How to Get Financially Stuck this 2021

It’s that time of year again.

As the clock struck 12:01 AM on January 1, many people resolved to make a change in their diet, exercise habits, and relationships. Given this prolonged pandemic that has wreaked unimaginable havoc on all levels including our finances, there are sure-fire ways to make it worse.

Here are easy steps to financially wreck your new year by making the following personal money resolutions:

Abandon Your Goals

The quickest and simplest way to financially ruin your new year is to NOT plan financially.

Forget any aspirations—picture yourself adrift in this world, with no real idea of how to get to your financial destination. Isn’t it so much easier to not set any long-term vision or short-term motivation that would bring you closer to achieving the life you want?

Overlook the value of setting Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals. In fact, maybe just ditch those specific and realistic goals entirely!

Instead of saying “I want to pay off my credit card debt,” say “Thank goodness for all my credit cards and the points I accumulate as I use it anytime, I want to.” Who doesn’t like the rewards gained like treats, discounts, and cashbacks? Those financial experts who tell you to pay off your card in full each month simply don’t know what they’re missing. Swipe, swipe.

As you keep paying only the minimum amount due, you’ll now become an expert on how compounding really works. Feel free to experience how debt works against you with negative compounding—when you don’t pay your dues on time, the interest that is due and unpaid will add up to the outstanding principal and also becomes eligible for interest payment, increasing the outstanding amount exponentially.

Never mind that this kind of negative compounding will hurt your finances and ultimately derail your financial and life goals. Let those debts snowball over time, and just let your future self figure it out while you enjoy today.

Never Ever Budget, Save, Or Invest

The guaranteed way to eventually lose money is to decide never to budget, save, or invest.

The more you purchase those items you don’t need just to impress those people you don’t even like, the easier you will learn a very hard lesson. Just tell yourself that saving money is too hard for you and making it grow is just too complicated, even if you will eventually ask: “Where did it all go?”

Delay putting money in the stock market even if it can generate phenomenal returns. Deny the facts that the market will always find its way to recover and it will always find its way to reach new highs. Dismiss the potential gains you can get as you invest early in the stock market. If you are comfortable with missed opportunities, taking the above route is probably for you.

Come up with every possible excuse not to jumpstart your investment journey for 2021. Just hope that things will still go well for you and assume that you will never build a family, never grow old, and will never retire. Continue with this careless perspective so you can have an easier time!

Avoid Accountability

The quickest way to be in financial disorder is to stop learning. Shun educational webinars, do not listen to financial experts, stop reading learning materials, evade studying—essentially avoid every opportunity to expand and grow.

Eventually, you will find it easy to jump into every investment scam just to earn that quick money. After all, who can resist the promise of ridiculously high rates of return? You might be too busy to check with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) if any of these arrangements are actually schemes in disguise. Those get-rich-schemes are too good to pass up. It’s so good. Too good. Anyway, life is short and you or your loved ones will not bear the brunt.

Finally, make a note to yourself: 2020 has really been a stretch like no other, and for some, one of the toughest years of their lives. Imagine the further stretch financially if you have not done anything to improve your finances.

Since you have managed to stay up to this point, welcome this new year with a thought that you can financially decrease on your own without too much effort.

CAVEAT: This article is satirical and uses reverse psychology to point out commonly held bad financial habits to prompt the reader to do the opposite.