What do former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, NFL Hall-of-Fame Quarterback, Johnny Unitas and MLB Hall-of-Fame pitcher, Rollie Fingers, all have in common? They went from riches to rags. Our imaginations are staggered by the amount of money professional athletes are paid to play in the big leagues. More mind boggling is that, in spite of the millions of dollars these big names raked in during their rich careers, they have all managed to end up empty-handed.
Why do we have so many famous athletes who have gone broke? For some of them, the exercising of poor judgment with regards to financial decisions is to blame. Others may have suffered career-ending injuries before they bothered to think about saving any of that fast cash for an early retirement. Still other athletes go through messy divorces and wind up losing lots of their assets to ex-spouses and their children. Even financially solvent athletes still playing in the game today are not beyond the grip of poverty. Some of them are already spending next season’s salary.
While it may astound us that you can go from the top of the heap to the bottom of the pile so easily, it can also be a lesson from which we mere mortals can learn. If you are making decent money in your job today, you should be saving for the future. Socking away just twenty percent of your monthly paycheck into an interest-bearing fund or CD can ensure that, if your company folds, or if you’re laid off, you will have something to fall back upon.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a pro-bowler or a pro-janitor, you need to make sound financial decisions now regarding your finances, or you can end up in the same sort of financial mess that so many famous athletes face at the end of their careers. The best way to start planning your finances and find solutions to your debt problems, if any, is by looking up come credit counseling services on the Internet and by getting in touch with them.
