Adam: The biggest reason people stay broke has almost nothing to do with their income. Most people don't stay broke because they don't make enough money. They stay broke because of small financial habits that quietly destroy wealth over time. These are the kinds of decisions that feel harmless in the moment. know, grabbing convenience, delaying investing, or just making purchases that don't seem like a big deal. But when you zoom out five or even 10 years, those small habits compound in a big way. Welcome back to the Pursuit of Progress podcast. I'm Adam Lang here with my co-host, Ben Adams, and this is season three of the show where we talk about money, mindset, and the habits that shape the life you build over time. And today we're breaking down 10 things that quietly keep people broke, even people who believe they're being financially responsible. As we go through these, don't think about other people, think about your own habits because awareness is usually the first step towards real financial progress. Ben, what is going on, bud? Welcome back to the show.

Benjamin Adams: ⁓ so excited to be here. You know what? This is a conversation that we have to have. It is so important that we have this conversation because all of us, I don't care who you are, how old you are, we have this silent creep of these things that enter our life and they start holding us back and we don't even realize it. So I am so excited to be a part of this conversation today.

Adam: Oh yeah, man, well, this is giving you a little credit here right off the bat. This is something that you had actually put together the same topic for your YouTube channel, American Money 101. If you guys haven't checked him out over there, make sure you do so. But we're pulling some of the content today from that. So just kick us off with the first of these points.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, so what the first one is, is constant tech upgrades. Technology companies release new devices constantly, and every release is marketed like it's a revolution, but most upgrades really aren't revolutionary. They're incremental. And one of the things that I think all of us can relate to is just phone updates. These phone updates, doesn't it feel like they're marketed?

Adam: Seriously.

Benjamin Adams: You the next version I'm an Android user. I know that you use the iPhone, but you know it's there marketed in a way that it's technology that you can't pass up. How do you relate to that? I mean, do you do you feel the same way?

Adam: Yeah, definitely. I think it's actually one of my favorite kind of marketing and sales product development stories with Apple is how, you know, oftentimes, you know, they'll have some of the updates and upgrades and new tech available. But instead of releasing it all at once, they'll release it over three or four versions of the phone over the course of 12 or 18 months, just so they have the opportunity to resell people. You you think about Apple, Apple's one of the best examples of

Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Adam: Anybody that you know that has an Apple device, guarantee you they probably have an average of maybe five Apple devices or more. You know, they have a laptop, a desktop, phone, maybe an iPod or an iPad. So many different things. The iPod, baby, that big one. It's funny. ⁓

Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. You're going way back there. I know you but that's a great point so that they have the technology and instead of releasing all of the technology the most recent upgrade what you're saying is they kind of stagger the releases so they have something to release on every upgrade over the next three or four upgrades that come out over the next several years.

Adam: Yeah, pretty smart. Pretty good, pretty good sales technique in my opinion.

Benjamin Adams: And what's the average price of an iPhone?

Adam: I don't know, man. It's well over a grand at this point. I actually kind of was a sucker and fell into this about a year ago and got the latest one just, you know, made it kind of justified it to myself just because the phone was acting a bit slower and you know, they get in your head about it and I think it was at least maybe 12 or 1500 bucks. Pretty crazy.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, what I'll typically do is I will buy like the best phone available at the time when I do need to upgrade. So I'll buy the phone that has the most storage, the best camera. And I understand that I'm to pay more for that, but then I will see how long I can hold onto that for. So my phone currently is a Samsung S23. I got that in December of 2023. So at this point it's two plus years old. The phone that I had prior to that though, I had for five or six years. And so I'm hoping to take that same approach. When you factor in the cost of these upgrades though, like you were mentioning a minute ago, they're marketed in a way where everyone feels they have to go have it right now and this year, this is the coolest, best thing. And if you don't have it, you're missing out. But then what is the opportunity cost? How much is it gonna cost? What do the financing terms look like? And so that is where we have to unplug ⁓ from our system. And the way our American capitalist system is designed,

Adam: Definitely.

