When I was younger, I use to watch movies and television shows where there was a recurring plot.  The “Plot” was that the nice guy (the underdog) typically suddenly has something horrible wrong happen to him/her, then later, things magically turn out to work for them.  This plot is a very risky move in real life, but I see it happen all the time with some of my friends’ behaviors.  Luckily, I broke myself of that kind of thinking early in college. 

Don't go for broke

The problem is I still know people who still uses this kind of thinking around their finances.  They believe that they can spend money they don’t have accumulating massive level of debt because they know that their personal life movie will end successfully with them being a megamillionaire (move over Buffett and Gates!)

Sometimes it may be possible, but most of the time, it doesn’t work out that way.  The people I know don’t become total failures, but they now live a harder life.  If they lived responsibly earlier and presently, they would be much further along financially then they are today.

Another similar problem is when friends make a financial decision (say to buy a stock) and then put the risk in Divine Intervention’s hands.  I had a work colleague that said he invested his money in the company stock and when it halved he said he would reply on Divine Intervention and that it would be okay  Well, surprise, it’s still down by more than 60% of what it was at the high, and when he said that it was 12 years ago.  Divine Intervention didn’t tell him to put money in that stock, why does he think Divine Intervention would tell him when to pull out of it?  Don’t do this, please!  You are making your own financial decisions, and religion doesn’t have a place in picking stocks!

Do you know of people like my work colleague and did it work out for them?

-D