Get Serious
So you put on a few pounds over the holidays and a few more dollars on your credit card? We can’t lose weight in one day and can’t shed the debt in one day, but it’s time to go back to my last post and see what we can do to move forward.
Take a Closer Look- What do you See?
Last month I suggested you pull together three months of credit card statements and start listing out Categories of spending. You were charged (pun intended) with identifying the three largest spending categories. If you haven’t gotten a chance to do this yet go back and start there. You can catch up with me when you are ready!
A Few Possibilities
A. No Surprises- You know exactly where you spenT your money AND YET…
- Your main emotion is feeling guilty about it because you know it’s your guilty pleasure yet you continue to put the expenses on the credit card.
- Or maybe you don’t feel guilty because you ‘deserve’ to have those nice things or your child ‘deserves’ to have/do those nice things. You’ll catch up with all of this later.
B. Shock and Awe- How much did I spend?? You can’t believe you spend this much money on ‘x’ categories and You think:
- Maybe ‘someone else’ is doing all this spending.
- You feel completely overwhelmed and paralyzed by all of this.
- Curiosity makes you want to dig deeper to understand this better.
If you answered:
A. No Surprises- You have some awareness that your spending is out of control and that you could pay more attention to where your spending goes. (Notice I don’t say ‘where your money goes’ because we are talking about unpaid credit cards here.)
B. Shock and Awe- A lot of us don’t really pay attention to our monthly spending because we’ve gotten in the habit of spending on a credit card, paying a minimum monthly payment that is within our means and forget that the debt is much larger than what the minimum payment covers. Also, a lot of people feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by their financial situation. The good news is you took a step in the right direction to see if you can get a better handle on one facet of your spending. There is hope for you!
Let’s Start Here
Regardless of your answer let’s start by looking at the three categories you highlighted.
Are they NEEDS or WANTS in the most general terms?
WANTS means you do have a bit of a spending issue; only you know how big or small it is.
NEEDS means you have a bit of an income problem that may be coupled with overspending/lack of attention to spending.
We’ll tackle each of these thoughts again soon!
