10 Steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire
Written by Kevin on May 8, 2008 – 7:00 amNo Debt Plan is a blog about living a debt-free life. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed (e-mail subscription also available). Learn more about me, or read some other popular articles. Thanks for visiting!
Jonathan over at Master Your Card recently asked his readers, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?“. He gave ten tips on how to achieve becoming a millionaire.
I thought it might be fun to provide the mirror image of those tips. In short, to show you how to not become a millionaire. Here goes!
Ten Steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire
- Accept whatever salary an employer offers. Negotiating is a hard, scary process. Don’t bother with it and just be happy you have a job.
- Don’t try to improve yourself at work. Stick to the status quo. Act like you’re in a union. Only do what you are told to do. Ignore naysayers or people warning you of an upcoming layoff.
- Never leave the company you work for. Unless you are fired or laid off, don’t leave your current employer. Remember, they gave you a shot! You owe it to them to stick around for as long as possible.
- Don’t track how much you earn and spend. Budgeting by far is the most difficult thing to do in personal finance. It takes a lot of time and can expose our true financial selves. That can be painful. Just don’t do it.
- Spend more than you earn. If the credit card company is willing to let you pay off that plasma TV next year, why shouldn’t you? You’re in your prime! You can save later and catch up. It’ll be easy then. But for now, that Porsche Boxster, 4,000 sq. ft. house for two, and an exercise machine look mighty fine.
- Ignore work benefits. 401k plan? Sounds kind of funny to me. Why would the company want to give me money? Plus, I’d miss that 3% in every paycheck. Honest. I’m actually going to write an entire post on this soon, so stay tuned.
- Ignore your tax withholdings. Huge refund checks at the end of the year always save you from financial disaster. Why would you ever want to change that? It’s so much easier to just get the big check after tax season.
- Don’t open any IRAs. You’re already doing that darn 401k thing — that’s more than enough! 3% of your income already hurts. Plus, doesn’t IRA stand for Independent Righteous Arsenal?
- Invest sometime later. Remember, you’ve got bills to pay. There isn’t enough money to sit aside for investing. Just wait. You’ll use next year’s raise, or wait until the kids move out of the house. Then you’ll have time and money.
- Saving is complicated. Those guys on late night TV with the $99 investment programs must have gotten it lucky. Now look at them — making money by sharing their tips with the world. Hold on. I’ll be right back. I need to go order one.
Phew, that was hard. Time to go be a couch potato. Or maybe I’ll keep sitting here…
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Tags: Mistakes
Posted in Mistakes |
May 8th, 2008 at 9:10 am
This is one of the best posts I have ever read.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:23 am
May 8th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Eye opening and witty. Nice post Kevin.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
[…] of No Debt Plan gives his take on how to avoid becoming a millionaire. It seems so easy and so many people are doing it, I don’t know if we really need […]
May 8th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
[…] wrote a complimentary piece to our article, 10 steps to becoming a millionaire, entitled ‘10 steps to Avoid becoming a millionaire‘! Well worth a […]
May 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
[…] percentage who don’t. In the spirit of niche marketing gone wrong, No Debt Plan has posted Ten Steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire. I don’t think you really need to do all ten steps. Just performing step number five should […]
May 9th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Hey this is great I do all that stuff, wow I am going to be rich… no wait, how NOT to become a Millionaire? Oh crap… never mind.
–C8j
May 9th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
One more is to “dogg out” those who are already millionaires. I have this friend who truly believes if you make a mil or more that you definitely did something foul -no matter how small- ot get it. I regretfully told him I guess we won’t be friends anymore.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
This plan definitely works! Until I discovered Dave Ramsey on the radio last summer this was my plan and I was almost $160,000 in debt with no idea how to fix it.
After three days of listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio I dropped this plan and switched to a better plan because I DO want to be a millionaire.
Great post!
May 9th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Great post there, I believe I was following it one step at a time there.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:34 am
I like no.5 …quite motivating
May 10th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Great “reverse psych” here…I think so many people fail to do 8 through 10 because they are afraid of taking risks. They’d rather spend the money on themselves on material goods than invest it for a better retirement..
May 10th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Very motivating indeed. time for me to start thinking what in the list i have done..
May 10th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
“Never leave the company you work for”
strong statement this one, I wonder if it’s aimed at the japanese way of doing things.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:01 am
[…] 10 Steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire at No Debt Plan — Excellent list of how to put yourself out of the race. If you want to achieve financial freedom, DO avoid these things. […]
May 11th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Very Motivating! Nothing like a good helping of condescension to start the day!
May 11th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
[…] subject of wealth, so to speak, there’s this post from Kevin’s No Debt Plan blog called 10 Steps To Avoid Being A Millionaire (who got it from Jonathan at Master Your Card [man, we all steal SO much from each other]) that […]
May 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Lol, this is funny advice that describes the all too common status quo. Thanks for the advice of things to avoid.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
[…] you are going through the same dilemma then it is entirely possible that you might be following one of these steps that are guaranteed to keep you away from the millionaire’s […]
May 12th, 2008 at 1:08 am
I wonder when there is going to anything original regarding this topic. Great post but I’ve heard and read the same advices so many times over. I wish someone would go deeper and more advanced other than the basic common sense save money advice.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:27 am
This post is hilarious! Good stuff
May 12th, 2008 at 8:32 am
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May 12th, 2008 at 9:41 am
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May 12th, 2008 at 10:17 am
May 12th, 2008 at 10:17 am
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May 12th, 2008 at 10:25 am
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May 12th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Excellent post! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Best Wishes,
D4L
May 13th, 2008 at 6:21 am
[…] 10 Steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire. […]
May 14th, 2008 at 2:36 am
[…] Source [No Debt Plan] Filed Under Banks, Consumers, Debt, Earnings, Financial Training […]
May 14th, 2008 at 8:31 am
“follow these steps you’ll have mad bread to break up” - notorious BIG
May 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
One of the best posts, ha? You will never become a millionare by just being an employee…