Proper asset management and at least basic financial education are one of the biggest assets you can possess. It’s not so expensive or unattainable as most people imagine.

These below mentioned reasons are a paved path to financial hell:

1) No financial education. This is definitely the number one reason why we mess up our financial lives ­ because no one taught us how to manage it! Come to think of it: who teaches you how to manage your finances? The answer is a resounding “no one”. The conventional school we attend does not teach us, neither does business school nor our bosses.

2) Leaving your money management to others (and often, the wrong people!). Strangely enough, not many people are too concerned about their finances, thinking that others will take care of it for them. This explains why most of us “jump shelters” from our parents to our employers and maybe the government. We erroneously assume that a “responsible” boss or government would help take care of our finances.

In truth, your personal finances are your own responsibility. How can people expect “other people” to take care of them when they do not even want to take care of themselves? Also, perhaps the best government can provide the guidance and opportunities but it is still you to take care of your OWN finances.

3) Relying on incompetent advisors. Since many folks do not have the “know how” on managing their own finances, they turn in their own financial “steering wheel” to so-called “experts” such as financial planners, remisiers, and even… insurance salespeople!

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While there are genuinely great people among these ranks when it comes to finances, most of them are NOT personal finance gurus.

4) Expensive “free” advice. Lousy “free” advice cannot only come from your own family members who have never “been there, done that”, but they can even come from professionals!

Be careful of people who kept saying “just my 2 cents worth”, because in many cases, their advices are more costly than that ­ and you are probably going to pay for it! As a school of thought, seek advice from people who have truly “been there, done that”.

5) Greed. Like any other drug, greed empties our minds of our logic and this is the main reason why some people are throwing in their life savings into the stock market or any “get rich quick schemes” without having proper education or at least professional information and guidance.

6) Insufficient knowledge. Investing simply without knowing what you are doing is a financial suicide! That is like driving a car without knowing how and where to go!

7) No priorities in personal finance management. Even though many folks think that personal finance management is important, they are not treating it just as important, but too lightly in fact.

By the time they realize, it is often too late. They are either out of time or money or even both. Creepy!

Another irony is that many others do not want to learn how to manage their finances because they are afraid of being labeled as “money-faced”. How misguided are these people! No desire to learn and invest in financial education.

Learning how to manage your own finances has never driven you to ignore other important aspects in life and never will! Instead, it makes you a more matured person.

You will quickly realize that mastering your finances means mastering a bigger portion of the rest of your life, because whether you like it or not, almost everything you do today is related to money in one way or another.

9) No specific financial goals. A wise man once said that if you are not planning to go anywhere, you are guaranteed to get there!

And that seems to be the case with many of us today. By the way, “making lots and lots of money” is not clear enough a goal. And more often, that is a fantasy rather than a realistic goal worth achieving.

And because most of us do not have proper financial goals, we just wander aimlessly and drift through life.

10) “Following the crowd” mentality. Some call it the “herd” mentality, too. Having said that a large percentage of the population is not rich and that wealth is in the hands of the very few, you are probably not doing anything right more than 90% of the time especially when it comes to your finances and also especially if you are taking other people’s tip or advice. A quick tip to get around this is to NOT do what the majority of the crowd is doing, or do exactly the opposite.

That would make you a contrarian at times, but why join everyone else in jumping down from a tall building when you can take a lift down to the ground floor?

However, in reality, everyone tends to follow the crowd and try to be “in”. We are, after all, social creatures, and we would like to know and be in what is the latest trend and be cool in our own ways.

Nothing wrong with being in the latest trend but believe me, when it comes to managing your finances ­ it is never cool to be broke, even though all of your friends are and they are making fun of you for not joining them.