Money – Easy come Easy go?

Oct 152008

I was talking with my brother last night about how some members of our family are spendthrifts and how we fritter away money like it is going out of fashion.

I made the comment that the family attitude towards money seemed to be ‘Easy Come Easy Go’. My brother agreed however while I was focusing on the ‘Easy Go’ part of the statement he was focusing on the ‘Easy Come’ part. He made the excellent point that while most members of the family are spendthrifts none of them are in really serious financial difficulty.

This got me thinking.

I was focusing on the ‘Easy Go’ part of the statement and thinking about all the money I have spent over the years and all the expenses and debt repayments I now have. He was focused on the ‘Easy come’ part of the statement and when I asked him to explain and he told me that he was thinking about how money seems to easily come to the members of the family who spend a lot. He used a couple of examples where money seemed to appear out of nowhere like someone getting a big unexpected bonus at work.

He was right and the more I thought about it the more I began to realize that in general the people I know who have had difficulties with money are the very people who are uptight about money. They may read about the credit crisis and get stressed, they have effectively shut down their spending and become stressed about the flow of money into their lives.

On the other hand the people I know that aren’t having difficulties with money but yet still seem to be spending are those people who have a very relaxed attitude towards money.

I’m thinking out loud here but I reckon the reason why this seems to be the case is that people who have relaxed attitude towards money seem to take more risks and follow more potentially profitable opportunities. While people who are stressed about money seem to take fewer risks and try to maintain their financial status quo.

Take the example of a new job opportunity that pays well. The person who is relaxed about money would more than likely be prepared to take the risk and go for the job. The person who is uptight about money might not even consider applying for the new role for fear that it might upset their current employer should they ever find out.

This is a very simple example but I think it illustrates the difference between those who are stressed about money and those who are relaxed about money nicely.

The difference

The key difference seems to be the attitude to risk. The person who is relaxed about money knows that there are always plenty of money making opportunities and jobs out there for the person who is willing to work hard and take a risk. The person who is stressed about money is too focused on losing what they have and the current financial problems that they face that they do not even see the opportunities. As a result they stay stuck in a kind of financial limbo that only moves at the rate of inflation.

But I’ve got bills to pay

Me too and while I kind of figured that this was the way that money seem to work it wasn’t until I sat down and thought about it that I realized that attitude has a huge part to play in any financial situation.

Say you’re in debt like me and you’ve had a bad day at work and you arrive home to find a stack of bills. The misery just keeps piling on and no matter how sunny your disposition is there is a good chance that this will get to you. Fair enough. But you have a choice as to how you can respond to the situation. You can kick and scream at the unfairness of it all or you can simple say ‘I don’t feel up to dealing with this right now so I’m taking a time out and will deal with when I feel better’.

The truth is that when you are in debt the world tends to beat on you a lot more than if you weren’t in debt. The same problems that seemed easily dealt with before can seem insurmountable when you are in debt. That is the nature of the beast unfortunately and at the risk of sounding like a broken record the only true think that you have control over is your attitude.

What can I do?

Changing your attitude towards money takes time, patience and a lot of effort. I can only relay what I have read about it because in theory if my attitude towards money was brilliant then I would not be having problems with debt. So perhaps I’m not the best person to be asking. That said I can tell you from experience of what constitutes a bad attitude towards money if that will help?

So the idea here is to notice if you have similar thoughts. If you do then it might be the case that you need to look at your attitude towards money.

Ok so here goes.

You see someone with a fancy flash car and you think – they must be criminals.

You work hard yet get passed over for promotion and a colleague gets it instead. You think – they must be sleeping with the boss.

You receive a pile of bills but you ‘forget’ to pay them thinking that you can get away with it for another month.

You get angry at the credit card companies for charging you extortionate rates yet you knew exactly what the rates were when you signed up.

You ‘forget’ family and friends birthdays.

You live for today and adopt the ‘I could be dead tomorrow’ attitude. But wake up in two days time alive and well.

You don’t know how to get your bank balance.

You don’t know how much you owe on your credit cards and loans.

You expect some ‘manna from heaven’ i.e. some good fortune to come along and solve all your money problems in one go.

You try to match your neighbor in the lawnmower stakes. Mine is bigger than yours.

You try get rich quick schemes in the hope of making money but in the end you lose all your money.

This list is by no means complete. The point I am trying to make is that each of the thoughts and actions outlined above point to a case of bad financial attitude. If you have had some of these thoughts in the past don’t worry. Attitude is something that can be changed. So why not change yours?

