Dear Gail. I need your help. I am supposed to be getting married in a few months but my boyfriend is threatening to call off the wedding. He says that I’m irresponsible with my money and he just can’t “take me on.” He says he loves me, but that I’m too expensive. It’s true that I like to treat myself well, and I do borrow money from him (and from my sister), but I always pay them back eventually. I work in a job where I have to look good. So I get my hair done every couple of weeks and I’m constantly shopping for new clothes. I don’t like to wear the same thing more than a couple of times because people will think I can’t afford new clothes. I have a ton of makeup and it takes me a couple of hours to get ready to go anywhere. Last month I decided to get a new car. I had a car but it was a cheaper car and I wanted a better car. So I went and leased a Lexus for just over $675 a month. Now I have a bit of a problem because I’m supposed to have the money saved for half the wedding and I don’t. I don’t want to loose my boyfriend, Gail, but I don’t know what to do. Help me please.

When I read the letter my finger hovered over the delete button I thought to myself, “too dumb for words.”  How can anyone be so shallow – so vain – that they put their future and their relationship at risk for the sake of a new model car, a sassy hairdo and new rags?

People do it all the time.  They get so wrapped up in looking gooood that they completely lose sight of the big picture. They act like money morons because they’re obsessed with making the right impression.  They put themselves at risk financially to get massaged, mani’d, pedi’d, waxed, trimmed, coloured, outfitted, and slimmed. They let the most ridiculous things dictate how they feel about themselves. I once watched a co-worker leave work, go home and change her shoes because a much older woman came into her space wearing the same shoes she had on. Those shoes that were good enough to buy suddenly became incredibly “uncool.” Lord love a duck!

If you put how you look, and what other people think about you, before building a solid financial foundation, you’re a money moron. If as you buy something you’re thinking to yourself, “Wait until the girls see this!” you’re buying motivation is suspect. And if you don’t have two red cents to rub together, but you’ve got a couple  dozen pairs of shoes with matching purses and you’re about to buy more, you’re insane.

Putting your vanity before your sanity (or the sanity of your partner, as with the chick who wrote the letter) is dumb. It would probably take me a week of Wednesdays to help the chick who wrote the letter see the error of her ways. Maybe her boyfriend should dump her. That might help her reprioritize and see what’s really important and what’s just superficial.

I hoard books. I’ve been a book beastie for as long as I remember. I still have a couple of books that I brought with me from Jamaica and my childhood, like my poetry book and a sadly out of date book on Asia (back then they still called the city “Peking”.) I know why I haul the poetry book around; it’s still one of my favourites. The other book, not so much. Just nostalgia, m’thinks.

Maybe there’s a particular thing you like to hoard. It might be shoes. It might be glassware or dishes. It might be DVDs, washed-out butter containers or those little trays you get at Timmys when you drive through. Hey, as I’ve gone through people’s cupboards, I’ve seen it all.

I’ve stopped buying books. I have a stack of about 6 on my shelf that I haven’t read yet. My eyes aren’t what they used to be what with all the driving and computer work I do. I do buy books from Audible.com for my Ip-Od but I don’t hoard those. Or maybe I do but they’re taking up so little space I don’t count it. But I won’t buy another book until I’ve made my way through the ones I gave myself for my last birthday.

I’m making an effort to use up what I have. I’m starting with the bottles and bottles of shampoo and conditioner I gave myself and Alex last Christmas – my girl has a bath products fetish that she came by honestly. I’m also including candles that I’ve stocked up on because I love the smell of those Pier One ginger peach honeys, especially after my oven has smoked up my house. And then there are the 309 varieties of tea I have because everyone knows I love tea and people keep giving it to me in all its iterations. Not buying any more until what I have is all gone.

Some people hoard food. I used to but I’m over it. Some people hoard clothes and then wear the 5 outfits they’re really comfortable in over and over and over. Some people hoard their memories. They have boxes and boxes of cards, letters and photos that they simply cannot part with because each holds such meaning. Some hoard stationary, wrapping paper and cards. Some hoard ornaments. Some people even buy space to hoard their stuff; witness the growth in the storage industry.

If you’ve ever been in the home of a scrapbooker you know those folks are the Queens of Hoarding. They often have more supplies, stamps and accoutrements than they could ever hope to use. It isn’t just about the scrapbook they’re making this week. They shop for all the scrapbooks they’ll ever make in their whole lives.

I was talking to my cousin the other night and we got on the topic of knitting. I’ve taken it up and am enjoying it thoroughly. A wonderful woman named Colleen sent me her mother’s knitting needles and I just buy enough wool to complete whatever project I’m working on. Vansie has fallen in love with wool and has four drawers full. So she gave up buying wool for Lent. She was so passionate when she talked about wool and knitting magazines and patterns that I think she’ll be clearing out another drawer to make room for more wool as soon as God gives her a pass.

So it’s ‘fess up time. What do you like to hoard? And if there’s something you’re working on getting rid of, paring down, minimizing, what’s your strategy and how’s it working for you?

