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Stop Reading Financial Porn
Forget the lists, drop your guilt, and live your actual life.
Every now and then (more often than I would like to admit) I get sucked down a rabbit hole of financial regret, should-ing all over myself and feeling like a complete failure.
Article after article, parading success stories of people who made more money at a younger age while working fewer hours than me.
And that’s just perusing the standard money news.
God forbid you get on a FIRE forum, where it seems like everyone has retired by 30 with $5 million in the bank, living the sweet life in Southern California’s beautiful San Fernando Valley.
The worst offenders are the articles putting a schedule on your finances. You can find them everywhere, because they’re an easy listicle to write. ‘
- How Much Money You Should Save (According to Your Age)
- Here’s How Much Money You Should Have Saved by Every Age
- How Much Money Should You Have Saved (by Age)
And I get it. These articles are supposed to give you a goal to shoot for. And hey, goals are good…when they’re your own. But making a goal merely because someone says you “should” just leads to disaster.
