Ruining your financial future
We know people don’t want to hear the truth about action, money and taking responsibility. So, for this reason, I decided to do a post on ruining your money future. I know we ruin our financial future all by ourselves, but I thought I would supply some guidelines on making this even better.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to live above their means, drive a car they cannnot afford, eat gourmet caviar everyday and live the life?
Ruining your personal finances can be split into two categories: self destruction and lucky destruction. To optimise your probability of being financially ruined, you need to make sure you burn the candle from both ends.
You need to make sure that ruin is inevitable.
Don’t have an emergency fund
You either plan to fail or fail to plan. To make the chance of failure higher, you should avoid planning for emergencies. This money can be used better – how about that new smartphone?
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
Remember, if you get hit by a bus on your way to a coffee shop, you too can claim damages!
Find and use high-interest debt
Whatever the debt may be for – holidays, nice clothes, coffee or an expensive car – it is imperative that you find the highest interest rate debt imaginable.
For the general middle class, this tends to be credit card and personal loan debt. I do want to give an honourable mention to mashonisas – for those who have access to them, it would make absolute financial nonsense to pay 50% per month back in interest and fees.
Make sure you never retire
We all know that we don’t need to retire. Retirement is for the weak!
To make sure you never retire, you need to lock yourself into the debt cycle. This is done by making sure that your expenses always outweigh your income. A simple way to do this is to have an overdraft and making sure that your debt repayments catch up to your salary increases.
Consider not saving/investing for retirement. If you do this well, you should be well on your way to never retire – or die early.
Buy what your heart desires through a loan
As mentioned previously, you need to spend on what people say you need. Remember your car, home and clothes must match their expectations of you. If it does not, you might have an identity crisis and a full wallet.
Remember: the more expensive the better. You need to up those rookie numbers!
Keep all money under your pillow
I realise that not everyone wants to ruin themselves to the extent of dying at 65, so I added this one in for those wanting an extra year.
If you’re young, you should invest in places where your money is safe. The reason is simple – low risk, low return. And although you might be okay if you do invest in other higher risk investments such as ETFs or speculative investments, you need to be sure that you don’t lose anything.
Keep it safe!
Involve friends and the spouse in your personal finance
It is best to get others involved to amplify the damage – and I am not talking helping people, I am talking DESTRUCTION!
For maximum financial impact, you need to be married in community of property. In simple terms, this refers to “what’s yours is ours”. So, if your spouse makes debt, they can come after you.
Another way to do this is to sign surety for friends. To do this, you need your green ID book/card, a your signature and an unsound mind.
Easy peasy!
Don’t have a will
I am aware that if you’re dead, you won’t be able to ruin your own financial situation – but you can rule from the grave. To make sure you have maximum impact, you need to either have no will or have one that is not properly signed and dated.
This will cause your estate to either be handed over to the government or make people fight for what they believe is theirs. It is vital that you attempt to rule from the grave how money that you owe is spent.
Don’t have insurance
The FIRE community is vehemently against insurance. You can imagine that it would be impossible to retire early if you need to pay for medical and car insurance! For this reason, it would be prudent to not have any life cover, medical aid or other cover.
This would heighten the odds of crashing and burning financially if something would go wrong.
Concentrate all investments in one thing
Experience has taught us that if we invest our whole life savings in Bitcoin, we will be able to retire early – and be able to buy South Africa. But it does come with severe risk, making it the perfect vehicle to ruin your finances.
You need to have all your eggs in one basket for maximum impact – and speculative assets is the top way to do this.
Remember – go big or go home!
Make your money someone else’s problem
Though not all bad, we know there are some excellent salespeople out there. For optimal financial ruin, you need to seek out the specific people where gold makes their eyes glaze over. Don’t ask about their commission and how they are reimbursed. Rather hand it over and sign any paperwork without looking.
To make sure you don’t have any recourse of liability, it is best to consider Ponzi schemes and other unregulated investment vehicles.
Remember – money that is not in your hands, means it’s someone else’s problem!
Conclusion
Though highly inappropriate, we all do this – we sabotage our own financial future by not insuring things we cannot replace, like our health.
We furthermore spend money on things that are not important. Imagine that – we’re throwing money away because it’s cool.
And it looks good.
If you don’t mind wasting money, that’s really fine.
But if you want to move forward financially – then do it. You won’t be sorry.
Happy investing!
