Why High Earners Are Actually Broke

Introduction: High Earners Who Struggle With Money (0:00)

Brian: You will not believe how many high earners are terrible with money, but we’re going to reveal that today.

Bo: Brian, I am so excited because we know that while your income can be your greatest wealth building tool, it’s not everything. In fact, the disconnect between high earning and financial well-being is one of the most widespread yet misunderstood phenomena in all of personal finance today.

Brian: So, today we’re going to reveal why high earners still struggle to build wealth, what they could do better, and what you can take away regardless of your income. Let’s jump right in.

Can Money Buy Happiness? (0:42)

Bo: Yeah, people like to say that money can’t buy happiness, but how many of us actually believe that mindset? And more importantly, is it really true? Because we know that 71% of Americans, this is according to Empower, say that having more money would solve most of their problems.

Brian: Well, I mean, that’s rich folk talk. I mean, because you’ve also heard people say, “I’ve been poor. I’ve been rich. It’s better to not be poor.” So, I mean, that’s the thing. So, but I do think this leads to the point of since people think money will be the solution, can we dive deeper into that?

Bo: Yeah. It’s not only that people want more money, they want quite a bit more. Would you believe that 26% of Americans said that they need $150,000 or greater in income just to feel comfortable. And another 63% said that if they wanted to be able to attain financial freedom, financial independence that they would need at least $150,000 income even to be able to achieve that goal.

Brian: So let’s bring that back into reality of what that actually equates to with the median US household. If we know that the US median income is around $80,610, to get to $150,000 is actually approximately two times. So that’s the top 10% of US households. That’s actually a pretty high number because that means 90% of the people are just not reaching that mark.

Bo: And so we know that it’s been shown time and time and time again that more money does not always result in more happiness and financial security or at least it doesn’t happen in the way that we think it will. Because if we look at the reality of high earners, it is kind of a stark reality. We know, and this is according to USA Today, 20% of households with over $150,000 incomes would say that they’re actually living paycheck to paycheck. They need next month’s pay to hit in order for them to be able to make ends meet.

Brian: Well, also, I think it’s 29% of those earning over $150,000 can’t come up with $1,000. 6% have absolutely nothing saved at all. And then Bo, the closing point is 25% of those earning $175,000 or more say they feel very poor, poor, or that things are tight. This to me shows this is the math of it. You know, everybody has $150,000. This isn’t a math problem. This is more of a behavioral, what are you missing that people will make them better with money or a better user of money as a tool.

Bo: Yeah. I think what’s wild is we already said that the median household income is like $80,000 and here we have people making double that amount and yet it’s still not leading to more happiness. It’s still not leading to financial security. So there must be problems at play but the problems and you just said it so perfectly likely are not mathematical. So, we want to walk you through what the problems are that we see with high earners that don’t actually achieve the level of financial success or happiness that they desire and what the solution can be for you. Whether you are a high earner or just someone who one day wants to be a high earner or maybe just someone who wants to make sure they’re stewarding their resources well.

Problem #1: High Income Doesn’t Feel How They Expect (4:03)

Brian: So, let’s get into these problems. Problem number one, a high income doesn’t feel how they expect it. And I love we pulled up a quote on this. Morgan Housel says it best. He goes, “When most people say they want to be a millionaire, what they might actually mean is, ‘I’d like to spend a million dollars.’ And that is literally the opposite of being a millionaire.”

Bo: Yeah. Most people they think about it through a consumption mindset. When it comes to like actually building wealth and allowing your money to empower you to do the things that you want to do, it’s more about what you keep and less about what you make. And what ended up happening is as high income earners see their income go up, they don’t actually keep as much as they think they will. They find that that money starts spending and going and moving away from them. So they don’t have the same excess that they thought they were going to have as their income begins to increase.

Brian: And we say this that all wealth is is it’s an amplifier of who you were before you even had the money. So if you think about in terms of if you’re not a good steward when you have very few dollars as a low income, you’re probably not going to be a great steward or a manager or field general of your army of dollar bills just because you make more money.

