Five Habits That Keep You Poor and Failing in America
The title of this article is a little strange: the fastest way to be a failure and poor in America. These are things that, if you do them, I guarantee you will stay poor and failing, and they may be very clear in America, but they are not unique to America. Especially if you are a newcomer and do not pay attention while the years rob you, so that the poor stay poor and the failures stay failures, and may even fail more.
I have already talked about what you should do before traveling in “Ten Things to Do Before You Travel to America.” This time, most of what I will mention, if you do it while you are inside America, will probably keep you from moving at all.
First: not paying taxes
Taxes are very important inside America, and the issue is a big one, and if it is proven that you are evading taxes, it is a big problem. Setting aside ideas of fairness and respect for your society, which gives you a great deal, you should give back part of what it gives you by paying taxes, especially since they reflect here on the poor before the rich. And although taxes may be heavy on some groups, such as a single person working in a high-income job, in return the state gives large services to the poor before the rich.
Paying taxes is a red line that you do not play with or go near. I advise you to pay your taxes regularly. And I remind you that a taxpayer here does not have to be a lawful resident: even if you have no papers, you can get a number called a “Tax ID” (ITIN), with which you start paying your taxes and build a history of paying them. This is very important if you intend to apply for American citizenship, because one of its conditions is that you have paid your taxes in the last five years.
Second: sticking only to Arabs and isolating yourself with them from your American surroundings
This, unfortunately, is a problem I see among some older Arabs who have been here a long time. You find that they know nothing about American society, and everything they know is about their Arab homeland, as if they had never left it. It is a big problem, because part of your success in America is your understanding of the society itself, its contexts, rules and ideas. If you stay isolated, content with the Arabs around you, in the comfort zone you prefer, you will stay where you are and never develop.
Third: not caring about your credit score
In my opinion this is the most important road to failure inside America: not building a credit score, or having a bad credit history. The first thing I was told when I came to America about eight years ago was that your credit history is the most important thing for you here, almost on a par in importance with the Social Security number. At first I did not understand why, or how it is built, or how the number rises, or what things you might do without noticing that make your number collapse. This has changed now even in the Arab world, where credit history has become important.
In short, it is the banks’ knowledge of the size of your creditworthiness, whether you are a person who can be relied on and repays what he takes from banks, and whether you stick to repayment. There are three things that, if you do them, build your number correctly and keep it:
First: do not open many credit cards without need, and do not open many loans, because this is an early sign that you are greedy for money. The safer way is to open a card whenever you need one, over many years.
Second: do not use more than 30% of a card’s limit. If the limit is $100, do not go above about $30, and the lower the better. Personally I try not to use more than 10%, and often it does not exceed 5 or 7%.
Third: stick to the due dates for payment and do not delay payments. If you do these three, your credit history will be built quickly and your number will rise.
Fourth: copying Americans in consumption
This is what bothers me most about them, since they are a consumer people of the first degree. Americans buy everything they want through easy methods, which is much simpler than in the Arab world. Want a new car? You get it with no down payment or a token down payment, over seven, ten or fifteen years. Want a house? You can buy it with a down payment starting from only 3% of its price, over 15 or 30 years. Of course the house is expensive and the cost of the loan is large, but few people think about tomorrow. On the other hand, everyone here is responsible for himself, so when a son reaches eighteen his father says goodbye and tells him to make his own way, so the father and mother do not carry the worries of the children’s future. In this situation there is a good part and a bad part, a part that is selfishness and a part that puts the responsibility on the children.
In general, everything or most things are made easy for whoever wants to get them, and this makes consumption huge and leads to big problems in controlling purchases and then financial problems. Most of those who overspend have financial problems and are mostly not successful and cannot get out of the circle of poverty. I never advise you to do it.
Fifth: borrowing without counting the cost
Whether on your card or with personal or business loans, without a real need and without a plan to repay. Many people take money from the card and live their day and do not think how they will repay tomorrow. This is one of the biggest and most dangerous problems the American people suffer from, and newcomers fall into it when they learn from them. I know many Arabs who came to America as ordinary people, then liked that loans are easy and that drawing from the card needs no accounting, so they began spending without knowing how they would repay.
A final piece of advice
In our Arab and Islamic understanding we should not be wasteful, nor consume what we do not need. I recall the well-known report about Umar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, when he saw a companion walking in the market with something expensive he had bought, and asked him why he bought it, and he said: I desired it, O Commander of the Faithful. Umar said to him: Is it that whenever you desire something you buy it? That is: slow down and focus, and look at what you need and buy it.
No one tells you to come to America and be poor or stingy. There is a difference between priorities and essentials and luxuries. So do not be carried away and buy everything just because those around you buy it. Buy only what you need.
Article originally published on 3 October 2026.