Have you ever thought about the process of spending money? If you do the research before you spend on big ticket items by comparison shopping, looking for sales, searching for on-line coupons, and checking with consumer report websites for knowledgeable recommendations; then you are a savvy spender, and your money is working for you.
How Most People Spend
What most people don’t factor into the process of spending money is the emotional aspect of this action. Often people make purchases because they have been influenced and persuaded by advertising and other subtle but effective types of manipulation. Marketing experts, for example are masters of psychological manipulation, which is why advertisements always show happy, beautiful people using specific consumer goods to attain their state of well-being.
Our Parents Influence
Most of us have feelings that are both positive and negative about spending our hard-earned dollars. Many of our perceptions about spending, saving, and even earning money, come from learned experiences we received during our formative years. Our parents’ behaviors with money were often our first exposure to the process. If they budgeted, coupon clipped, saved and lived within their means, we probably will too. If earning a six figure income was a focal point, or living pay check to pay check played a big role in daily life; those memories had an influence on us, as well. Studies suggest that a large part of our emotional ties to money are directly correlated with our acceptance or rejection of our parents’ financial decisions.
Money Personalities
Money personalities vary greatly. Compulsive shopping, gambling and over-spending consumers usually end up with large credit card debt. The other end of the personality spectrum includes people who live frugally because they fear poverty. This fear keeps them from spending to the degree that they deny themselves things that they need for a better quality of life. Others try to avoid money issues by refusing to focus on how they spend or why. Often, busy people who make a good income don’t manage their money well because they lack the time to do so. All of these people miss the opportunities to put their money to work for them, even if it just means moving it to a different account to get a higher interest rate.
Thinking about Why We Spend
It is very important, now more than ever in this sluggish economy, to start thinking about how and why we spend money and how to get the most for every dollar we spend. The all important bottom line is preserving financial solvency. Knowing why we spend will help us manage our money more wisely.
Five Steps to Managing Money
1) Track where money is being spent and the amount
2) Set specific long term goals for your money
3) Pay cash, or use your debit card
4) Think before you buy to curb Impulse Shopping
5) Prepare for periods of unemployment by putting aside savings and purchasing Disability Insurance, and Death Benefit Insurance for yourself and your family.
If we decide to focus on where the money is going, and why, and put a plan in place in case our earning potential is lost, either temporarily or long term, we will be smart money managers and not victims of our own emotional spending.