Solution: Shift Your Mindset (5:14)

Bo: So if the problem is that the high income won’t feel necessarily the way that I think it’s going to make me feel, what’s the solution? How do I change? How do I improve that? And our view is that if you want to shift that, you need to shift your mind and your mindset around money. Because we know, and we say this all the time on the show, money is nothing more than a tool. And it is simply a tool that allows us to be able to focus on the things in life that truly matter to us. It’s not a goal in and of itself. It’s a mechanism by which we’re able to achieve our goals.

Brian: Well, and this next point is something that I think social media in this modern world we live in has made worse is that we chase the short-term gratification. We’re chasing the dopamine hits all the time. Whereas in the reality is if you want to know where fulfillment is, not just short-term in this moment happiness, it’s actually in the longer term goals. It’s deferred gratification and understanding the power that every now and then it’s better to plan ahead to have the bigger fulfillment than it is to just feel good in this moment right now.

Problem #2: They Lack Discipline (6:23)

Bo: And the fact that high earners often don’t recognize this value of deferred gratification and pushing off satisfaction to the future brings us to problem number two. When it comes to the majority of high earners, they lack discipline. And again, if you’ve listened to our show for any period of time at all, you know that we believe there are three key ingredients to wealth building. It’s discipline, it’s money, and it’s time. And well, the one that we have the most control over, the most impact over, the most ability to influence is the discipline. And yet, most people miss that.

Brian: If you never live on less than you make, you’re not going to get out of the starting gates. This is the biggest thing that I tell people. I can almost predict your level of success. If you can tell me what you make and then what you save, I can tell you very quickly, is discipline being acknowledged? Is it being respected? And I think unfortunately, and by the way, this doesn’t have to be just high-income people, this is a little goes a long way. Even if you’re in your first year out of college or first year in your first career or trade, put something to work. Live on less than you make.

Solution: Invest 25% of Your Gross Income (7:34)

Bo: And so, what’s the solution here? Well, our goal for you is we want you to invest 25% of your gross income. And while we recognize you might not be able to do that today or tomorrow, we want that to be the goal that you are working towards. We want that to be what you’re aspiring to. So whether you make $100,000, $1,000,000, or $10 million, we want you aiming at saving 25% of that gross. Because a big shovel, a high income doesn’t do you very much good if you don’t actually turn that high income, turn that shovel into true wealth.

Brian: By the way, we just didn’t make this number up. And a lot of people, it’s not arbitrary. We’re like, “Hey, 25% sounds good because that’s different than the 15% that we heard some other guru say.” No, we actually put some math to this because we want to be the intersection point of good behaviors plus the analytics and the math. And that’s why if you look at if you go to our website moneyguy.com/resources, how much should you save? You’ll quickly realize that we understand the intersection point. Most people don’t even start saving and investing until they’re in their 30s and you look at our chart and you’ll see very quickly that’s why we say 25%. Now, two points that I need everybody to understand. If you’re just starting out and you just don’t have a lot of money, we do have an escape hatch here is that if you make under $100,000 as a single individual, $200,000 as a household, count the employer match, count that profit sharing, count that type of money. But for high income people, we don’t want you to count any of it because it’s getting back to you’re away from the social safety net. More and more of the responsibility falls on your shoulders.

Problem #3: Lifestyle Creep (9:06)

Bo: Yeah. So these high income earners, they tend to lack discipline and they focus more on immediate satisfaction than deferred gratification, satisfaction in the future. And what happens is when we as consumers focus on immediate satisfaction, the natural consequence of that and what we see amongst high income earners is that problem number three is their lifestyle begins to creep up. And this is not unfounded or uncommon. I mean, how many times have you seen someone, they get their very first job, they get out of college, and they’re like, “Okay, now I’ve got my big boy job, my big girl job. I’ve got this big paycheck. Now I’m going to go buy the luxury car. I’m going to go get the new expensive clothes or I’m going to go get the fancy apartment.” I mean, even I, Brian, fell into this trap when I got my very first job with you back almost two decades ago. Very first thing I did is I went and bought a fancy car. And it was so silly, but I think this is common. And it’s not just common for folks starting out in their career. I think it’s common for high income earners as well.

