Your friends may be detrimental to your wealth
Written by R.A.Stewart
The people you associate with could well be having a detrimental effect on your financial future and though you may not notice it at the beginning, but eventually their influence could pull you down to mediocrity. Let’s look at an example from the animal kingdom.
If you locked a sheep on its own in a paddock, it will try to find a way of escaping to find greener pastures but if it has company it is quite content to remain in the same paddock with its friend.
People are like that; some will conform to the standards of others and as far as financial matters are concerned will take on board what others are saying, and eventually will adopt the same kind of mentality towards finances.
There are different kinds of lifestyle habits which are incompatible to a financially successful lifestyle; drinking, smoking, and eating takeaways regularly are habits which will shorten your life and drain you of your finances.
Your choice of friends will influence your attitude towards money; if you associate with gold digger’s who believe people with lots of money are selfish, then you will be encouraged to spend your money rather than save and invest it.
This is what I am saying in a nutshell:
“The people you choose as your friends will set the standards for your life.” It is important that you keep good company because if you spend too much time with people with bad attitudes, some of their money attitudes will rub off on you. It has been said that you are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with. So who are you spending most of your time with?
I have known a lot of people with terrible money attitudes. One is “You cannot take it all with you” as if you are going to pass away within the next week or so. What they are doing is to cling on to every excuse they can hold on to for their lack of financial literacy. They will try to make others who are in a better financial shape feel guilty by making them feel stingy or selfish. This makes them feel less guilty about their own financial situation.
It is better to spend time with Financially literate individuals and in this way you will pick up some of their financial knowhow. You sure will not learn anything from those who friends are the type of people who go out on Saturdays or have no problem with breaking the law then they will encourage you to follow suit and a lot of people do in order to fit in and abandon the values taught by their parents.
The bottom line is, “If you keep company with financially ignorant people then you will become like them.
“He who walks with wise men shall become wise but a companion of fools will be ruined.” Proverbs 13:20