control more.
3) “I have Time to Build Wealth”
While it may be true that it’s never too late to start, delaying investing your money for one year can have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of consequences down the road. It’s the power of compound interest working against you, if you don’t take consistent action.
There may be ample time to build wealth but delaying investing every year with this mindset is costing you a lot of money. Money excuses are dangerous and it’s especially dangerous when it’s time working against you. When time works for you is when good things are going to happen.
Whether we like it or not, time is going to pass by us. Therefore, if someone is going to happen whether we like it or not, we may as well make it our ally instead of our enemy. Someone who invests a little today will always be better than someone who invests a lot tomorrow.
4) “What’s the Point of Having Money If You Don’t Use It?”
This saying was made popular by Penny from Big Bang Theory whose boyfriend at the time stashed away $6k from her salary. The point of having money is to provide security for your current and future self. Saving money is almost like buying insurance without actually paying money for it.
Money excuses like this one is pervasive because at face value, it makes sense. If it just sits there and does nothing, what’s the difference between not having money and having money in the first place? This logic is coming from someone who is not well versed in personal finance.
They are not practicing good financial literacy. There’s easily ways to use money that becomes more useful later down the road. It’s investing that money so that it grows into higher amounts. Do that over a long enough period of time and you’ve really got magic going on.
5) “Investing is Complicated”
Investing is NOT complicated. It’s become much more cheaper and easier to invest now with brokerages offering free trade executions and the like. Money excuses like this one prevent people from understanding the most impactful part of building wealth. Investing money.
These days, everything is so simple that all you have to do is open up your brokerage account and buy high quality stocks/and or indexes. My personal favorite is the S&P 500 index. It’s made me over $100,000 and I expect it to continue to make me a lot of money.
Investing is so simple for me that I automate everything now. Something close to $1,500 of my paycheck goes into investing in the S&P 500 index every paycheck. I want to become the automatic 401k millionaire when the time comes to it. It’s all tax advantaged money.
6) “My Job is Going Great Right Now Anyway”
These people who make these money excuses don’t think a bear market is ever going to happen. Or that nothing that’s outside of their control is ever going to happen. Adam Smith was a former CFO who was blacklisted by companies for a protest gone wrong.
He was set to be a millionaire with $1MM in stock options but it vanished overnight. People don’t think that bad things are ever going to happen. They can and they will happen to you. No one’s career was ever perfect and not a single successful person I know had a perfect career.
Some faced layoffs, firing, and/or unforeseen health problems that rendered them unable to work. Others had marriage problems that costed them a lot of money in the divorce proceedings. People don’t think bad things can happen until they do.
7) “I’m Not Going to be a Millionaire Anyway”
If you’re in the US. the vast majority can become millionaires. If a janitor can become a multimillionaire by his passing and if a secretary can become a multimillionaire by her passing, anyone can become a millionaire. The people who think they’re not going to be a millionaire don’t know they can be one.
No other money excuses bother me more than this one. America is the land of the opportunity. There’s literally an endless stream of opportunity for people who are willing to work hard and put their smarts together to make something happen. It’s not easy but it’s possible.
Besides, what’s the point of living life like something bad is going to happen? Good things happen to those who think good things are going to happen and bad things happen to people who think bad things are going to happen. Positivity influences your life more than you know.
8) “Money isn’t Everything”
I am the first to agree that money isn’t everything. There are many things in life that are more important than money. Things like health, relationships, and the like are so much more important. However, that shouldn’t be one of the money excuses used to not build wealth.
I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and I can absolutely attest that rich is better. When you are poor and live paycheck to paycheck, you feel horrible. You don’t feel like you have any sort of power at all. I know what it’s like because I’ve been there, exactly.
Once I started to feel like I had breathing room is when my mood improved. Having money may not buy happiness but not having money definitely buys unhappiness. This is one of the money excuses that people use to make themselves feel better about not having money.
We can’t let that be the pervasive reason why people don’t have money in their hands.
9) “8% Annual Returns Are Too Low”
Younger people typically say these money excuses to justify why they take on an obscene amount of risk. Maybe they want to spend all their money on GME call options thinking they will go to the moon. My recent college graduate friend fired back at my 8% return recommendation.
He thought it wasn’t enough. Eventually, I set his path straight but this was still surprising at how people scoff at 8% returns when they are phenomenal returns. Money excuses run rampant and greed is definitely not a good trait in building wealth.
People go head over heels over 8% yearly returns. Slow and steady wins the race. The one who achieved 100% returns in one year rarely returns 100% the next year. The numbers are just too big of a hurdle to overcome. Flying too close to the sun leads to getting burned.
10) “I Don’t Deserve to be Rich”: Shocking Money Excuses
This one is the most flabbergasting of all. The people who make these money excuses were usually a part of the lower class. They think because they grow up poor, they don’t deserve to make more money. Or even worse yet, their local people even encourage them to not be rich.
They call them “traitors” or “you’ll become just like them if you join”. Deep down, the local people are just jealous of their successes. Or as these people get wealthier, they feel guilty. They think things such as, “out of anyone in the world this could’ve happened to, why did it happen to me?”.
Or they think about how their local people aren’t doing as well as them. Whatever the reason may be, it’s one of the money excuses that are making themselves to be their greatest enemy. There’s no need to apologize for being rich. Wealth that is earned is nothing to be ashamed about.
Money Excuses Will Sink Many
Money excuses are dangerous because it’s a slippery slope from one decision spilling over to the next. Just as one good decision inspires to make subsequent good decisions down the road, bad decisions have the same effect as well.
Not saving $10 once over a year will make minimal to no impact to your life. Not saving $10 many times over a year will be a disaster, especially if it spills over to the next year as well. It’s your money. Poor money management is the reason why so many people are bankrupt.
The United States has a spending culture. Knowing how to spend money when it’s worth it to spend money is crucial. Saving money when it’s worth it to save money matters even more. Too many come up with money excuses to justify why they have no money.
Instead, a better way to is to accept when a money situation is bad and see opportunity when a money situation is good. All I want to do is make my readers a little bit richer through my articles. The journey to build wealth is quite difficult and time consuming.
However, once you get there, it will all have been worth it. I know that when I hit that elusive millionaire mark one day, it will feel sweet. Millionaires aren’t built by making money excuses. They’re built by putting in the work and letting time do what it does best.
10 Money Excuses Shortlist:
- “What’s saving $10 going to do for me?”
- “My income isn’t high enough”
- “I have time”
- “What’s the point of having money if you don’t use it?”
- “Investing is complicated”
- “My job is going great right now anyway”
- “I’m not going to be a millionaire anyway”
- “Money isn’t everything”
- “8% annual returns are too low”
- “I don’t deserve to be rich”
