Five Financial Tips from Somebody Who Is Poor

Achieving financial stability is a key goal for many individuals, families, and myself. The right strategies will hopefully put us on the path to a secure future. Here, without Googling anything, I’ll throw around a couple of ideas that can help us take control of our finances and build a solid foundation.

Take All of Your Money Out of the Stock Market

The stock market is a mysterious entity that has astonished people for millennia. Only a few people have been able to figure it out, such as Warren Buffett or the Wolf of Wall Street. Besides the two of them, I don’t know anybody else who has made money in the stock market. Don’t pretend like you know anything—remove all of your money from the stock market.

Warren Buffett

Don’t Buy Expensive Things

Expensive things are the bank account’s kryptonite. Let’s say you have $5,000, and you go out and buy an antique radiator or a lifetime supply of candy. This can empty your account immediately and leave you with no money. I don’t have a lot of money to begin with, so I don’t need to worry about it. However, a savvy consumer should never blow their money on fancy things they don’t need.

Antique Radiator

Gamble Responsibly

Everyone needs to gamble every now and then. However, I would recommend gambling responsibly. We all end up in a casino now and then, but you need to set limits on yourself. Some people set their limit at one hour at the blackjack table. Personally, I recommend taking $11 and putting it on double zero at the roulette table.

Sports gambling is also something that every single one of us does. Gambling on your phone can be even more dangerous than gambling at the casino because it’s awesome. Some people limit themselves to gambling a couple hundred dollars per month. However, I recommend waiting for March Madness to come around and building a twenty-leg parlay. Put $5 on it, and if it hits, you can win like $200,000. I’m certain it will hit one day, and I’ll be rich.

Gambler

Treat Others Kindly

While more fun, treating others poorly is bad karma. Of course, bad karma can cause financial instability. I recall that one time I burned down the home of one of my enemies and spilled some gasoline on myself in the process. Fearing I’d run into a police officer, I ditched my clothes in the woods. Imagine my dismay when I remembered I’d left $20 in my pants pocket. In my experience, bad karma goes hand in hand with financial ruin. Treating others kindly has led to much better financial decisions.

Unrelated fire

Don’t Waste Your Money on a Website

While I do have fun running this website, it has left me in financial ruin. After some research, I bought adamlombardi.com on Wix for a year for $24. Little did I know, that was just to buy the domain name. It is completely different—and much more expensive—to host a website. In order to actually post anything on this site, I have to pay a company $22 per month.

As discussed, I don’t have a lot of money, so this is quite expensive for me. It also doesn’t help that I’m not using this site to sell anything, so it’s basically a useless money pit. I recommend that you should not waste time reading useless articles like this—much less waste the time and money it costs to write it.

The Path to Riches

So many things cost money these days, and if you aren’t responsible, you can go bankrupt. If you put your money in the stock market, it can crash and you can lose everything. If you buy expensive things, you’ll look flashy and cool—but also be broke. If you don’t gamble responsibly, you’ll also look flashy and cool, but could end up living in the woods. If you treat others poorly, no matter how much fun it is, bad karma can take your $20. Lastly, if you waste your money on a website, you can lose $22 a month and the respect of your peers.

We can learn many lessons from somebody who doesn’t have that much money. We can learn from my mistakes to gain riches beyond our wildest dreams—or at least whatever the payout is for $11 on double zero in roulette.