We are obsessed with having ‘things.’ Everyone wants to be rich. We want lots of money today. What we fail to realize is it is not easy and therefore settle for just appearing to have money.

We see the celebrities on TV or in magazines wearing certain clothes and driving exotic cars. Naturally, we associate having those things with having money. Having money means we are somebody important, at least in our minds. Then we set out to make lots of cash.

Once we realize that acquiring wealth does not happen overnight, we become impatient. Thank God for credit cards! “Who needs to work when we have this free money?” At least it is free until the bills roll in each month. Now we accept the fact that in order to ‘live’ we always will be in debt.

To summarize this: we want to be rich. We try and see that it is difficult. We buy the same things rich people do but on credit. We bury ourselves in debt trying to look rich.

The ‘fake it till you make it,’ strategy does not work well when it comes to building bank accounts. In fact, just the opposite occurs, you ‘fake it till you bankrupt it.’ This explains why more people under the age of twenty-five are filing bankruptcy each year.

There is a solution. In my book, Money for Tomorrow, I talk about building a budget and planning for the future. The truth is that we cannot live our lives for today. We have to grow our finances into a cash machine. Once we do, we actually can look like we have money AND really have it.