Brian: Well, I think that this is something I would encourage everybody to mentally internalize is that the hedonic treadmill is real. When you buy that new car, it will make you feel good for a short period of time. It’s back to my point. Don’t chase those short-term dopamine hits. Have a bigger why. Because a lot of times instead of you driving your wealth, trying to impress people who absolutely could care less what you drive or where you live, save some of that money for your future self because that’s where that deferred gratification will do incredible things.

The Danger of Keeping Up With the Joneses (10:45)

Brian: Because Bo, we actually created an illustration or a graph to show people what happens. Can you walk somebody through what happens with lifestyle creep because that’s where people really get themselves in a lot of trouble.

Bo: Yeah, this is what’s so hard and I think it’s especially troubling for high income earners is that as we move through our working careers, as we begin to have some success, we begin to see our income increase. So, we make more money and we feel better about that and we have some achievement and we have some financial success. But I think for all of us, it’s not uncommon for us to also be looking at someone else. We’re watching the Joneses around us. And no matter how successful we are or how happy we are with what we have going on, it always seems like there’s someone out there who has more. And that person, the Joneses that have more always seem to be just one, two, three steps ahead of us. Well, then our income increases. And so now we actually have the ability where we can buy more expensive cars and we can upgrade the house and we can take the nicer vacation. And what ends up happening is while even though in the beginning of our journey we may have been living below our means, below our income, living inside of our means, what happens is as our income increases and now we have the capacity we try even harder to keep up with the Joneses and it’s not uncommon for high income earners that their lifestyle begins to outpace their income. They don’t live within their means anymore. They actually live beyond their means. And that is a dangerous road to where you don’t want to be.

Brian: I’ll give you something that seems much tamer, but still leads to the same devastating results in the long term. You discover us in your early 20s. You maybe even read Millionaire Mission. You fully fund your Roth IRA. You get a bunch of pay raises, you’re still only funding your Roth IRA every year. You can quickly see all that other money went towards lifestyle. That’s right. You got a nicer car. You got a nicer house. You started sending your kids to the private school, you never went back to expand what is actually going into your army of dollar bills. Don’t get caught in that vicious lifestyle creep cycle where you’re avoiding or not doing what you need to grow your army of dollar bills.

Solution: Keep an Eye on Your Lifestyle (13:00)

Bo: So, how do you fight it? What’s the solution? How do you combat this? Well, it seems so simple, but keep an eye on your lifestyle. Just like you said, Brian, when you’re in your 20s and you’re maxing out your Roth, but then you get the pay raise and your income increases, do you have little systems in place to protect yourself from yourself? One that we love is the 60/40 rule. If you get a pay raise or you get a bonus, let’s let 60% of that go towards increase savings, increase building, and let 40% go towards lifestyle. And if we can do that over the long term, we’re going to make sure that our savings stays where it should be even if our lifestyle does increase because there’s nothing wrong with lifestyle increasing. What’s wrong is when our lifestyle increases and our savings does not follow.

Brian: Also, I don’t want people getting busy doing nothing. And I see this all the time. People are excellent expense trackers, but they don’t actually use that dashboard of information to actually be valuable to their financial life. When you budget, part of a budget is you are setting goals for what you’ll spend on certain categories. Yes, you will track your expenses, but the tracking of the expenses is so you then can compare it to what you allocated to see are you overspending, are you under spending, what adjustments can you make to manage your finances better. We see people all the time that want the gold star just because they’re using the tracking tools to know where their money goes, but they never actually engage the gear that turns that into results on your net worth statement.

Bo: Another way that you can track what you’re spending and you can kind of keep yourself in check is make sure you understand what it is that you truly value before you make a consumption decision or before you make a purchase. You should ask yourself, why am I doing this? Okay, I’m going to buy a new car. Why? Is it because I need a new car? Is it because it makes sense for the family? Is it because it has better gas mileage? Is there more utility I’ll get from it? Or am I just buying a nicer car because it seems like that’s the next thing that I should do? Am I just doing the home renovation because the house two doors down renovated their house? Make sure that when you deploy your hard-earned dollars on a consumption behavior, you’re doing it because it’s something that you actually value, not to impress people around you that ultimately don’t care about what you’re doing at all.

