Vanguard, analysing up to 5.5 million investor records, finds that 35 per cent of households carry credit-card debt at rates above 20 per cent while holding cash or prepaying low-interest mortgages. One-third of those prepaying cheap debt also miss full employer-matched retirement contributions, losing on average $1,100 a year—potentially $120,000 over a decade.

The mistake stems from treating debt and saving as separate silos. Households accelerate loans costing below 4 per cent after tax while servicing credit cards at five times that rate, and they hold idle cash that inflation erodes. The pattern extends across economies.

In Argentina, as the mid-year aguinaldo bonus arrives, advisers see families torn between record arrears and inflation hedging. Economist Nauhel Bernues notes that holding dollar bills no longer preserves value because US inflation also bites; he recommends a ladder from money-market funds to Treasury bills and corporate bonds. In Colombia, 77 per cent of the population cannot save, according to a government survey, leading industry group Asomicrofinanzas to urge parents to teach children to distinguish wants from needs and to make saving a visible habit.

Sweden’s Spelfriheten reports that 59 per cent of students have gambled for money, one in three via unregulated skin-betting sites, and only 17 per cent received risk education. The association demands a national campaign, as Denmark has done. In the United States, the ‘coffee can’ strategy—buying shares expected to multiply 100-fold and holding them for decades—promotes patience and compounding as the basis of generational wealth.

The deficit is in prioritisation skills, not product availability. Vanguard’s rule—extinguish the most expensive debt first and capture every matching contribution—provides a starting point. Sweden’s proposed campaign will test whether gambling risks receive the same policy urgency as substance abuse. For households from Buenos Aires to Bogotá, the immediate test is whether this month’s extra income retires high-cost debt or reinforces old patterns.