Money Excuses

11 Most Common Money Excuses

People have all kinds of money excuses for their financial mishaps. Here are some of the most common excuses for why people don’t save money, invest, learn about money and get out of debt.

1. I can’t

This money excuse is a non-starter. If you “can’t” save money, get out of debt or take charge of your spending, you are obviously not going to.

In the same vein, money will not stay with you or find you. Money is like a garden to tend. If you start planting the seeds now, you can grow big trees over the years. If you “can’t” go to your garden, then it will stay barren or grow weeds of debt.

2. I’ll never have that much money

Self fulfilling prophecy alert! If you are already sure that getting out of debt or having a million dollars is not going to happen in your reality, then it definitely will not. If you will never have a garden, why would you go outside and plant seeds?

This is a money excuse of the worst kind because it predetermines that your destiny will be a certain way.

3. Money is way too complicated to understand

Insofar as money can be complicated, it is a reality of life. If you choose to learn about it and become better at working with it, you will be ahead of everyone else who is standing on the sidelines scratching their heads.

If putting seeds in the ground is too complicated, you’ll never grow anything in your garden.

4. I really like X so I can’t stop buying it

You can do things and buy things you enjoy and still have money. The difference is the mindset with which you go about it. If you are addicted to DVDs, limit yourself to buying one a week and put the rest of your previously overgrown entertainment budget towards savings.

This is like parking a car in the middle of your money garden and leaving it there to rot. Over the years the car will rust, the tires will melt and the whole mess will become useless. Instead of a giant money tree, you’ll have a giant pile of rubbish.

5. Money isn’t important

Think hard about how you spend your day. Do you go off to a job? Why do you go to that job? Money? So if money isn’t important, then neither is your time.

Time is all we have. In very real terms, you transform your time and energy into money. Money equals energy. If you waste that energy or don’t think it is important, then you are telling the universe that all of that time you spent working on X project at Conglomerate Inc. was so that you could wake up the next day and go back to Conglomerate Inc.

If having a garden that provides for you isn’t important, by all means, stay away from your garden. And while you’re at it, rent a copy of 1984 and start a re-enactment with you as the star.

6. Rich people are evil

If you hold the belief somewhere deep down that rich people are evil, how on Earth would you ever get rich or even come close without running into the idea that you would become evil yourself? Try this. Close your eyes. Imagine your bank account with a million dollars in it. Now check and see if you’ve grown imaginary horns. Wait!! No horns? Proceed with plan to become rich.

Closing your mind has never been a very good way to accomplish anything, and the idea that rich people are evil snaps it shut very quickly.

7. Capitalism is evil

First, lets talk about alternatives to capitalism.

In socialism, people run your life for you, and you don’t get a say in what you do or what you own. Sounds like wage slavery to me– because if I don’t get a choice about what I’m doing, then who decides? The group? I can’t make my friends decide where to go to dinner, let alone important things like “should I buy that building?”. Multiply that problem by a million, and you’ve got group-think socialism.

In communism, everyone owns the means of production and theoretically there aren’t any classes, but no one gets ahead either. So you live your dull life, do what everyone else is excpected to do, and then die. Technically everyone is supposed to have an equal say over the events, but people aren’t always the same in intellect or anything else, so the society is doomed to mediocrity.

During anarchy, the strong survive the chaos, and everyone else eats each other. Sounds like I should buy shot guns and stock up on canned goods now. Where did I put that grenade launcher anyway?

There are a lot more “alternative social systems” that I could bore you with, but basically, this doesn’t matter because the reality is that we are living in a capitalist society.

If you use the money excuse that capitalism is evil to justify why you are choosing not to work with your money, just put your head in the sand now. Please, I can help you find a shovel.

8. I don’t have very much willpower

Like many habits involving self control, the willpower necessary to sustain them wanes once the habit is firmly established. Money habits are the same.

Once you work at growing your money long enough, impulse control isn’t as important. There is something very satisfying about opening your bank statement to find that your savings has grown above the level where you still want to raid it.

9. Shopping makes me happy

Shopping makes me happy too. I am completely supportive of people using their money in ways they enjoy. Just not to the extent that it prevents them from investing, saving or paying their bills.

Shopping is fun, but debt is definitely not fun.

If you can shop half as much and try to make those purchases more meaningful, later you can shop twice as much and not have it make a dent in your bottom line.

Ok, I realize that is not very scientific, but if you are at or near financial red line, “happy from shopping” probably won’t offset “depression from homelessness” if you were to suddenly lose your job.

Shop until your heart is content once you’ve earned it. If you’re funding your shopping with debt or you don’t understand your money and you are still at the shoe store, then you need to reevaluate your priorities.

10. My spouse/kids/family prevent me from saving

I understand that it is more difficult to save money when there are more mouths to feed. I also know that loved ones are much happier when there is enough to go around. If you can explain that cuts here and there will prevent financial armageddon later on, your loved ones will likely become much more in tune with your ideas about the family finances.

Become your family’s biggest financial security cheerleader. If your spouse refuses to take your cheer leading seriously, consider whether or not you picked the correct spouse.

11. When I make more money, I’ll be able to save

More money doesn’t usually solve money problems. Determination solves money problems. Every great fortune started with an idea. Whether that idea was big like “invent personal computer” or small like “open personal savings account”, just doing something money-wise always trumps doing nothing. When you save, you’ll HAVE more money, and that money will grow other money and the circle will continue.

If you are waiting to start planting your garden, it will take a lot longer for it to grow. If you start saving AND looking for ways to make more money, you’ll be a lot further ahead later on. Start saving automatically every paycheck and after a little while you won’t even miss the money.

I hope you enjoyed my 12 money excuses. Please contact me with any comments.

Tags: Money Excuses