In this solo video, award‑winning personal‑finance expert Dominique Broadway outlines five common habits that trap people in poverty and offers concrete steps to break the cycle. She begins by defining "lifestyle creep" – the tendency to raise expenses as income rises – and stresses the importance of keeping spending stable despite higher earnings. Next, she emphasizes the necessity of building a 3‑to‑6‑month emergency fund and then investing any surplus, warning that money that isn’t working for you guarantees continued financial dependence. The third habit is the failure to budget or track expenses; she introduces the concept of "magic numbers" – knowing exactly how much comes in and goes out – and suggests tools ranging from apps to spreadsheets. The fourth habit is impulse spending and a lack of discipline, illustrated with personal anecdotes about YOLO purchases and the danger of spending all cash on short‑term luxuries. Finally, she highlights the widespread neglect of financial education and long‑term planning, urging viewers to learn how banks and credit cards make money, to take financial‑education courses, and to plan for worst‑case scenarios such as health setbacks or market downturns. Throughout, Dominique mixes personal experience, practical tips, and a motivational call‑to‑action to explore her Finances Demystified programs.
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Hey, I'm Dominique Broadway, award-winning personal finance expert and the bestselling author of the book, The Wealth Decision. And today I'm going to be sharing with you 5 money habits that are likely keeping you really poor. Now I've been in this money game for about 23 years or so now, and I'm going to keep it real with you. The things that are keeping people poor are pretty much the same, and they have not changed over time. So let's go ahead and kick it off with the first thing that is literally keeping you poor and in this cycle that we're all trying to get out of, which was that rat race cycle, whatever you want to call it. It's a cycle. So let me tell you the first one. Number 1, living beyond your means. I also like to call this lifestyle creep. Now, this is one of the first lessons, one of the many first lessons that my grandfather taught me. Was that as your income increases, you do not need to increase your expenses or increase your lifestyle to match that new salary. Now, believe it or not, this is one of those things that's literally going to keep you poor because for many of us, we're like, hey, if I can just make $10,000 more a year or $100,000 more a year, if I could just get to that golden 6 figures a year, then my life will improve. But unfortunately for most people, as soon as their income starts to increase, They literally go out and buy a fancier car. They may move to a fancier home. They may start buying fancier clothes. They may start taking more vacations. And then you look up and you're like, oh my gosh, why does it not feel like I have any more money at all? This is because you let your new lifestyle creep up to match your new salary. So now you don't feel as though you have any increase in your salary at all. This is one of the easiest ways to stay broke forever. All right, go ahead. Let's talk about number 2. Second thing that is keeping you broke is failing to save and invest. Saving is so important, you guys. Like, I know for many years, especially when I was a traditional financial planner, people would say, well, what am I saving for, Dominique? What is it that I'm saving for? I want to use my money now. Believe it or not, you are saving for something. And we obviously just recently went through this whole pandemic. This pandemic showed us one big thing, that the rainy day that many of us have been saving for, well, it happened. And it wasn't just a day. It was like a year or 2 years for some people. Okay. So if you are not saving, you are literally keeping yourself broke because you literally have no money. You have nothing to show for the money that you're actually making. So it's very important that you start saving. In addition to that is investing. So once you start saving and getting that 3 to 6 months of emergency expenses set aside, then you want to start taking anything in excess of that and starting to actually invest. This is really, really important. Okay. One of the most important parts of this video, you have to start investing. If your money is not working for you, you will be broke forever because essentially you cannot be the only one or the only thing that's going out to actually make money for you. If you're the only person or the only thing that's going out and making money for you, that means that you are forever going to be a slave to the dollar, or that means that you are forever going to be the only thing or the only person going out and bringing in money into your household. Even if you have a partner, if you are not able to learn how to start investing, putting your money into stocks, Mutual funds, whatever it may be, crypto, gold, jewelry, whatever it may be. So things that, that can appreciate over time, it's going to be very, very hard, honestly, almost impossible for you to accumulate any sort of wealth whatsoever. You cannot be the only thing making money for you. Okay. This is very important. Next, this is another major one. Not budgeting or tracking expenses. This is another major mistake that people are making. Let me tell you something. As someone who previously made $30,000 a year to making millions and millions and millions, 8 figures a year, it doesn't matter how much money you make. You have to track your expenses and where your money is going. If you can't track your $30,000 a year, your $40,000 a year, do you really think you're gonna be able to track your $100,000 a year or your million dollars a year, you're not going to be able to do it. So wherever you are currently in your financial life, take some time and figure out how can you become a master of the money that you have. Because also God is never going to bless you with more if you can't manage what you have well. So if you're struggling with that $50,000 a year, trust me, the same struggle is going to cross over when you get