Problem #4: Ignoring Risk Capacity (15:26)

Brian: I want to talk about problem number four. This is ignoring risk capacity. How often do we see you start making more money and even if you’re a financial mutant, you start investing in index funds and other things like we tell you, you start having traction. You blow past your first $100,000 of investments. But then you get to a point and I don’t know what happens in the human psychology to say, you know what, even though I got somewhat wealthy and successful with these index funds, I need to invest like a rich person does. Yeah. Now I need to take on more risk. So because that’s what rich people do. So you take on riskier investments and you ignore what even got you to the dance in the first place. We see this all the time. Complexity does not necessarily mean better.

Bo: That’s right. And what’s so funny is not only can we trick ourselves into this. Okay. Well, now that I’m at this stage, I need to be more complex. I need to be more complicated. But there are entire industries and entire fields of other people trying to convince you of the same thing. It’s why all of a sudden now once you reach a certain level of wealth, you can get access to private equity investments or you can get access to these illiquid opportunities and these things that maybe were not available to you before. And now just because you think you can means, okay, well now I should be doing this because this is what all of the other rich people are doing. This is what all the other wealthy people do.

Brian: You know what makes this worse, Bo, is that a lot of your protections actually go away the more money you make because now you’re an accredited investor. They assume because your income is a certain level or your net worth is a certain level, you don’t need the protections of the government anymore. And that’s what makes this ripe for and I hate saying it this way, but it is what it is, the dumb doctor deals and other things because people that’s why I’m telling you there’s somebody trying to help you part with your money very easily with very complex situations and here’s the thing that people don’t think about is just because you go into these investments look some of them can turn out well and we actually know people who do syndicates and other things and it works out incredibly well they’re really gifted at finding the right people to attach to and that’s why all of these deals there’s a tinge of truth is just like permanent life insurance there is definitely a planning opportunity with permanent life insurance. There is a place of planning with syndicates and these people that you can go find people and leverage the money of many people to buy into bigger deals. But the thing is is that there’s just a kernel of truth in some of these things that there’s a lot of other people who have taken that kernel of truth to exploit this into something that helps you part with your money. So, I’m just I’m not saying these things are bad. I’m just saying that a lot of the stuff you have to cut through, you might not be in the world-class investments that you think you are. You might just be in that dumb doctor deal because you have a good income. You don’t have the protections of the government anymore and somebody’s going to fill their back pockets with this complicated project or deal.

Solution: Keep It Simple (18:32)

Bo: And so what’s the solution? How do you combat this? Well, keep it simple. I mean, it’s so amazing that I think early on in our financial journeys, we feel like we have to go chase complexity. You have to go. I want to be more complicated, more advanced, more strategic, more in the weeds. And what’s amazing, you’ll recognize as your net worth increases. And as you move along your financial journey, complexity naturally finds you. You don’t have to go out and seek it. And often times when you go out and seek it, what you end up finding is not the kind of complexity that you wanted. It begins becoming a big distraction or even worse, a mistake that you wish you never would have made. So don’t try to be more complicated than your situation warrants. There’s nothing bad. There’s nothing wrong with continuing to execute the same behaviors that got you to where you are today.

Brian: Well, I mean, I’ve talked about this many times is when I was a young CPA doing tax preparation. I used to look at complicated tax returns and just be like, “Oh, I’m so impressed with these people. Look at all these schedules, all the K-1s they have on their schedule E.” And then I quickly realized is that if I interviewed any one of those clients, their goal from this level of success is, man, I wish my life was simple. I just want to be simple. And so that’s it’s back to our point. Don’t chase complexity. It’s going to find you naturally through success, wealth building. And I would try to build as much simplicity into your planning structure as possible just because like we just shared, the complexity is going to happen naturally from your success. Don’t go and add to it when you don’t need it. You can be incredibly simple and still be very effective with your wealth building journey.

