“Don’t let average people make you feel guilty for pursuing your mission in life”
– Eric Worre –

If you’ve been reading my blog (and you should be regularly… so please subscribe) then you know that I’m a big advocate for financial literacy and how the lack of it has had massive negative affects on peoples lives. The average person has very little financial knowledge which is why the average person has little to no savings, drowning in debt and nothing put towards retirement planning. The average person will NOT be able to stop working in their later years because they are not preparing properly, if at all.

Even though I’m not a financial planner (yet, but working on it), here’s a tid bit of financial advice anyway. Don’t be average… you can’t afford it!

Did you know that nearly 77 million Americans have debt in collections? That’s just a portion of people who are drowning in debt, Nearly one third of Americans pay the minimum amount due on their credit card each month because they can’t afford to pay more. In 2018 the banks and credit card companies racked up $104 billion in interest and fees.

Being average requires that you keep up appearances and maintain a heavy consumer mentality instead of an investment one. There’s no money left over to put towards financial planning when you’re focused on living a lifestyle beyond your means.

It’s only 43% of Americans who spend more than they earn and borrow on credit each month to cover the shortfall. Credit card balances reached $930 billion in the last quarter of 2019, which was an increase of $46 billion from Q3.

The average American household has over $132,000 worth of debt and that doesn’t factor in those with a mortgage, then it averages to over $172,000. This debt factors in things such as credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, student loans, medical debt just to name a few. The average credit card balance alone is $16,061.

Are you noticing a word that stands out a lot so far? And I’m not even finished yet!

Only 30% of Americans have a long term financial plan and many of those aren’t planned properly against estate taxes, future market downturns and unexpected misfortunes. The average American’s 401k balance is only $96,288 and that’s tax deferred so the the taxes have yet to be paid on that amount. In addition to that, only 18% of Americans actively contribute to an IRA which is capped at $6,000 annually for people under 50.

The average person lives paycheck to paycheck. In fact, ten million Americans don’t even have a bank account. I think it’s safe to assume that these same people also don’t invest for their future or have goals set to become financially independent.

The average American’s social security retirement benefit is $1,363 per month. That calculates to $16,356 annual income. The average retiree relies on social security for nearly 90% of their income but it was intentionally designed to cover only around 40% of the average workers pre-retirement income.

The latest spending stats tell us the average US consumer spends about $60,060 per year yet, money statistics in America for 2019 say the median yearly income was $48,672.

I could keep going on but I’m going to start to wrap this post up. I hope the point I’m making here is pretty obvious. The whole reason that I created this blog is to help promote financial literacy to average people so that the new average of financially educated people becomes the standard.

If you haven’t done so already, give some attention and love to a couple of my previous post linked below so that you can avoid being average and live a life that you can afford to live.

This is why I teach financial literacy…

5 financial habits that you should develop…

5 strategies of the rich that you should know…

How to manage your money like the rich…

Please help me get the message out and share these articles on your social media accounts and assist me in my mission of teaching financial literacy to the masses… it’s my passion!

As I’m starting a financial services business, my time is becoming limited to what I can put towards writing this blog which is my passion. I will be continue to post new articles regularly, but they will be once a week and most likely on every Sunday.

I so appreciate you as a valued reader and it’s an honor for me that you give your precious time to reading this blog.

As I like to say… “the journey begins with the first step”.

If you see value in this article then please be sure to subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.

I’ll see you in the next post. Until next time… be sure to comment below and let’s get some dialogue going. I’m curious to know, what tips do you have on avoiding being average?