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You Don’t Need Both Eyes to Be King

Darcy @ We Want Guac ,

Which is, of course, in reference to the proverb “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”. When it comes to finance, we do live in the land of the blind. We lack many a money expert in most social circles, to our detriment. Seven out of ten Americans cannot correctly answer very basic financial questions. It took a once-in-a-century global health reckoning to get people to save a decent amount. And this is all while ignoring how much one piece of bad news – losing your job, getting sick, or being struck by natural disaster – can completely destroy your financial situation for the rest of your life.

That last bit isn’t even exaggerating things, what with the lacking social safety nets in this country. I still don’t know why we’re not good enough for free health care, ESPECIALLY AFTER MONTHS OF CORONAVIRUS. Widespread financial illiteracy is exacerbating our national poverty rates and widening inequality. One of the worst aspects to this is how many believe it’ll take some gargantuan effort to change their monetary situation. That things will continue on like this forever. Like it’s destiny to suffer if you weren’t born rich, or weren’t some economic genius/founder with unlimited energy.

Or, if we’re sticking with that proverb, that any blind person would have to procure two eyes with perfect vision, zero issues, and preferably some lasers that shoot out of them at will.

Obviously, all of that ain’t even needed to restore your ability to see. You only need one eye, and that one eye doesn’t even need to be all that perfect to elevate you to the top. Again, you don’t need both eyes to be king.

You just need enough to see a better path.

Why You Don’t Need to be a Money Expert

You don’t HAVE to be a money expert when it comes to finance. It’s true, you really don’t! You just need more direction; that’s enough to elevate you on high.

money expert darcy
This cat looks like like how I felt… at first

A lot of the confusion behind understanding finance stems from this mystique it doesn’t deserve. You don’t have to be a math whiz or clairvoyant to earn a cushier bank account. Look at me! I openly acknowledge I don’t want to spend hours and hours researching companies only to probably lose out in the end! Index fund investing is far and away the best investment approach for long-term, consistent double-digit returns.

Do you have to be an expert on budgeting? Not at all. I’m definitely not – sometimes I go over on my budget because I wasn’t paying enough attention. Same goes for investing – you don’t have to know every single formula or stock symbol on the ticker. I know enough to get awesome returns with almost zero work, and that’s the best plan for me.

Of course it’s always best to be a money expert, don’t get me wrong. If you do discover this becomes a passion for you, I am HERE FOR IT. There’s nothing more delightful than to see someone enjoying a subject that endlessly fascinates them. Experts are also awesome at lighting the way for others, doing all the hard work to reach a conclusion so the rest of us aren’t wallowing away in ignorance. The difference is, if you’re not an expert you don’t need to kill yourself over past money mistakes or lost opportunity. You’ve got plenty of time to reach an intermediate level of financial understanding; it doesn’t need to reach “advanced” to make a dramatically better difference.

Real-Life Examples of One-Eyed Kings (in finance)

I am forever awed by the folks that do amazing at building wealth when the odds are against them. Same goes for if I meet someone with 20/20 vision, which only occurs naturally in roughly one out of three people (lucky ducks). I don’t have these people’s eye doctor prescriptions on hand, but I do have amazing accounts of how far they’ve reached while starting with very little. None of these folks came out of the gate with a six-figure salary or incredible windfalls; instead, they’ve reached the levels of wealth they’re at by doing nothing but their best. And their best became a motivation for a much larger audience.

Jillian at Montana Money Adventures

I first heard of Jillian in 2019, both via this blog post and by meeting her (briefly) at FinCon. She and her husband never made six-figure incomes (not even combined!) yet STILL became financially independent with a half-dozen kids. Oh, did I mention they at one point had $55,000 in debt? Their focus was never on making scads of money, just enough to reach the life they wanted. The greatest of Odin-esque figures, in my opinion.

Stephonee at Poorer Than You

She’s a legend, having been honest about her finances online since 2006. Steph was once forced to drop out of college after running out of money to pay for it – not like that stopped her for long. She went from that – and needing a loan to buy pasta – to reaching a six-figure net worth through grit and hard work.

K. Wright at Money the Wright Way

If you want someone else who sees the bullshit about buying lattes, she’s your girl. One of my favorite things about her is how honest she is with the obstacles she and others like her face. Her debt may not be paid off the fastest and she may still have fears around money, but her advice on money and lifestyle management is both insightful and empathetic towards the rest of us.

There are many, many more not-experts who end up crushing it in the finance space. We don’t all need to be elite, Ivy-League snooty experts on this because we don’t have to be. Personal finance is personal, remember. That means you’re the go-to expert on how money strategies will work best in your own life.

The Not-Experts Leagues Ahead of the Never-Even-Begans

This proverbial reminder is especially important in 2020, the Year From Dante’s Ninth Circle and Worst Fever Dreams. This bears repeating: you don’t have to be an expert at finance to get to a better place. You definitely don’t need awesome vision to read up on how to implement this stuff. Take it from me, who’s got astigmatisms up the wazoo while being legally blind distance-wise (really). It doesn’t make it the easiest thing in the world to see where I’m going, but I can see enough to get to a darn good place at this stage in life.

When people talk about making it to the top, they’re talking about my mountaintop; the one you reach on the climb to wealth. Start where you are and chip away at each part of finance at a time:

So you may not reach the summit of your goals and dreams overnight. Shit happens, obstacles spring up, such is life. All you need to do when that happens is to not give up and retreat back to the blindness. Any vision is better than nothing, at the end of the day.

You might think your blindness will be around forever, an incurable evil that’s here to stay. Or you can change your way of thinking and learn how to get at least some kind of vision back, even if it’s only one eye. When you do this in personal finance, odds are you’ll succeed. You might even regain great vision in both eyes.

Or, what’s best:

Realizing you were only blind because you had your eyes closed the entire time.

Keep your eyes open and your head held high. We’ve got goals to reach and we’re not going to wait to start working.

Cover image: Karl Fredrickson via Unsplash