I've been broke before. In fact, if I'm really being honest, I'm broke now. I've got more money going out than coming in. That's what broke is.
I've never been poor. I've never had to worry about whether I was going to be able to eat on a given day. I've never had to be concerned about having a place to lay my head at night. That's poor.
I'm choosing to be broke, at least for now. I'm investing in a growing business that requires more capital than I bring in at the moment. Sometimes when you take risks with money, it means you may be broke for a while. You have to borrow when you're broke.
Poor people usually don't choose to be poor. Poor people may be poor as a result of bad choices, but for the most part they consciously didn't choose their condition.
A lot, and I mean a lot, of Americans are broke right now, not poor.
In SimpleEconomicsTM principle #1 "Where are you now?", you have to own up to whether you are broke or not. It's from that understanding that you can begin to determine what you have to do to get where you want to go. For me, I don't like being broke, so I have a plan to not be broke in another year.
For the record, I could make some difficult choices today and not be broke tomorrow. Smaller home. Share a car. Not eat out, etc., etc. But at least I have the choice.
If you are reading this, you probably aren't poor, but you may be broke. Do you have a plan to get un-broke?
One of the strategies in SimpleEconomicsTM is helping the poor. It's much easier to help them when you aren't broke, by the way.
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