Benjamin Adams: is for the consumer to keep spending. Once you recognize that, if you can unplug yourself from that ⁓ and you recognize that the consumer really drives our economy, it gives you the opportunity to play a different game.

Adam: And that brings us into the second one, which probably is just to a T exactly what you're talking about, probably more than any other. And that's just the credit card interest that, you know, I would say the majority of Americans have somewhere between a significant amount and a buttload at this point. You know, so many Americans are in debt at the moment. And this is just something that is really, really causing a lot of havoc out there. know, credit cards themselves aren't the problem. It's the carrying of the balances. And you think about it, you know, just carrying a balance at, you know, 20 % interest.

Benjamin Adams: you

Adam: you're almost guaranteed a negative return on your money. And it's just so easy to do these days. Everything is just one click, one flash of the phone at the restaurant. It's so easy these days.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, if you're paying credit card interest, I call that playing from behind. And it's very, very difficult to win with money and getting ahead if you're constantly playing from behind. I shared this on my social media. just brought it up a minute ago and it talks about America's growing mountain of debt. And so this is from Q4 of 2025 credit card debt at an all time high, 1.23 trillion. Student loan debt at an all-time high, 1.65 trillion. Auto loan debt at an all-time high, 1.66 trillion. It's a mountain of consumer debt. And so don't play the game they want you to play. Don't play the game that everyone else is playing. Learn to play the game that works for you.

Adam: Well, yeah, just take us now into number three about subscriptions. This is another one that is a big, big one for a lot of us.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, mean, subscriptions, we got to have that conversation. ⁓ Subscriptions are one of the sneakiest financial leaks in modern life. They start cheap, then they slowly get more expensive while people never notice. Some of the subscriptions that I have, ⁓ you know what's really scary? If you pause and think about it for a minute, it's like you might have a panic attack. because you don't realize how many subscriptions that you have. And like I did this exercise last week and I was like, okay, well I got my cell phone and I was like, well then I have like a YouTube subscription and I subscribed to the Denver Post. They got me there and ⁓ I have this, I'm subscribed to Gamma. I have a couple different AIs that I've subscribed to. I do an online video messaging app called Bomb Bomb and I'm writing down the list and I have like, You know, and then you think of like Amazon Prime and if you upgrade some of the channels there, NBC, Peacock, CBS, and I have like 20 subscriptions. Like I kid you not. And I was like, like giving myself a panic attack. All the subscriptions I have. So I started actually doing this a couple of years ago. One thing that I, one way I kind of just keep myself in check is whenever I add a new subscription. So if I'm going to add something new, I have to cancel something.

Adam: I like that.

Benjamin Adams: And that way I'm always balancing myself where if I'm gonna add a new subscription, it doesn't matter what it is, I have to cancel an old subscription. Just a way for me to keep myself accountable.

Adam: One little pro tip I'll share with you guys, if you aren't familiar yet with Rocket Money, if you go to their website, they have an app you can download. There's a free and a paid version. We actually shared this on our Denver Home Buyer webinar a couple weeks ago with a lot of the attendees that joined just to learn all about just how to prepare for buying a home in 2026. So a little plug there, if you guys wanna hop onto the next one, just go to denverwebinar.com. But on this Rocket Money app, what you can do is connect all of your different bank accounts, your credit cards, all that stuff. and it'll automatically show you every single recurring payment that you have. And for the paid version, you can actually have them go and cancel them for you. If you're in a contract, they'll even negotiate to get out of them early. They really provide a lot of services for this kind of stuff. if this is something that just feels a little bit overwhelming to you guys, this could be a great solution to still make sure you're not falling into this trap that so many others are.

Benjamin Adams: Okay. Just a final thought here on the subscriptions. Something else that I recently started doing is I use one credit card now for my subscriptions. It's kind of like my subscription credit card. So the reason that's important is it allows me to be a little bit more organized where I can log on to that one credit card, see what's being charged and the subscriptions aren't getting lost in like my day-to-day debit card or my everyday credit card. So that I have found has helped just with being a little bit more transparent and knowledgeable of what I'm enrolled to, how much it is. And you're right, these companies will increase the subscription fee. And you may not even be aware of it. One thing that always cracks me up is when I go to click on the cancel button. At that point, like, well, we're gonna give you 90 % off if you if you keep your subscription. And it's like, well, why weren't you doing that the first time?