Bo: Yeah. I think people are amazed at this truth. We believe and we’ve actually seen this tested through our clients. The Financial Order of Operations, Brian, you hold the thing up for me, the Financial Order of Operations, our nine-step process of what to do with your next dollar. It works if you have a $50,000 income and it works if you have a $500,000 income. You don’t have to be more complex. I’m always amazed, Brian. We’ll have a client come to us and they might be in the ultra high net worth category. They might have 10 million, 20 million, so on. And someone will ask, okay, well, what is it? You know, you did this for a million dollar client. What do you do for the 20 million? And they’re amazed that yeah, there are some nuances and there are some differences because of estate planning or other things like that, but by and large it’s the same types of strategy. It’s low-cost index funds, well diversified portfolio, living below your means, consistent saving and investing, keeping an eye on taxes and fees. And if you can do those things, the strategies you implement at $100,000 can still be effective at a million, 10 million, and so on. You don’t have to over complicate it. Keep it simple.

Problem #5: Thinking They Have Time (21:23)

Bo: So, let’s talk about Brian problem number five, right? And this one I think is maybe the scariest one and maybe the most detrimental one and maybe the one that gets people in the most trouble is that a lot of high-income earners, they operate from the position, the place of you know what, I’ve got time on my side. I’ve finally made it to where I wanted to be. And so I know that hey, I’ve got more time to save or maybe I even have more time to earn. I’m finally here. I finally made it. I don’t have to focus on saving and building today. I can just push that off and do it in the future.

Brian: I think that this is I know this is we have this in the lens through what mistakes successful people make, high earners. I think this is a human nature thing. I mean, it is procrastination because you see this when you’re younger, too. You come out of college and you’re like, well, you know, I don’t need to save when I’m in my 20s. I don’t make enough money. I’ll wait until my 30s. You see this with successful people is, hey, you know what? I need a new car. My car I drove all through college. My car that I drive right now needs to be nicer, more reliable. So, you go load it up because they tell you you can afford this much when you go buy a house and the mortgage company and they’re like, “Hey, in this moment in time, this is what you can do. The banks will allow this.” And you in your mind, you do the mental accounting, you go, you know what? It’ll be okay. I’ll push this off and I will I’ll keep making this great income for decades forward. I’ll catch it up then. And you just see this over and over and over. Kick the can down the road. And then before you know it, you get to be my age. And you see these, we do these shows by net worth by age. And it’s always depressing to me when I see the median numbers by the later decades because you just know that there are people that made plenty of money throughout their entire career, but they just never engaged the discipline muscle to actually turn that margin between what they made to turn it into saving investment then gave that crucial component of time for it to actually be their army of dollar bills that worked harder than they can with their back, their brain or even their hands.

Bo: Or what about Brian in this scenario where maybe they don’t make it all the way out to your age. Maybe something else happens. Okay, I’ll save next year or I’ll wait. I got to I’m going to do all my consumption stuff now. And then what happens if there’s a reduction in force or you lose your job or maybe there’s an industry shift and the income that was once available to you is no longer available to you or the unknown unknown medical diagnosis or disability or any number of things could happen. We’re not guaranteed tomorrow. And so one of the things you have to think about from a wealth building standpoint is money is nothing more than an amplifier of who I already am. And so this year, this day, this week, I’m either going to be a saver or I’m going to be a spender. Well, that becomes truer and truer and truer the higher your income goes. Now, certainly there are people at lower incomes that there’s not a lot of excess left to save and that’s okay. That’s why we say you don’t have to start at 25%. We want you to get to 25%. But once your income reaches a certain level, you are either making the decision that I’m going to be a saver or I’m going to be a spender. And the earlier you make the decision that I’m going to be a saver, the easier the path is going to be. The longer you wait to turn from a spender into a saver, the more difficult the route is going to be for you to actually make it to financial independence.

