If you really wanted to go broke this year, you could do it faster than you think. I’ve seen it happen by accident more times than I can count. Not because people are reckless or lazy, but because money runs on habits.

January is when those habits get disrupted. Holiday bills show up. Paychecks feel a little tighter. Financial keywords start trending, so some shifty influencers on social media start handing out financial “hacks” that belong in a fireproof vault. Most people start the year with good intentions, then watch their budget dissolve before Valentine’s Day.

So let’s talk about the fastest ways to drain your bank account. Let’s walk through the patterns that pull people underwater every single year. Think of this guide as a reverse map. I’ll show you how people go broke fast. You’ll recognize a few of these. Maybe more than a few. Then I’ll show you the simple shifts that keep your money steady in 2026.

Stop Checking Your Accounts and Hope for the Best

If your goal is financial ruin, start by treating your bank accounts like haunted objects. Never open the app. Never look at the balance. Let every transaction feel like a jump scare. Will it go through? Will it not? You don’t know! That’s the fun. This method works beautifully if you want to collect overdraft fees like Pokémon and stay permanently shocked by your own spending.

The truth is much less cinematic. Avoidance is one of the fastest ways to lose control of your money. When you never look, you can’t adjust. You can’t plan. You can’t catch mistakes or fraud or subscriptions you forgot about three apartments ago. Your budget becomes a rumor instead of a tool.

The fix is simple and boring in the best way. Pick one day a week and do a ten-minute money check. Look at your balances. Skim your transactions. Confirm that the numbers match your expectations. This is the moment where your financial life shifts from the unknown to clarity. It is also the moment where your money stops surprising you in the worst possible way.

Future You will appreciate the peace. Current You gets control back. Everyone wins.

Buy Everything On ‘I Deserve It’ Mode

If you want to go broke quickly, build your financial life around the phrase “I deserve it.” Use it at coffee shops, clothing stores, online carts, late-night delivery apps, and anywhere else your brain lights up like a pinball machine. Every inconvenience can become a treat. Every stressful day becomes a reason to “just this once” your way straight through your paycheck.

Emotional spending is sneaky. It feels comforting in the moment. It feels justified. It feels like a little sparkle in an otherwise demanding week. But if every mood shift becomes a purchase, money evaporates without leaving a trail.

The healthier version is not about guilt or restriction. It’s about noticing the pattern. Ask yourself what you wanted in that moment. Was it rest, comfort, escape, stimulation, or validation? Then find a way to meet that need without swiping your card every time. You can still treat yourself. You can still have joy. You just give yourself permission with intention instead of impulse.

Your wallet stays intact. Your comfort still counts. And you stop letting stress drive the spending car.

Pretend Your Debt Isn’t There

If the goal is to drain your finances, treat your debt like a cute secret you keep from yourself. Never check the balance. Never look at the interest rate. Let the statements pile up in your inbox like unread fan mail. Tell yourself you will “deal with it later,” even though Later has never once shown up with a plan.

Debt grows quickly and will bury you. It just compounds in the background while you focus on everything else. Ignoring it feels easier than facing it, which is why so many people wake up one day wondering how the balance doubled when they swear they didn’t spend that much.

There is no shame in owing money. There is only risk in pretending it is invisible. The simple fix is to acknowledge your numbers. List your debts. Note the interest rates. Pick a debt pay-off strategy that fits your life. The snowball method gives you quick wins. The avalanche method saves you the most money. A hybrid works when motivation and math need to meet in the middle.

The balance may feel heavy, but clarity makes it manageable. Once you see the real picture, the fear shrinks and the plan gets easier. Debt is a problem that responds to attention, not avoidance.

Pay Your Bills Late and Let the Fees Pile Up

There’s no reason you should have to pay bills because they’re due!  Deadlines are just guidelines, not rules!  Make it exciting – play bill roulette to decide what you’re going to pay this month. Miss the due date by a few days here and there. Let the late fees roll in like little financial surprises.

Late payments are tiny leaks that turn into a flood. You lose money through fees. You damage your credit score. You make future loans more expensive.

The practical solution is not complicated. You set your bills to autopay when possible. You add reminders to your calendar. You check that the payments actually go through. You can even move due-dates on some bills to best accommodate your paycheck schedule. These tiny habits save you money every year and protect your peace every month.

Good systems keep you stable, keep your credit healthy, and keep your stress low. Paying on time is not a personality trait. It is a simple structure that frees up mental space you can use for something better than worrying about whether your phone bill is about to ambush you again.

Let Lifestyle Creep Sprint Ahead Of You

If you want to empty your bank account with style, increase your spending every time something in your life gets a little easier. New job. New raise. New apartment. New mood. Treat every upgrade as a green light to level up everything else. Bigger groceries. Nicer clothes. Fancier weekends. Let your lifestyle sprint ahead while your bank balance tries to crawl behind it. Saving is for chumps!

Lifestyle creep feels harmless because it rarely comes from one big purchase. It comes from the soft little upgrades. The “might as well” choices. The “I can afford it now” logic that slowly replaces the habits that kept you afloat. Before long, the raise that was supposed to help your savings just disappears into the background noise of slightly nicer everything.