Adam: They gave you like a half price deal. I know. Yeah. Let's,

Benjamin Adams: I was like, screw you, you're give me 90 % off if I keep no.

Adam: Let's hop into the next one. So the fourth one is lottery tickets. And I've gone through a couple of phases of this. And the reason for that, I think, is because of the dream. The lottery sells the dream of instant wealth, but wealth almost never comes from luck. It always comes from consistency. And there's so much of that emotional excitement when comes to, I think, about the Powerball every time it's gotten close to or above a billion dollars, which has now been, I think, maybe four or five times in its history. And every time...

Benjamin Adams: Yum.

Adam: you there's a decent amount of interest, but then once it gets above that billion dollar mark, which means I think your odds of winning is like one in 360 million people, something like that crazy, but it's almost like the higher it gets, even the more buzz and just the excitement that gets around that and people just get so intoxicated by that, you know, just that instant gratification, you know, the probability basically 0 % chance versus that hope.

Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Adam: which and I'm gonna admit to this too, you you almost get to the point sometimes where you start daydreaming and you're like, man, if I won, man, I would take everybody I know on a trip to Africa and then I would do this. You know, you just like have these daydreams almost in your mind, which is I think is an example of that hope.

Benjamin Adams: Is that what you do? You would take, you so if you won the lottery, you would take all of your friends to Africa?

Adam: I mean, I guess that maybe was one at some point that I thought about. Yeah. ⁓ Just, I think it'd be super cool to like travel.

Benjamin Adams: Okay, okay, we're gonna manifest that we're calling that into existence, everyone. Go ahead and type Africa in the comments. And if we see your comment there, then we'll take you on the trip with us. ⁓ You know who plays lottery, ⁓ plays the lotto and does online sports gambling? People that lose with money. People that lose with money are constantly betting online, the sports betting constantly.

Adam: Yeah. Exactly.

Benjamin Adams: playing the lotto and listen, I've been there myself. Same thing as you like when that lotto gets big and it's like, well, I'll throw a couple bucks in and see what that's like. But the reality is, is it's a great way to stay poor. And when you understand investing and how investing works and cash flow and ⁓ asset appreciation, you don't need to gamble. You just need to be disciplined, smart, have a plan, have a vision and follow through. If you do those things,

Adam: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Adams: your money and your assets will take care of itself.

Adam: Well, now let's talk about food delivery convenience. This is one that I've fallen prey to a little bit more often than not recently with my girlfriend. think a lot of us have been over the last couple of years is how convenient this is becoming, but quite expensive.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, guilty right here. With food delivery, it's something that is convenient and feels small in the moment. This is how I think of it. So you order the food. It feels small in the moment, but then the repeated convenience can quietly become expensive. It's when you get in that mindset where, you know, it's Friday night, I'm going to order some food. And then all of sudden it's the next Friday. And then it's the next Friday and Saturday. And then you're ordering food during the week and then you're ordering stuff that's not food because it's convenient. When you look at the cost, the gas stations a block away. The grocery store is right there. Doesn't mean that you have to go do it right then, but this stuff adds up.

Adam: literally like a steak dinner at restaurants is the equivalent of like ordering a Wendy's from a DoorDash at 10 o'clock at night. Pretty bad. I just thought a little really.

Benjamin Adams: Hahaha And then it's gonna, know, and then the Wendy's is gonna arrive an hour, you know, it's gonna take an hour to get there. It's gonna be cold. And so you just paid like $30 for a Wendy's hamburger.

Adam: Yeah, just really quick funny story on that note. My girlfriend and I went to the Broadmoor down in Colorado Springs maybe a month or so ago. And one of the mornings we were down there, like, you know what, we're just gonna order breakfast, but just something super easy. So we ordered two croissants, just a tiny little croissant from the bakery. So two of those, two diet cokes and two bottles of water. How much you think that was?