For more of my musings on Debt management and Personal Finance please subscribe to my RSS feed. Alternatively if you would like a free copy of my Debt management ebook “Understanding and getting out of debt” please sign up for my free newsletter.

Feeling rich when you pay your bills

Oct 132008

So you mean to tell me that I should feel rich when I am paying my bills and money is leaving my bank account?

Yes that is exactly what I am saying.

For most people the thoughts of paying bills leaves them feeling decidedly poorer. I know it made me feel that way for a long time. When I first got into debt I remember cursing the bank for taking the money out of my account. I would put off paying creditors for as long as legally possible. I had a really tough time motivating myself to pay my bills.

I would dread receiving mail as I almost certainly always knew that there would be a bill or past due notice lurking among all the credit card offers. To log on to my bank account to transfer funds was a huge struggle.

Compare that with the way I react when I get a bill today.

I gather all my bills that I receive in any given week and I tackle them all on a Saturday morning. I log into my bank account and make transfers to pay the bills – the funds won’t arrive until Monday or Tuesday but I don’t mind as Saturday suits me best for doing this. As I pay each bill I mark it in big writing ‘PAID IN FULL’ and I put the date on it. If I have set up an automatic direct debit I make sure that the transaction has been made by my bank and then I mark the bill ‘PAID IN FULL’.

As I pay the bills I try to feel wealthy – not the easiest thing to do when you are neck high in debt but it can be done. I try to imagine that I have vast amounts of money and that I actually enjoy paying my bills. I try to look on paying my bills as part of the flow of money. If I send money out into circulation I know that it will eventually come back to me.

Okay I know that this kind of New Age thinking might not sit well with some of you but if you try it you will be surprised at how your imagination can create positive feelings of wealth. You don’t have to feel like a million dollars but even if you can feel say even just a little wealthier than you currently are then it will make a difference.

What’s the point?

I described this technique to a friend of mine who was in a similar financial situation to me. The response I got was ‘What’s the point Mike? I’m broke and no amount of mumbo jumbo positive thinking is going to make any difference’.

I could understand his frustration. Circumstances had been unkind to him but he wasn’t helping his situation by wallowing in self pity. The fact of the matter is that the more negative he got about his financial situation the more negative financial problems he got as a result.

I used to have a similar problem with negative self talk. It was a slow realization on my part that it was me who was causing a lot of unnecessary suffering by thinking negatively.

What changed?

Once I realized that I was causing a lot of my own suffering by having a negative attitude towards money things started to change. It occurred to me that money is neither good nor bad but rather it is a product of our feelings towards it. In other words money is what we make it in our minds.

If we create a mental image of money as something that is all powerful in our lives then I think we are giving too much of our personal power over to money. On the other hand if we do not treat money with respect then we end up losing it and in debt.

Now before I go on I want to point out that I am still on a journey of discovery here. I do not claim to know all the answers. In fact in relative terms I am only a novice to this whole ‘how much money you have is a product of your attitude’ way of thinking.

In theory it makes sense but I am still experimenting with it. I am still in debt so obviously I have not quite mastered the techniques involved. What I will say is that by paying my bills on time and without a negative attitude I have a lot less stress.

More money

The really interesting thing about paying my bills while trying to feel rich is that I do actually have more money as a result. The difference is only small but it is a positive difference. I don’t know what exactly caused the difference. I think it may have arisen from the fact that I don’t have as much of an interest charge or penalty fee from late payments. Also I think that because I have developed the habit of paying my bills at the same time every week I have become more disciplined in my spending.

Don’t question it – simply try it

Time for some field work, if you want to see if this whole positive attitude towards money works for you then I suggest that you simply try it for yourself. The next time you have a bill to pay try to pay the bill with a positive attitude and do not hold a grudge against your creditor. Simply pay the bill and try to feel rich when you do it. Wish your creditor well.

Give it time. Don’t expect a miracle. It might happen but the chances are slim so continue to indulge in positive thinking when it comes to paying your bills for at least one month. If after the month is up and you don’t notice any difference, try it for another month. Give it time.

Notice the small changes. Change won’t come all at once but rather in a series of smaller more subtle changes. You may notice that you have slightly more money in your bank account at the end of the month or that you aren’t as stressed when you get a bill.

For more of my musings on Debt management and Personal Finance please subscribe to my RSS feed. Alternatively if you would like a free copy of my Debt management ebook “Understanding and getting out of debt” please sign up for my free newsletter.

© 2011 Till Debt Do Us Part - Pay off debt fast Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha