Mike Tyson was once heavyweightchampion, and perhaps the most feared boxer in the sport's history. Within twodecades of his prime, though, he was filing for bankruptcy.
Tyson is just one of manycelebrities whose savings accounts didn't last once the cheering stopped. Hereare four things you can learn from them.
Advertisement
- Your peak earning years won't last forever. Parade Magazine once ran a list of celebrity bankruptcies that reads like a 1980s A-list: Tyson, M.C. Hammer, Don Johnson, Burt Reynolds, Kim Basinger. These stars once earned a great deal of money, but they developed lifestyles that needed an extraordinary amount of income to maintain. Once their earnings started to fade, those lifestyles quickly involved mounting piles of debt.
Mansions are for beginners -- Basinger once owned a whole town. Tyson's collection
of toys included a custom Bentley and pet tigers. Those must have seemed
like very showy ways of demonstrating their riches, but what these celebrities
needed to learn was that once that money is spent on such extravagances,
it doesn't represent wealth -- it represents a reduction of wealth.
carried hefty interest rates. Investment portfolios once regularly
produced double-digit returns. With rates on savings accounts now near
zero, and investment returns often worse than zero, it's a different story
these days. Like celebrities who thought they had earned enough to live on
forever, anyone planning to live off their wealth needs to understand the
importance of building in a cushion against adverse markets.
still have to pay taxes on this year's earnings, even if next year is a
disaster.
Among the extravagances Tyson oncehad was a retractable glass roof on his home. It's a shame he didn't realizethat wealth isn't built on the showy amenities a mansion has; it's built on asolid foundation of savings.
Advertisement
Theoriginal article can be found at Money-Rates.com: