Money Mistakes

The other day I saw a TikTok about a guy who just “purchased” his dream car. I’m like 99% sure the video was a parody, as I can’t imagine who would be proud about paying $850 a month for 12 years at 18.99% interest for a Range Rover, but … this is America and we are the land of poor financial decisions.

After all, 56% of Americans can’t cover a $1000 emergency bill (and don’t get me started on corporations refusing to pay living wages).

So, I stitched the Range Rover video and showed what $850 a month could turn into if it was invested in an S&P500 Index Fund instead. And I was met with a pretty outrageous comment saying it was a good thing this individual was paying so much because 1. it would motivate him by living “just outside his comfort zone” and 2. financial mistakes are good lessons.

And while I agree that there are good lessons in making financial mistakes, I don’t agree that everyone should go around making horrifically stupid piss poor financial decisions for the sole benefit of learning a lesson later on when that money could instead be invested.

That’s why I started my TikTok account: To help people avoid making dumb stock trading mistakes and to encourage people to live below their means and invest.

His follow up response was that I was “selling stocks” like O’Leary sold bitcoin and other content creators sell courses and that I should “stop it” because there are other investments. Yeah, duh there are other investments. But my channel is about trading stocks and investing. I’m not a real estate investor. I’m not an entrepreneur. I can’t tell you how to refinance or get a credit card with the best points. I talk about stocks because that’s my area of expertise. I don’t “sell stocks” and I don’t sell a course.

I also use my own stock trading and investing mistakes as real life examples of what NOT to do. I know, most people have to learn lessons themselves. But if I can help even a handful of people by saying, “don’t do what I did,” well … maybe we’ll have fewer people driving around in Range Rovers they can’t afford simply because they wanna look rich rather than be rich.

But that’s just me.