Benjamin Adams: Two croissants, two cokes and two bottles of water. I mean, I would say it should have been 10. It was probably like 50. Really? Wow. Wow.

Adam: It was like $78. Yeah, yeah. So anyways, enough about food. I'm gonna get hungry if we keep talking about that. Let's talk about something though that also is top of mind for me oftentimes. And I know a lot of others out there that are listening and that's brand new cars. And this is something that the marketing gets to us just like the phones. You few purchases destroy wealth faster than just these unnecessary brand new cars, new vehicles, they lose a huge percentage of their value almost immediately. So really just understanding that and just if nothing else is being okay with buying a couple of year old car, if you can at least get to that point, you're making already a huge step towards the right direction. But even getting to the point where you're just, you know, understanding that, you know, I obviously everybody has their passion. Maybe some people love cars. one of those guys. No judgment there. Everybody has places they want to put their their money that they work really hard for. But just understanding that there's still right ways to, you know, to really handle some of these things. And at least in my opinion, you can still do it in a responsible way.

Benjamin Adams: ⁓ for sure. You didn't give the trigger warning there because this always triggers folks when it when it comes to the car conversation, people get so emotional and passionate and we're a car nation. I was just thinking to myself as I was driving to lunch today, I've never owned a truck. I've never owned a truck. And that's always been kind of a dream of mine. But I still I still haven't taken that step forward yet. And it's something that I want to do. But when you consider all of the negatives about buying a new car, how rapidly they go down in value. A lot of times you're probably going to need a loan to take out a new car. That average new car payment in America right now is $754 a month. The interest that you're going to pay, and you're going to pay interest on something that's going to rapidly go down in value. ⁓ This past week, my brother and I, we took a trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco. And we were both blown away at how many driverless cars were on the road. Like kid you not, thousands in both cities. And that was my first experience to really realizing, know what, this is happening right now. And we had the conversation, do you think Americans will let go of that? Because we're such a car nation, it's such a big part of our identity. But at some point, like that's where we're headed.

Adam: We already are, We already are. Look at your situation. You have two kids that are right at that age right now and they haven't even really shown that. I I guess interest in getting their license, but I know a lot of other friends that I have too that have kids in that age range and it's not that same level of just like when I turned 16, that day I was getting my license. know what mean? Like it wasn't a, yeah, sometime I'll get around and do it. It's crazy.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah, my brother was saying that this will be kind of the last generation, like the kids that are coming up right now. This will be the last generation that is really excited and where that's going to be a big deal getting getting your license and 15, 20 years from now. It may not even exist. Who knows?

Adam: man, it's crazy. We'll talk a little bit about extended warranties because this is a kind of falls in line right after you buy the car. You get sold this right afterwards.

Benjamin Adams: ⁓ man, extended warranties. I think of extended warranties, there's so many different things. I've made so many purchases over this last year. ⁓ Washer, dryer, new oven, cars, as you mentioned, extend. And here's the thing with extended warranties, extended warranties are aggressively sold, because they're extremely profitable. And statistically, the seller usually wins. And so if you buy an extended warranty, ⁓ you're just more than likely not gonna win for a couple different reasons. And my mom's fiance, this is four or five years ago, he bought a brand new car and bought the extended warranty that was on top of the manufacturer's warranty. The engine died and it still wasn't covered by any of that. He paid like five grand for the extended warranty.

Adam: Wow, that sucks. I feel bad for that. No. I honestly am the other, ⁓ I roll the dice. I guess I don't gamble with ⁓ the lotto and with, ⁓ you know, Vegas, but I gamble by not ever doing the warranties and just hoping it lasts. So.

Benjamin Adams: Have you personally had any experiences with warranties or? So you see, you don't normally buy like warranties on your phone or car or I'm trying to think like what else, ⁓ even like a lot ⁓ of times just like purchase, I think of like purchases at Lowe's or Home Depot, they always offer extended warranties for like a year. You don't typically do that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm the same way. Also like if you book a property in Airbnb,

Adam: Yeah, no, not really. Mm hmm. Never.

Benjamin Adams: the insurance or the trip cancellation coverage that would fall into this category, kind of like the airline coverage. I don't do any of that at all. I'm the same way.

