What to Do If You Feel Behind on Your Finances
For starters, ditch unhelpful comparisons with friends and one-size-fits-all benchmarks.
Where to begin?
Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images EuropeOne of the most frequent questions that comes through my inbox, my weekly “Ask Me Anything” series on Instagram and my DMs is some version of: “Did I start investing or saving for retirement too late?” It prompted me to run a couple of polls on Instagram. First, I asked, “Do you feel behind when it comes to wealth building?” Some 800 people responded, and 81% said they did feel behind.
Next, I asked, “What makes you feel behind?” More than 500 wrote in, and some themes emerged from their answers: They mentioned not investing or having only minimal investments, the burden of student loan debt, not owning a home. Another thing that came up over and over again was the feeling of being behind compared with friends and generic benchmarks of where they were “supposed to be” according to financial experts or, commonly, their parents.