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Understanding your money mindset
By Deb |
Do you get excited about the possibility of living debt-free? If so, it’s time to give a brutally honest answer to the following question. At your core, do you really think it’s doable? Be honest now…. Do you TRULY believe you will pay all of your bills and become debt-free in six months? A year? Five years from now? If you’re like most people, the answer is “No.”
We live in a society that promotes debt. “Buy now, pay later” is the mantra we’re bombarded with. Credit card companies are setting up tables on college campuses to recruit young adults to charge now, buy later; 90 days same-as-cash has turned into one year same-as-cash to make a retail offer even more enticing; and credit card companies are so happy to push the plastic that they’ve been known to send pre-approved credit offers to dogs and dead people.
Ask yourself this question: What would be possible in your life if your debt did not control you? How would you live each day if you weren’t talking with creditors or avoiding their phone calls or stressing over another late charge or just feeling overwhelmed by using every cent you make to keep your head above water? Consider this fact: How much extra money would you have each month if you only had to pay for basic living expenses?
If you talk the talk about becoming debt-free but can’t seem to stay on course, you need to change your thinking right now. What holds many people back from being debt-free is that they really don’t believe it’s possible. This deep-rooted doubt sabotages their efforts to become truly financially fit. You can write budgets every month, but if you can’t get past what’s really holding you back, you won’t get one step closer toward paying off your bills. You first need to understand your money mindset.
Before I changed my own thinking patterns about money, I bought things I couldn’t afford. When I was honest with myself, I didn’t really believe that I’d ever be able to afford what I wanted, so if I wanted something I found a way to buy it so I COULD have it. This set up a pattern of buying NOW and paying bills LATER. In my heart, I honestly believed I couldn’t get control of my finances. I rationalized that the only way I could buy clothes for my children or for myself was to skip a bill or two that month. I said yes to impulse purchases because I didn’t want my children to “feel poor.” The irony is that this pattern of behavior caused me to be exactly what I didn’t want to be: flat broke.
What I had to learn is that getting control of my finances meant getting control of my behavior and the way I dealt with money. I had to get in touch with my own attitude about money. As with many adult issues we face in our lives, my mindset about money developed during my childhood. My parents were divorced when I was six years old, and my mother raised me during a time where most parents weren’t divorced. In fact, I was the only child in my first grade class with divorced parents, and that made me different from the other children in my class.
Even though my mother and grandparents always provided what I needed, my father and his new family always had much more money than we had. While he was very generous for Christmas, he said I didn’t “need” glasses when my mother asked him to pay for half the cost of them. The court-ordered child support was minimal to our needs. I grew up hearing about his family trips and additional streams of income, but I didn’t benefit from their comfortable lifestyle. Somewhere in my young mind, I developed the mindset that I didn’t deserve what they had or he would have shared it with me. As I grew up, I carried with me the “I want it but I don’t deserve it” feeling with me every day of my life. Even though I spent my money on a lot of little things, I could never seem to save for a home or build up my savings account or take a vacation. I stood in the way of my security by filling my life with meaningless stuff and denying myself of what I really wanted.
Getting past these attitudes takes commitment and hard work, but recognizing them is the first step to making a positive change. Track your spending for one month. Don’t take mental notes; put it in writing. Do you buy things you cannot afford? If so, why do you do it if you know it’s hurting your wallet? Get to the heart of your money mindset, and you’ll get to the heart of your financial problems.
But here’s the kicker: You have to hate debt more than you love spending money. Does debt cause you a lot of pain? Do you spend time worrying about your finances? Are you hurting enough to make positive changes in your life? What about your spending habits? Do you get an emotional high when you buy something? Is that good feeling stronger than the pain of your debt?
Here’s my philosophy. If “stuff” could really make us happy, we could buy something we really wanted and be satisfied with it. We wouldn’t have to buy another thing. But that’s not what happens. We just keep spending money on things we really don’t need. Why?
Here’s an example from my own life. My son used to collect Pokémon cards. I’d buy him a deck of cards, and he’d get that temporary rush of excitement. Then he’d want another deck of cards, and he’d obsess about them until he made the next purchase. Then that rush would come and go, and he’d want another. He even spent $100 of his birthday money on more cards! When he told me how happy the cards made him, I suggested that if Pokémon cards really made him happy, he wouldn’t have to keep buying them. One pack would do the trick.
I like to splurge every now and then, but my splurging is usually directed toward others. I am not attached to things. Things can be fun, but they don’t make me happy. Once I learned to change my attitude toward possessions and spending habits, I found that paying all my bills was far more satisfying than having something new and shiny in my life.
While some people can just establish a budget and stick to it, others really need to understand what their attitudes are and why they have them. Understand the “why,” and then it becomes easier to stop yourself the next time you reach for your wallet. For the next 30 days, don’t buy anything you don’t need: magazines, impulse buys at the grocery store, another sweater, etc. You’ll discover just how lucrative your new mindset can be!
Buy less and see how much more money you’ll have. Being wealthy has nothing to do with the kind of car you drive or how many clothes you have in your closet; wealth is symbolic of how much money you have, not the debt you’ve accumulated to keep up with the Joneses. Once you develop a positive mindset about money, you’ll find that you can begin right now to change your financial future.
Topics: Articles, Budget, Cash, Debt, Income, Personal Experiences, Thrift |
January 6th, 2008 at 4:53 am
You are so right! My husband and I have wanted to get out of debt for a long time, but at the core, we didn’t really believe it was possible. Then we received part of an inheritance and paid off half our debt. Suddenly anything seemed possible.
We’ve had some serious income setbacks since then, but our mindset hasn’t changed. We still believe it’s possible, even though it’s not going as quickly as we had first planned.
If you get serious about paying off your debt, you WILL get it paid off!
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
[…] to build wealth, make a career or personal change, or get out of debt. Debit-Free Mom says in “Understanding Your Money Mindset” What holds many people back from being debt-free is that they really don’t believe it’s […]
August 17th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I am facing serious financial challenges in my life right now. The more I worry and despair the more I sink in my situation. It’s almost like a whilpool sucking you down.
Since I changed my mindset about money, wealth and abundance, I feel much better. When I feel better, my situation does not look bleak and hopeless, then I can take inspired action.
Thank you for sharing.