No matter how much we all know we should be putting money away for a rainy day, too many of us are still making poor financial decisions that could come back to haunt us in the future, and a new report reveals just how badly we are all doing when it comes to money.
The survey, conducted by the website Value Penguin, finds that the average person makes about eight bad financial decisions a month, which translates to 91 “financial fails” a year. So, what are our biggest financial fails? Well, the most common is not saving enough money, which 38% of people are guilty of, followed by getting takeout instead of cooking (32%) and spending more than they should (29%). Other financial fails include:
- Buying new outfits (22%)
- Buying lunch instead of cooking (22%)
- Shopping out of boredom (20%)
- Paying for rarely-used subscriptions (20%)
- Paying bills late (19%)
- Spending more than I earn (16%)
- Getting Ubers/taxis instead of walking (14%)
The poll finds that 59% of people say they're in debt, and of those, 44% had student loans and 74% had credit card debt, with 49% of people saying they wouldn’t be able to pay off their credit card debt today if needed.
So, yes, most of us are guilty of overspending, but what are folks spending all that money on? Well...
- food and eating out (54%)
- online shopping (36%)
- clothing/shoes (28%)
- social events (18%)
- alcohol (17%)
Source: SWNS Digital