Have you ever felt exasperated walking through an unknown street? Have you had dreaded feelings that you may never find your destination? We all have. Welcome to the world of book smarts – those of us who are on the financial treadmill ever since we were educated to get a good job and to earn a big salary – only to maintain our spending addiction.
No wonder that Harvard MBA’s are not considered as smart as those street smarts who have uncanny ability to learn from their life experiences to maneuver through the streets full of experts teaching same ole’ ways to earn more and spend more.
Enter the world of street smarts. They possess financial wisdom that most of us abhor; after all, we’ve an IQ higher than most of those street smarts, don’t we? Wrong!. Let’s uncover pages of wisdom from the school of hard knocks. You may be surprised to learn that higher IQ not necessarily transcends sound financial knowledge.
Live way below your means.
We, the book smarts, advise our kids to earn higher degree from a prestigious university to live an American dream, right? We protect our children for most of their young age but we teach them to enslave their future to fund a financial treadmill. A street smart understands the difference between a want and a need; this is essential to spend only for the need and not for the want as we live in world of constant commercials; these commercials are intended to target those of us who succumb to the impulsive nature of our needs.
Run away from debt.
Debt steals the promise of our future yet we embrace it like an old friend. Only street smarts understand that all friends are not equal. Compounding interest takes away cash that can be invested like seeds across the field of our lifespan to grow wealth in the future. Our desire to possess the possessions leads us to the unwanted streets of financial mess.
Earn less, Invest more.
Realized income is the beloved word at IRS. Uncle Sam wants all of us to earn more annually so that we pay our fair share of taxes to IRS. In reality, wealth is created by those street smarts who use common sense to invest more into tax sheltered investments. They use the law of compounding interest in their favor. Mos of us who earn more realized income end up spending that income on our lifestyle.And lifestyle expenses keep us on an endless street of financial fights.
Embrace frugality.
Have you ever haggled? Do you know the power of a simple question, “Is this the best you can do?” You may but after all you have a degree from a prestigious university so it hurts your ego to haggle, right? Remember, it’s your money. Street smarts have no shame asking for deals on everything they buy as they know the power of saving for their future.
Keep learning from the school of hard knocks.
We, the book smarts, think that our education completes when we receive a diploma at the graduation ceremony. We take pride in hanging our diplomas at our office wall to impress other book smarts. Only street smarts know that education begins as you walk on the street on your own. They are intelligent, observant and always yearn to learn from others who have achieved success in real life. Street smarts understand that financial success starts with personal growth first as it instills habits conducive to their financial success.
Remember, no one has more interest in your financial success than yourself. Avoid those thugs on the street of life – those pundits on the popular financial networks whose purpose is to make their network rich with your dollars. Or those avalanche of commercials intended to sell you another want that you don’t need to possess.
It’s not too late for us book smarts to become street smart; we can become street smart simply by self educating ourselves to undo what we’ve learned from our past.
We can read these books,
- Stop Acting Rich
- The Millionaire Next Door
- The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
- Street Smarts: An All Purpose Toolkit for Enterprenuers
and these blogs,
[…] that we make. We seldom review our expenses, especially big expenses, to realize that being frugal with what we spend can generate extra cash that we can save and grow for the future retirement. We […]