10 Steps to Avoid Becoming a Millionaire

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About No Debt Plan: From my about page:

My name is Kevin and I author this blog. I write No Debt Plan to help readers eliminate debt, learn how to budget and save, and move themselves towards financial freedom. I began writing on personal finance in late 2006 on my personal blog, but started No Debt Plan in January of 2008 to give my personal finance articles a permanent, focused home.

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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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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?
9. 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.
10. 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…

Update: This post has been featured at MSN’s Smart Spending Blog, has been all over Stumble Upon, and has been linked to by various personal finance sites. I hope it inspires all of you readers to do the right things, and learn how to retire a millionaire. I’m here to show you how to retire with millions by first getting out of debt. We’ll get to wealth building in the future as the No Debt Plan progresses.

Tagged as: Mistakes