The Stupid Tax Is Real

A financial teacher I respect has a phrase I've never been able to shake. He calls it stupid tax which is the price you pay when a foolish financial decision catches up with you. The tuition is always higher than you expected. The payment schedule is always longer than you planned. And the consequences follow you longer than you think it should.

I've paid my fair share of stupid tax. More than my fair share, if I'm honest with myself.

There is a chapter in my own story I call My Two Biggest Regrets. I won't unpack all of it here, but the short version is that I spent a season of my life living above my income. Not recklessly, in the way that looks obviously irresponsible from the outside. More insidiously in the kind of foolishness that comes dressed in reasonable-sounding justifications and a lifestyle that felt, at the time, like something I had earned.

The deception is not the obvious foolishness, but the that it carries a narrative with it. You've worked hard. You deserve this. Everybody else is doing it. You only live once. These are not arguments for wisdom. They are arguments for appetite just repackaged in the language of reward.

I spent several years in car sales, and I heard this script played out hundreds of times. A customer sits across the desk, clearly stretched to the edge of what they can afford, while a well-meaning spouse or friend leans over and says, you deserve this. And something in that phrase functions like permission. It doesn't ask whether the choice is wise. It doesn't require any accounting of the consequences. It simply validates the desire and calls that validation a form of support. It isn't support. It is incentive to make a foolish choice, dressed up as encouragement.

The hard truth is that the wise/foolish framework gives responsibility to the person making the decision, him or her alone. Not the friend who said you deserved it. Not the salesperson who made it sound easy. Not the culture that told you this was normal. You. The choice belongs to you, and so does the stupid tax when it comes due.

I am not talking about financial perfectionism. I have made foolish choices not because I was reckless by nature, but because I was human, because I wanted things, and because I found ways to justify wanting them. The discipline of honest evaluation is not something most of us are naturally good at. It has to be cultivated, it has to be practiced, and it is significantly easier to practice when you have someone in your life who is allowed to ask uncomfortable questions before you sign.

That accountability piece is not optional. A disciple who is accountable to no one on financial matters, or any significant matter, is a disciple who is one convincing story away from a foolish choice. The harbor pilot doesn't navigate alone. He utilizes a crew that can see what he might miss. Wisdom, in the practical sense, often looks like the willingness to be questioned by someone you trust before you act.

The good news about stupid tax is that it is recoverable. Foolish choices in the past do not determine the choices available to you today. But recovery requires the honest acknowledgment that the choice was foolish, not unfortunate, not unlucky, not a victim of circumstances, simply foolish. The moment you can say that without excusing it, the learning has begun.

The next time someone tells you that you deserve it, you'll know what question to ask first.