Income Archives - Page 3 of 3 - The Free Financial Advisor

Most of us dream of financial freedom, exotic vacations, or simply having enough money to stop worrying about bills. But for many, that dream feels stuck on the horizon, always out of reach. Why does it seem so hard to make enough money to have the life you want? The truth is, it’s rarely about luck or a single missed opportunity. It’s usually a mix of habits, beliefs, and choices that quietly sabotage your financial progress. If you’re tired of feeling stuck, it’s time for some honest self-reflection. Here are eight reasons you might never make enough money to have the life you want—plus what you can do to break the cycle.

1. You Don’t Have a Clear Financial Goal

It’s tough to hit a target you can’t see. If you don’t have a clear financial goal, you’ll struggle to make enough money to have the life you want. Many people work hard but don’t know what they’re working toward. Without a specific goal, it’s easy to spend impulsively or save without purpose. Set a realistic number for what “the life you want” costs. Break it down into monthly and yearly milestones. This clarity is the first step toward lasting change.

2. You Settle for Comfort Overgrowth

Staying comfortable often feels safe, but it can mean missing out on better opportunities. Maybe you stay in a job that pays just enough, because looking for a new one is scary or inconvenient. Maybe you avoid learning new skills because it’s hard. If you want to make enough money to have the life you want, you need to push past comfort and into growth—whether that means asking for a raise, switching careers, or starting a side hustle.

3. You Don’t Invest in Yourself

Your earning potential is closely tied to your skills and knowledge. If you’re not willing to invest time or money in learning, you’ll hit a ceiling. Courses, certifications, or even just reading more about your industry can pay off. Don’t wait for your employer to train you—take control of your own development. This kind of investment often leads to promotions, new income streams, or better financial decisions overall.

4. You Ignore Multiple Income Streams

Relying on a single paycheck is risky. Life is unpredictable—your job could change, your industry could shrink, or unexpected expenses could pop up. Building multiple income streams, like freelancing, rental income, or a small business, creates a safety net. It also accelerates your ability to make enough money to have the life you want. Even small side incomes can add up over time, giving you more freedom and security.

5. Fear of Failure Holds You Back

Trying something new is scary, especially when money’s on the line. Fear of failure can freeze you in place. Maybe you want to start a business, ask for a raise, or invest, but you worry about losing money or looking foolish. This fear keeps many people stuck. The truth is, almost everyone who’s built wealth has failed at something. The difference is, they learned and tried again. Start small if you need to, but don’t let fear stop you from chasing what you want.

6. Poor Money Management Skills

It doesn’t matter how much you earn if you don’t manage it well. Overspending, ignoring budgets, and not tracking expenses can eat up your income. Even high earners can end up broke if they don’t pay attention. Build a simple budget, track your spending, and set up automatic savings. There are many free tools and apps available to help—check out these top budgeting apps for ideas. Mastering the basics of money management is essential if you ever want to make enough money to have the life you want.

7. You Don’t Network or Seek Mentors

Who you know can be just as important as what you know. If you never network or ask for advice, you’re missing out on opportunities. A mentor can help you avoid costly mistakes, accelerate your career, or open doors. Networking doesn’t have to mean awkward events; it can be as simple as reaching out to someone you admire or joining an online community. Building relationships can lead to new jobs, partnerships, or business ideas that help you make enough money to have the life you want.

8. You Wait for the “Perfect” Time

Many people put off making big financial moves because they’re waiting for the right moment—when the market is better, when they have more experience, or when life is less hectic. The perfect time rarely comes. Years can slip by while you wait. Start now, even if your steps are small. Taking action beats waiting for ideal conditions every time.

Building the Life You Want Takes Action

It’s easy to blame the economy, your boss, or bad luck for not being able to make enough money to have the life you want. But most of the time, the real barriers are internal: unclear goals, fear, poor habits, or waiting for a sign. If you recognize yourself in any of these reasons, don’t get discouraged. The first step to change is awareness. The next step is action. You don’t have to fix everything at once. Choose one area, make a small change, and build from there.

What steps are you taking to make enough money to have the life you want? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below!

What to Read Next…

Travis Campbell

Travis Campbell is a digital marketer/developer with over 10 years of experience and a writer for over 6 years. He holds a degree in E-commerce and likes to share life advice he’s learned over the years. Travis loves spending time on the golf course or at the gym when he’s not working.