The healthier approach is simple. When you earn more, pause. Lock your core expenses in place for a while. Give yourself one or two intentional upgrades, not twelve. Decide how much of your raise goes toward savings or debt before the rest of it hits your account.

You can still enjoy the progress you make. You can still celebrate your upward motion. You just keep your spending grounded enough that your future self actually benefits from the work you put in today.

Assume Future You Will Be Rich

If you want to go broke fast, build your entire financial strategy around a magical version of Future You. Picture someone wiser, calmer, richer, and strangely immune to stress. Trust that this imaginary person will handle the credit card balance, sort the savings, remember the deadlines, file the taxes, and clean up every decision you make today. After all, you’ll win the lottery any day now – it’s guaranteed!

This mindset feels comforting because you can ignore anything unpleasant and tell yourself that the problem is temporary.

The reality is much less enchanting. Future You is still you. If you push everything forward, the pressure eventually catches up in a single exhausting pile. This is where overwhelm grows. This is where debt snowballs. This is where financial emergencies feel bigger than they actually are.

The fix is not complicated. Handle things in small steps today. Set a plan that feels realistic on your busiest week, not your best week. When you stop expecting Future You to perform miracles, your money stabilizes fast.

Follow TikTok Finance Hacks Like They’re Gospel

If you want to drain your wallet with impressive speed, trust every confident stranger with a ring light. Scroll until you find someone promising “free money,” “secret credit card glitches,” or “side hustles that take five minutes and pay rent.” Believe anything that sounds dramatic or urgent. Extra points if the creator says the banks “don’t want you to know this.”

This is how people end up trying day trading with grocery money, applying for credit cards they do not need, treating cash stuffing as a personality, or attempting a “hack” that only works in a fantasy world. TikTok is full of creators who make financial failures look productive.

The real skill is learning how to tell the difference between advice and entertainment. Check the source. Check the math. Check whether the creator is selling something. Ask whether the strategy even fits your life. Personal finance is not universal. The hacks that go viral usually ignore risk, nuance, and consequences.

And anything – ANYTHING – that seems too good to be true, like ATM withdrawal techniques that let you pull out more money in one sitting than you’ve ever held in your life?  They’re fake and misleading, if not downright illegal.

Treat Your Credit Limit Like Part of Your Income

If you want to hit zero fast, assume your credit limit is money you actually own. Look at that available balance and feel rich. Swipe like the bill will never arrive. Tell yourself you will “catch up later” even though later never sends an invitation.

Credit works quietly in the background. It feels smooth and convenient, which is why it tricks so many people into thinking it behaves like cash. The problem shows up when the statement does. Interest stacks. Payments stretch. Suddenly, the thing you bought weeks ago costs more than you expected.

Credit is a tool, not a paycheck – and it’s not even a great tool! When you separate those two categories, your spending settles down. You stop counting borrowed money as real money. You see the real cost of each choice without the fog of convenience.

Once you treat your credit limit as an emergency-only solution instead of a suggestion, you get control back. Your budget becomes clearer. Your stress drops. And you stop treating every swipe like a harmless decision that someone else will cover.

Ignore Your Savings and Hope Money Magically Stays Put

If you want your bank account to empty itself, leave your savings on autopilot and never think about it again. Treat it like a decorative bowl on a shelf. Nice to have, easy to forget. Tell yourself you will save “when life is calmer,” a day which never actually arrives.

Savings shrink for simple reasons. Unplanned expenses hit. Cost of living rises. A busy month derails everything. When you never check-in, you miss the moment when things start slipping. That slow slide is what drains people, not one dramatic emergency.

A healthier rhythm is easy to build. You pay yourself first, even if the amount is tiny. You set transfers that match your real income, not the fantasy version. You check your progress once a month, so you actually know what is happening.

When you give your savings a small amount of care, the account grows. When you ignore it, the balance disappears without warning.

Keep Quiet About Money and Handle Everything Alone

If you want financial trouble to build quietly, avoid talking to anyone about it. Stay vague with friends. Keep questions to yourself. Tell no one when something feels confusing or overwhelming. Isolation is a perfect environment for money problems to grow because you never get an outside perspective.

Most people learn about finances in fragments. A parent mentioned something once. A teacher tossed out a line in passing. A TikTok video filled in a random gap. That mix leaves whole areas blank, and those blanks become expensive over time.

You do not have to turn your entire life into a group project, but reaching out for help changes things fast. A conversation with someone you trust, or a quick appointment with a counselor at your bank. Financial coaches and planners, or personal finance classes – all from credentialed professionals – can give you a strong base to build on. Guidance makes decisions clearer and mistakes easier to avoid.

Money becomes more manageable when you stop carrying every question by yourself.

Most people don’t go broke because of one enormous mistake. It happens through small habits that snowball when life gets busy. None of the patterns in this guide make you irresponsible or hopeless. They just make you human, living in a world full of noise, pressure, and financial myths that spread faster than good information ever will.

You can shift things without turning your life upside down. Pick one habit to change, not all of them. Give yourself room to learn instead of expecting instant mastery. Build simple systems you can keep up with on an average week. Small adjustments add up when they’re consistent.

Your financial stability is not built on perfect discipline or constant motivation. It grows from clarity, steady choices, and a plan that fits your real life. The sooner you start shaping those pieces, the easier financial independence to purpose becomes.