How To Escape The “Average” American’s Financial Nightmare
With that behind us, we’ll then easily be able to talk about the “why” and the “how”.
The “Average American"
Here are some statistics that define the finances of an “average American”.
I've included hyperlinks and I encourage you to also Google keywords to do deeper research on your own:
Average Consumer Debt (According to NerdWallet, Inc, 2019):
- $195,967 Mortgages
- $46,954 Student Loans
- $27,978 Auto Loans
- $6,591 Credit Card Debt
- $138,722 Any Type Of Debt
If the "average" Americans' credit card balances had a physical representation, this would actually be a black hole.
78% of people live paycheck to paycheck (CareerBuilder 2017).
$423.8 Billion of consumer debt in the U.S. (NerdWallet Inc, 2018, Federal Reserve Data).
17.4% Average credit card APR (valuepenguin.com, 2019).
7 out of 10 couples do not budget consistently (Financial Peace University Member Survey, 2017).
Approximately 66% of Americans would struggle to pay for and $1000 emergency (CareerBuilder, 2017).
40% of Americans would struggle to cover a $400 emergency (Bloomberg, 2019).
And finally, the average household income in the US is $60,336 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017).
Why And How To Avoid Being An “Average" American
Why do you want to avoid being "average"? Well, that really depends on you.
Are you really sick and tired of being sick and tired of money problems?
If so, the first thing you MUST do is decide that you hate debt and that you hate living beyond your means.
Until you do that, it’s all like moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. Useless and a waste of time, really.
As a real-life example, we’ve coached clients who have gone through the debt elimination process, gotten completely out of debt, then found themselves in even more debt than the first time after just a few years of being debt free.
What?! How does that even happen? I really do find this puzzling until I peel back some layers of their "mindset".
This backsliding into debt happens because their underlying attitudes toward money and debt did not fundamentally change.
There are some very specific ways they these attitudes and your overall mindset need to change to in order to avoid falling into the same hole all over again.
You simply must determine to jettison your "old mind" and how it relates to debt and money. Otherwise, nothing will change.