Adam: Let's just jump into the next one guys. We've only got a couple left here. This one is about obsessing over interest rates instead of cash flow. Now obviously interest rates matter, but cash flow matters more. And you can still have certain situations where you have a low interest rate and still feel financially stretched if the payment is too high. So just really understanding that there's good debt and bad debt. That might be an easier way to describe this. Because cash flow really does start to create options for you and those options eventually can create freedom. passive real estate investing as an example. That's a buzzword. And for a long period of time, it was a very strong investment even here locally in Denver, Colorado. It's become a lot more challenging and a lot of the different niches of real estate investing here. this is a great example where cashflow, even if you got a million dollar fourplex and it's only cash flowing $100 a month total, that could still be a good investment because you're still also benefiting from other types of appreciation outside of just that monthly cash flow. know, depreciation on the property, any type of tax write offs, there's other ways to still benefit. However, the interest rates on things like credit cards, those are obviously, you know, things that you want to avoid and, you know, just keep at a bare minimum if possible. What do you think on this point, Ben?

Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think as Americans, we get so over obsessed with interest rate. We're always focused on interest rates, but we don't understand what cash flow is. We don't understand what that means for monthly payment in the mortgage world. What I do with my day job. It's why I typically and I rarely recommend the 15 year fix. Is the interest rate going to be lower on a 15 year fixed? Yeah, it's always going to be lower, but that doesn't mean it's the appropriate product because you lose so much payment flexibility. And this is the thing that no one talks about. Even if you're on the 30-year fixed and you're comparing that to a 15-year fixed, you still have the ability to control the amount of interest you pay if you decide to make additional principal payments. And so you can still pay it off in 15 years. You can still reduce the interest rate. The note rate is always going to say one thing. So maybe the note rate says 6.5 on the 30-year and the 15-year is 6%. but you can turn that 30 year into a 15 year and still pay the 6 % even if the note rate says six and a half and you do that by making additional principal payments. And the benefit of the 30 year fix is that you have total control over your cashflow and over your monthly payment. The minimum payment is gonna be a lot less than what you would see on a 15 year fix. And so this is where I see a lot of people stumble making these types of decisions. Also with auto loans, sometimes auto loans can have an interest rate that's a little bit lower, but the term is always gonna be much shorter. And so you could have an auto loan payment that's $500 and the balance is only 10 grand, but is there a better way to structure that cashflow? That's the question that we're gonna be asking.

Adam: Definitely. And a lot of times with things like car loans, you're also paying a large down payment upfront. And sometimes that's about the same amount, whether it be a three or a five or a seven year loan. That part's kind of a lost sunk cost regardless. So I think this next point though is probably one of my favorites. So I'm excited for you to talk about this one about buying things for your future self.

Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, point number nine here, buying things for your future self. And this one's probably not as popular as the first eight that we've chatted about, but ⁓ people often buy things for the person that they hope to become. But buying the gear doesn't create the habit. And so part of me, like I want to be very careful on this because I do believe that you want to envision who you are five, 10, 15, 20 years in advance. How does that person act? How do they behave? What kind of friends do they hang out with? What types of business conversations are they having? What type of relationships do they have with their family and friends? I think that is very healthy. But then I've seen people take the step where, ⁓ you know, I'm gonna go buy all this gym stuff for when I lose the weight, for when I get in shape. I'm gonna go buy that stuff now so I have like motivation. And in my opinion, it's like, no, you go do the work now. You develop the habits now. I love the idea of rewarding yourself with something fun or a new outfit, but go do the work and develop the habits, go lose the weight and then make that the reward. You don't need to go buy stuff for your future self today. Let your future self walk into those circumstances and make those decisions in a responsible way.

Adam: Definitely, very well said. I think this is a slippery slope, because you can really take this in two different directions, and they both can be correct and right. think manifesting and just becoming who you want, acting as the person that you want to become, there's characteristics, traits, things that you've been talking about that I think are really important to have regardless. But there's, I think, a point that it becomes maybe a little bit ⁓ irresponsible. And I fell exactly into that trap with my last house, where I

Benjamin Adams: Yeah.

