Fantasies aren’t necessarily bad, but when they begin to negatively affect your decision making process, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. Going through life expecting a large windfall is really a sad way to live. It gives you a false hope and can give you an excuse to make bad financial decisions. After all, if you expect to “one day” hit it big, you can rationalize all sorts of bad decisions.

^[2] Here are six typical financial fantasies:

• I’ll win the lottery and get rich!
• I’ll flip houses and get rich!
• I’ll receive an inheritance and get rich!
• I’ll pick stocks and get rich!
• I’ll start a blog and get rich!
• I’ll start an eBay business and get rich!

I’ll win the lottery and get rich!

My 10 year old son has started asking questions about lottery billboards, and thought it would be easy to guess the numbers, so I gave him a shot at guessing which 6 numbers I had written on a piece of paper. He tried over and over, but never got close. After many, many tries, he came to realize how difficult it would be to guess correctly. Finally, he wondered aloud why anyone would waste money on the lottery. It was a proud moment for this Dad!

You won’t win the lottery. Focus instead on learning to manage what you have by creating and living by a budget.

I’ll flip houses and get rich!

Flipping this or flipping that can possibly make you a lot of cash but first, how much real estate experience do you have and buying a personal home doesn’t count. How much design experience do you have? How much cash in reserve do you have. What happens if the house doesn’t sell for 12 to 24 months? Can you handle it?