Solution: Don’t Wait Until Later (24:57)

Brian: Well, I want to give you the solution. Don’t wait until later. I’m just going to say it this way, be scared if you are one of these people that has a good income, if you lost your job, more than likely it’s going to come with lots of things like you might have to move to a different area to get the exact same opportunity. There’s a lot of things that you’re not guaranteed, especially as you get older, get to be my age, you lose your high-paying job. I mean, the IT field is cruel. You get to a certain age, they’ll never tell you it’s because of your age, but all of a sudden, you see, we see lots of people in their late 40s, in their 50s, that they flip them out and, you know, they were making great income. And if you didn’t understand the exercise that, man, this could go away tomorrow. This benefit of me having a good income also got the double-edged sword that man if it goes bad, it goes really ugly because it goes pear-shaped because you just might not always have a high income and you need to live accordingly. I mean that’s why I would encourage you to create discipline in your life ASAP. Be scared so that your assets can actually fill the void. So you essentially can self-insure by being financially independent that the income’s just not as necessary as it once was.

Bo: And the earlier you figure this out, the more impactful it could be. It’s why we always talk about the wealth multiplier. We even, you know, we have these koozies that say this $1 koozie can be worth $88 when I get to retirement. That’s true for a 20-year-old, but if you wait until you’re 30, that $1 turns into $23. If you wait until 40, that $1 turns into $7. $1 at 50 turns into almost $3. So, the earlier you can figure this out and the more time you give yourself, the higher likelihood you have to actually let your dollars be impactful and begin building for your future.

Brian: Well, that’s why I think a lot of young people, they’re jealous of people ahead of them who maybe the market’s different, housing’s cheaper, and all these other things. But it’s back to the point. You get to choose your hard. I mean, you really do. If you’re young right now, don’t sleep on that. You can actually just take a little bit. I mean, just a sliver of today’s happiness to build something pretty spectacular down the road. If you keep procrastinating, you keep deferring that responsibility. That’s what the wealth multiplier shows when you go to the website and check it out. Go play with it. If you’re 33 right now, go put in there if you were 47 and see just how the dollar just doesn’t do what it did when you were in your early 30s. If you’re in your 20s, even more so, go put in each decade for the next three decades ahead of you, and you’ll quickly realize this thing is powerful. Choose your hard. Do you want to just take a little bit today, or do you just want to put more and more of that weight on your shoulders for your future self? That’s a big sacrifice and a big decision.

Getting Help: The Abundance Cycle (27:52)

Bo: So maybe you’re out there hearing and you’re saying, “Man, guys, okay, I hear you, but I feel like I’ve done pretty good, but I am now starting to kind of resemble some of this stuff that you’re saying. My income has gone up and I’m now in a place where complexity has found me and I want to make sure that I’m doing the right things and I’m taking advantage of the right opportunities and I’m focusing in the right areas, but I’ve never done this before. I’ve never been at this income level. Maybe I’m the first person even in my family that’s ever been able to attain this level of success.” We want to let you know that you’re not alone. Because often times people find themselves in the situation where either the gravity of their financial decisions is so great they feel uncomfortable doing it on their own. They’ve gotten so complex they don’t even know the things that they don’t know. Or maybe life has just gotten so busy that it’s become far too easy for the important financial things to fall on the back burner. If that describes you, rest assured, we are here to help. It’s why we talk about the abundance cycle. It’s why we talk about you taking the relationship to the next level because we believe that there is a better way to do money and we want to be part of the team that helps you do that.

Brian: Now, I think we have audience members of all types and if you’re out there and you don’t like this complexity that these guys are talking about, I don’t know what they’re talking about, keep leaning in on the free stuff. Go to moneyguy.com/resources. We encourage you, please take advantage of all the free resources, tools. We’ll leave the lights on because I just know this stuff happens. It’s there. There’s no ask of you whatsoever. But there is another group of people that hear me talk about that complexity and then knowing that the desire and the craving for simplicity that are going, “Yes, that’s what I want right there.” And then the thing I always remind people is you might be, more likely the stats show you are first generation. You’re the first one that you know that has crossed into this threshold in this thin air that you’re in right now. You’re like I don’t want to screw it up. I don’t know what I just don’t know. We’ve done this hundreds and thousands of times. If you amplify what we do with all of our advisers that work with us. Don’t be the one that has to do this and feel like you have to go on your own and do this the first time and the only time. Bring somebody in who’s done this many times over so that they can make sure you navigate this responsibility of being a multiple 7-figure CEO in the right way. Go to moneyguy.com/become-a-client. I’m your host Brian Preston. Mr. Bo Hansen Money Guy team out.