Adam: you know, put in a full gym in one of my guest bedrooms and I bet I used that gym 10 times total was not worth it. And just kind of for that exact reason. So it does not create the habits. You know, I still prefer to work out at a different place at arm breast pro gym. You guys should check it out if you haven't been there before. ⁓ yeah. but yeah,

Benjamin Adams: Yep, get the plugin. Now here's a question on that though, because there was a photo of you kind of going around when you were focusing on some of the bodybuilding stuff. Is that something that you're gonna share today?

Adam: Not sharing that one today or tomorrow or maybe not even next week. So that one's might be in the vault forever. you guys, everybody listening, you guys only worry about that. Well, let's close this one out with the 10th one. And this one is also something that's near and dear to my heart because my dad's been dealing with it recently. So it's top of mind and that's TimeShares. And man, if you guys have any experience with TimeShares,

Benjamin Adams: Feat yourself. Feat yourself.

Adam: My guess is probably it's more negative than positive. And it's just something that is so antiquated. know, timeshares are one of the most aggressively sold financial products in the entire world. And so many people that only later on realize and discover that they're extremely difficult to exit. You know, in fact, you know, the only way for my dad and mom to get out of the one that they have, my dad was saying is basically death. You know, it's, it's literally to the point of, ⁓ you know, just very, very difficult to out of. So time shares are just a big no-no and something that might sound great in the moment, but you gotta think about, are you gonna need this, you wanna want this 10 years from now, 20 years from now, is it a lifelong decision that needs to be maybe second thought, thought about a little bit closer and maybe not done.

Benjamin Adams: These are so bad. This is one of the things that I love to hate. Timeshares. ⁓ People call these an investment. They are not. They're one of the worst possible things that you can do for yourself financially. I don't feel like our generation, ⁓ Millennials and Gen Z struggle with this as much as... ⁓ You know, maybe like Gen X and baby boomers. feel like it's more like a Gen X baby boomer type thing because I don't feel like our generation is as bad with this. you know, would you prepay your next 50 vacations? No. But when you buy a timeshare, that's what you're doing. Why would you want to be? stuck or obligated to one location. Well, people will say, I can change locations. Well, yeah, you can for a fee and for the annual dues. And a lot of people are taking loans out for timeshares. It makes no sense. My mom had a timeshare before she passed. And the thing that always just drove me nuts with the timeshare is if you wanted to book the really high-end or in-demand properties,

Adam: Yep.

Benjamin Adams: You'd have to literally book it like three or four years in advance. Have your parents experienced that?

Adam: Yeah, we're going to be July 10th of 2030. There's isn't that bad, but you know, just the quality, know, just, you know, it's great for my parents in certain scenarios. But, know, if you're going to a really nice vacation, you want to have a really nice place to stay. You know, we've had some disappointing, you know, lodging in the past. So.

Benjamin Adams: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. Let's wrap this up. ⁓ Just wanted to thank everyone for listening to our 10 points today. And just a reminder that wealth usually isn't destroyed by one mistake, any of these mistakes, and especially if they're compounded and ⁓ used in, you know, used together, that's where you can really lose. So it's your wealth and your money is drained by small repeated habits. Start taking direction. Figure out what those small leaks are. Start redirecting your money towards investing. And you want to be financially aware. Wealth isn't built by earning more. That's a positive, but it's also built by losing less.

Adam: Absolutely, it's not about how much you make, it's how much you keep.

Benjamin Adams: Truly, and that's truly what it is. It is not about how much you make. It's not an income problem. It really is not an income problem. Most of the time.

Adam: Well, hope you guys enjoyed this one. Again, we're really pumped to be back with you guys on season three. If you didn't catch my plug earlier, don't forget we're doing these live Denver home buyer webinars every single month. They're free and online. Make sure you guys grab a seat to the next one. It's just at denverwebinar.com. And if you want to follow Ben on all the great stuff he's putting out on his YouTube channel, check him out at American Money 101.

Benjamin Adams: We love you guys. We'll see you next week.

Adam: See you guys.