It takes time to make money

Maybe you’ve done the right things with your personal finances but had a series of setbacks. Everytime you think you are making progress, something seems to come up—an expense you weren’t anticipating or a change in your health.
You bond with friends who are in a similar situation with money. Making plans to get your act together while they struggle seems unloyal and out of reach.
The way we spend our money and navigate our financial life is as routine as drinking coffee every morning or brushing our teeth at night. We hold the power to change our habits, but a lot of times we think we don’t. We give them power over us instead, and bemoan our situation when we don’t see progress happening quickly enough.
Because the payoff isn’t immediate, people start but quit because it seems like it’s not working and we fear failure. We don’t want to look silly for thinking we could rise above where we are now when we can’t. Giving up fun things in the short term without seeing the benefit is demoralizing. We don’t want to admit that we are in the situation we’re in because of our own actions and reactions.