'Broke' By Design
I am a big proponent of owning your position. If we are going to be completely honest with ourselves, we are typically in the position we are in as a result of our own actions. Sometimes we don’t like to admit this. From the simplest things to the big ones, if we play things back in our heads, we did it.
Burn your hand after grabbing that hot pot on the stove? Stub your toes shuffling through the living room late at night? Morning the loss of some chickens because they were not put away properly at night? These are the low hanging fruit. Being more careful or mindful could have prevented these things.
Sometimes its not so cut and dry. Drowning in debt because you keep swiping those credit cards? Is there a lack of funds in the bank because you have an Amazon habit? I know what some of you are thinking, “that is absolutely your own fault and that’s pretty cut and dry.” I agree, but is there more to it?
As of May 2019, roughly 40 percent of Americans didn’t have 400 dollars in the bank to handle an unexpected emergency, according to an ABC news report. Before inhaling in preparation to deliver a rebuke of these people, ask yourself something. How is that something like this came to be?
According to a 2018 study commissioned by GuideVine, a financial advisory group, the vast majority of Americans lacked any real understanding of personal finance. Polling 1,000 participants over the age of 30, the results showed that 48 percent could not explain what interest is, and 55 percent had no concept of long-term financial planning. Pealing the onion back a bit more, the study showed that only 13 percent of people had even contemplated five year planning for their finances. The nightmare isn’t over yet, hang in there.
Just under under 25 percent admitted to being unable to save any money at the end of the month.
Roughly 30 percent never thought of a life without debt.
Of those that claimed to have a budget, 66 percent, men spent an average of $125 over their budget compared to women that spent $71 over.
What in the actual f#&k!”
A common saying in the U.S. Army when confronted with something that doesn’t make sense
Here’s a shocker. In 2007, the U.S. Department of Education's 2007 National Assessment for Educational Progress showed that less than one third of eighth graders could read or write at the level deemed appropriate for their age.
What does this have to do with anything?
Ask yourself this. If our eighth graders can’t read and write, do you think they have a sound comprehension of finances?
The correct answer is no.
The reality is, we are not taught about the one thing that makes the world go round. Even Forbes, in 2019, argued for why it is that personal finance should taught in high school. In her article, Liz Fraizer, highlights the youth is basically being crippled as they are pushed out into adulthood after high school. As noted in one of her five points, financial illiteracy has real consequences.
So I will return to the question I posed earlier. Is our financial ignorance so cut and dry? Is it the fault of those young kids and adults-to-be that they have no clue about finances? Should we expect their parents, who also didn’t learn about personal finance in school, to teach them about the rough road ahead and that money is actually a tool?
If you are an avid consumer of media, you probably understand that we are bombarded by information that is designed to induce us to spend, spend, spend. Don’t actually have money in your bank account? No worries, just swipe that credit card and worry about it next month.
Live within your means? What’s that?
Think about it. If our culture promotes consumerism and the nation’s education system ignores financial literacy, what do we actually expect to happen? How could we possibly expect a different outcome?
This issue; however, is not impossible to correct. Want proof? You are here… reading this. This tells me that you can see there is a problem. That we were released into the wild as uneducated consumers. But we don’t have to stay that way.
More and more people are working towards their own financial independence. Learning all this stuff about money that our “educators” never taught us. That’s right! That professor at your college is probably in the same financial shape you are… or worse.
Take a stand now. We don’t have to suffer in ignorance. Educate yourself and don’t depend on the same organizations that promoted our condition to throw you a life raft.
Financial independence is an individual goal, but not something you are doing on your own.