to $100,000 or $150,000 a year. So take some time and figure out what is the best process for you. For some people, it's using an app. For some people, it could be writing it down, like in their notes section, or just actually journaling what they're actually spending. For some, it could be using a spreadsheet or Notion or something of that nature, but figure out what works best for you and start tracking your expenses. And I also want to add on to this one, knowing your magic numbers. This also goes into tracking your expenses. If you don't know how much money you have coming in and you don't know how much money you have going out, You don't really know anything about your finances. So understand those two magic numbers, how much money you have coming in every month, how much money it costs to keep you and your household or your family, or just yourself up and running. This is going to be important, knowing those two magic numbers and tracking all of your expenses and all of your income. This is going to be major. You need to get real comfortable. You need to get very, very, uh, familiar with your money and where it's going. Okay. Next is impulse spending and a lack of financial discipline. Impulse spending. Let me tell you something. I like a good impulse buy. I'm always down for like a YOLO moment. Okay. But these impulse spending situations and just a complete lack of self-control when it comes to your dollars will keep you broke. Okay. Now I know the whole YOLO era is over. Actually, I feel like it's kind of back since the pandemic. And people are like, oh my God, we, you know, we may not make it to next week, whatever it may be. But what if you do? What if you do make it to next week and you went ahead and had a YOLO moment and you spent all of your money and now you have nothing to get you through the next couple of weeks? So this is another thing that has kept tons of people broke and we don't want the same thing to happen to you. Now, as y'all know, if y'all follow me, I love nice things. I love designer bags. I love fancy trips. I'm here for all the luxuries in life. But there has to be a balance. You can't spend all your money on the vacation and then come back home and not figure out and not understand or know how you're going to pay your rent or pay your children's school or whatever it may be. That does not work. So let's make sure that we are not doing that. Okay. Last but not least is ignoring financial education and just failing to plan for your future. This is another very important thing. For many of us, financial education was not taught. In the school system, or maybe even in your household, it wasn't talked about or spoke about at all. So we haven't taken the time to actually learn about our money, how our money works, and things of that nature. This is really important because anything that you don't understand, it's kind of something that's in the dark. For many of us, we feel like we are in the dark when it comes to our finances, right? You literally close your eyes when it, when you open up your bank account. If you open up your bank account, for many of you, you're only checking your bank account once every month or every now and then whenever you know it's a paycheck or payday. This is really important. You have to get familiar with your money, how it works. You need to understand how the banks are charging you, how the banks make money off of you, how credit card companies make money off of you. When you understand these things, you are going to start going to the next level financially. So taking some time to improve your financial education, is very important. Okay? So if you have not taken at least some sort of financial education class, obviously we offer tons here at Finances Demystified, but take some time and learn how your money works. The sad thing is we go to college, they teach us how to make money, but no one's teaching us how this money works when we actually get it. So do yourself a favor. If you want to build any wealth whatsoever, you need to understand how your money works. And then last but certainly not least, which is still a part of number 5, is failing to plan for the future. This is important as well. Okay. As I said, going back to that YOLO, YOLO lifestyle, right? You only live once. No one's thinking about 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now. I was reading an article recently and it was talking about baby boomers who are approaching their 60s and how most of them are in really, really, really bad financial situations to the point where Most of them are saying, I know I'm going to have to work the rest of my life. And we don't want to be in that situation. If you want to work in your 60s, that's great. But you want to have the option to say that you want to work, not feel like you have to work. And for many of these people entering this era, it's very scary, right? Because one, they feel like they have to work the rest of their life because they do. But they also don't know what life is going to throw their way, right? One of the gentlemen in the article, It's like, hey, I know I'm gonna have to work the rest of my life. And then they went on to say that he actually ended up having a back situation and he was out of work for 8 months. He did not have that plan, right? So we never know what is going to come next in our lives. This is another reason why it's very important to plan. I am one of those people, I'm always planning for the worst case scenario, for the worst day. If all the money dried up, if the stock market dried up, if all the things dried up. I want to make sure that I have money to protect me and my family in that event. And you guys have to start thinking that way. Now, obviously I'm, I'm a very optimistic person. I focus on the things that I want, but I also know that life is real and life happens and you have to be prepared for that as well. Okay. So these are our top 5 or my top 5 things that are keeping all of you guys broke. Please make sure to go back and make sure that you're not doing any of them. All right. So Click the link below to learn more about some of our programs. Please make sure that you follow for more information, and I'll see you soon.