Retirement income sources How are you planning to generate income in retirement?

The first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people will be Social Security. That’s OK, but most people will need to have more than that if they want to retire comfortably (and there are those who are concerned that at least some of those benefits may not be there for future retirees when the time comes). Other people might be looking forward to pension income, though that’s less common than it used to be.

It’s useful to step back and take stock of the various potential sources of retirement income. Certain sources have more to recommend them, and certain asset class combinations will work better for some folks than others due to the assets’ risk profile, tax characteristics, and other qualities.

Interest

A recent Bloomberg story quotes a chief investment officer at Credit Suisse saying that treasury yields at 3.5% would pull people out of stocks and into fixed income. As we’re writing this, the 10-year Treasury yield is on the rise and the highest it has been since 2011 at nearly 3.1%.

Nobody knows for sure which way treasury rates are going, but those rates are worth paying attention to, for a few reasons. First, higher interest rates almost surely would lead to poor performance for bellwether retirement equity investments, such as those in the utility and telecom sectors. (More on this in a bit.) Second, a risk-free interest rate would be tough to ignore at some level as a source of income in retirement. We would probably put that level at around 4% (after all, why get a bond paying less than 4% when you can buy stocks that pay more than that and have been boosting the payout annually for 20 or 30 years?), but that will vary by individual circumstance and risk tolerance.

Not that treasuries are the only way to get interest income, of course. The best proxy for junk bonds, the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG), yields 4.7%. The investment-grade version (the iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD) is around 4%.

Dividends

We mentioned utilities and telecoms earlier. These kinds of firms are generally big dividend payers. As such, when interest rates rise, their stocks often sell off, as suddenly there are other, less volatile sources of income–bonds–that compete with those dividends.

Now, if you are able to make ends meet on dividends alone (or close to it), the volatility may not matter. Stocks can bounce up and down and all around, but the dividends will keep coming (and even growing) regardless. In fact, when stocks are down, it could be time to consider adding to those holdings, assuming the companies’ businesses are still sound.

You may not be able to get to a place where dividends are your main source of income. But counting on dividends for some portion of retirement income makes sense for a lot of retirees. The year-in-year-out nature of the payments (for a lot of companies), the potential for growth in those payments, the potential for capital gains on the shares, and, not least, the taxes (which are 0% on qualified dividends for a lot of people) all add up to a compelling income source.

Principal

By definition, at retirement, full-time employment income stops, and it’s probably time to start spending down on all that money you saved over the years. That’s hard for a lot of people to get their heads around. After all, it means making a complete 180-degree turn to what you have been doing for probably decades.

So that’s worth thinking about in advance and preparing for. If seeing that balance dwindle each year is a concern, you might want to start conservatively on how much you plan to take out each year. It used to be a 4% drawdown rate was considered safe for most traditional retirees, but that’s no longer conventional wisdom. You might run some scenarios that target something closer to 2% or 3% and see if that allows you to sleep at night.

As with so much in retirement planning, though, much will depend on individual circumstances and sources of income. Someone with a solid pension and low living costs will probably need to take less out of their principal than others.

Capital Gains from Rebalancing

Rebalancing your portfolio isn’t controversial, though reasonable people can disagree about how often it should be done. Rebalancing refers to the simple concept that, over time, a portfolio of investments will have winners and losers, and the initial (presumably target) asset allocation–this much in growth stocks, that much in short-term bonds, and so on–will get out of whack. So, periodically, a portfolio needs to be put back into whack.

What’s not mentioned as often is that it’s possible to think of rebalancing as a source of income as well. Retirees could keep the piece that is a long-term gain and use it for living expenses, and still rebalance to the optimal asset allocation.

The obvious problem here is that markets don’t just go up; they go down too, sometimes for quite a while. So there’s an unpredictability to this source of income that makes it too undependable to be a core source of income for a retiree. But it is a source, and one that’s sometimes overlooked.

Income in Retirement

In the end, which sources you depend on for retirement income will come down to risk tolerance, personal preference, luck (at least a little bit helps), and how diligent you have been about saving through your working years. Knowing what those potential sources are and planning on how you might use them will take some of the surprises out of the process, and help make retirement go more smoothly.

8 Reasons You’ll Never Make Enough Money To Have The Life You Want