I have noticed a phenomenon when it comes to saving and investing. People who are well educated, have big incomes and hold prestigious jobs are no better than everyone else.

It took me a while to figure it out.

It took me a long time because it’s hard not to be intimidated by people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

In conversation, these people often use phrases like “ski trip to New Zealand”, “cottage at Mont-Sainte-Anne” and “renovations more expensive than expected”. They drive around in vehicles whose parts take “long to order”, and believe that hotel room prices in Europe this summer are “completely insane”.

Automatically, my brain tells me, “This person has figured out how money works.” She earns it, she spends it, she is rich. »

Yet, almost every time I have the opportunity to look beyond appearances, I come out with eyes as big as two-dollar coins.

I was sure I was dealing with a silver Jedi master. Ultimately, not at all.

A friend told me the other day of a discussion he had had with the head of financing of a major dealership of prestigious vehicles in Montreal, whose identity I will conceal.

My friend asked her to describe the typical problematic client she encountered in her office. She smiled, and replied, “You won’t believe me, but my worst clients are often doctors.” »

Doctors make so much money, she explained, that they don’t feel the need to plan, and go into massive debt as they want and need.

Kids in private college, fancy restaurants, trips to the sun: sometimes their credit cards are so full that there’s no room in their finances for things like renting a fancy vehicle. In her office, some doctors have already been on the verge of tears begging her to approve their loan request, she claimed.

When you earn a lot of money and can afford almost anything you want, it’s easy to believe that you are financially free.

It is an illusion, of course. Being financially free means one thing, and one thing only: being in control of your time.

American financial author Ben Carlson recently wrote that people who make a lot of money often assume that their success in one area will automatically translate into success in another area (like investing or managing finances).

“Unfortunately, that’s not the case,” he wrote. I know many wealthy people who are poor investors because they are too sure of themselves, or because they believe that their level of wealth guarantees them access to secret ways to make money that don’t are accessible only to the rich or famous [hint: there are no secrets]. »

A 2017 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that physicians wanted to retire at age 60 on average, but actually retired nearly a decade later, at age 69 on average. among other things because they did not have the financial means to leave before this age.

When our eye sees a big lifestyle, it instantly associates it with wealth. However, a large lifestyle often acts as a brake on enrichment, because the money spent never comes back and cannot multiply for decades in financial investments – investments that our eye does not see.

As my friend Jean-Sébastien Pilotte, author of the blog Le jeune retraité1 recently wrote: “The dollar invested in Apple shares two decades ago has worked hard. He even worked overtime! Enough to buy me a mille-feuille AND a Montreal-Paris plane ticket. »

Jean-Sébastien is not joking: a dollar invested in Apple in 2003 is worth $757 today. But $1 invested in an Apple product in 2003 is worth nothing today.

I don’t want to give the impression that people who have big incomes don’t have wealth. On the contrary, statistics show us that the higher a person earns, the higher his net worth, which is the sum of his assets minus the sum of his debts.

However, this wealth is often locked up in a retirement plan. The problem with relying on your retirement plan to get rich is that you have to wait until after age 65 to take advantage of it. Exhausted and want to slow down? Aiming for a lower paying career? To work part-time ? Without savings, it’s impossible: the numbers just don’t show up.

And so, when Monday morning rolls around, you have no choice: the office is waiting for you.

Everything else is just appearance.

Speaking of investment, the first three months of 2023 are already behind us. In particular, they took us through the crash of Silicon Valley Bank in the United States, and of the giant Credit Suisse in Europe. However, the index of S

Those who panicked lost. The way forward, again, was to close your eyes, plug your ears, and stay invested. So simple. So difficult.

Have you ever made expenses that you now regret?