1. Playing the Keeping-Up Game  I saw a funny cartoon the other day. A man and a woman were gardening. She looked over her shoulder to the neighbour pulling into the driveway and said, “Damn, we were almost out of debt and The Wilson’s had to go buy a new car!” Comparing yourself to your friends, family, co-workers, or neighbours is a bad habit that can get you in trouble financially. If you’re always trying to keep up – damn the costs – then you’ll be willing to use credit to acquire what you need to stay ahead of the pack. And trying to keep up with other people’s lifestyles is a game that will suck you dry financially.

Ever seen too boys bragging about their latest electronic acquisition? Have you watched girls ooh and ahh over a spiffy new pair of shoes? It’s nice to enjoy a new purchase. But if you’re always buying to impress, or running into debt to keep up, then it’s time to take stock of why.

2. Not Saving  With I’ve-got-to-have-it-now the prevelant attitude, it’s no wonder people can’t find the money to save. But if you’re not saving, you’re just begging for trouble. Savings come in two basic flavours:

• there’s long term savings which will mean you won’t have to eat Alpo when you finally hang up your chainsaw (this is what I’m talking about when I talk about “saving”), and
• there’s saving for emergencies, the things you want to buy, and medium term goals like sending your kids to college, which I call “planned spending.”

While it may be hard for you to imagine that you’ll ever retire… and maybe you won’t… having some money accumulating so that you don’t have to haul your sorry butt to Timmy’s to do the evening shift when you’re 76 years old might be a good idea. Just imagine your grandmother or your great-grandfather wobbling off to work in the morning and you’ll see why having some money at hand for when you may no longer want to work is a good idea. How much will you need? Hey, if you aren’t saving anything now, that question is just a distraction. Get busy saving $50, $100, $200 a month and when you’re up to the RRSP limit, lemme know.

3. Following the Crowd  Whether we’re talking about investing in the stock market, buying real estate to flip, or jumping on the latest big idea to make money, people tend to get caught up in whatever is being hyped.  Take the investment world as an example. When news is good, they jump into the market.  When market news is bad, they bail.  Hey, that sounds a lot like buying high and selling low, the antithesis of a good investment plan.

If you don’t understand an investment, you shouldn’t be buying it. If you don’t know your investment time horizon, you need to figure it out. If you don’t understand your own investment risk tolerance, you’re going to end up a sad investor. Doing what everyone else is doing isn’t the way to financial nirvana. And if you’ve gotten into the habit of following the crowd, it’s time to think for yourself. Need help. Get an advisor who is knowledgeable and understands what you want to achieve. Then, as that advisor helps you make your decisions, learn, learn, learn.

4. Carrying a Balance on Your Credit Card  Some people find it very convenient to use a credit card for all their purchases.  I’m one of ‘em. But if you don’t pay your balance off in full every month, interest and fees mean you’ll wind up paying substantially more by using plastic over cash.  And since research has shown that it is psychologically easier to whip out a card to buy stuff than it is to use hard-earned cash, if you have any problem with the Impulse Monkey credit cards aren’t for you. If you already have a balance on a card, freeze the card so you can’t keep using it, and work your buns off to pay down the balance as fast as possible.

5. Over-compensating with Gifts  Do you go overboard at Christmas? Do you see every birthday as a great excuse to go shopping for the biggest and the best? Do you have to throw the most lavish parties? Hey, if you’ve got the money to spare and you love sharing, you go for it. But if you’re digging yourself into debt, what are you trying to prove and to whom are you trying to prove it? Money can’t buy love, so if you’re trying to compensate for being a dick, it won’t work. And money is no substitute for time, so if you’re trying to compensate for never being around, that won’t work either. The gifts you give should be a thoughtful reflection of what you know about the person to whom you are giving. I know there are people who like to gift things they themselves would like to receive, but that’s about YOU not about the person you’re giving to. And the gift doesn’t have to cost a lot of money – or any money in fact – to be seen as “valuable” by the recipient. It just has to be something that person would love to receive.

6.  Letting Yourself Be Talked into Stuff  Does your girlfriend, brother, granddaughter, husband, mother have you wrapped around their little fingers? If you allow yourself to be talked into doing things (or spending money) you inevitably regret, it’s time to grow some stones and take a stand. Ditto being sold something by a pushy salesman, being pressured to do something by your boss, or being cajoled by your children. Any kind of pressure should be a red flag to you that something isn’t right.  Walk away when you feel pressure so you have some time to think about it.  Legitimate requests can almost always stand the test of “time to think.” Sadly, people get into the habit of acquiescing to requests. “We need you to coach this year.” “I’m counting on you to take me to my appointments.” “I know you’ll see that working overtime is the only way we’re going to get done on time.” Hey, if it’s in your best interest to do a thing, then do it. And if you really want to do a thing, then do it. But if you’re just rolling over because you’re an easy touch, this is a habit you need to break. This is doubly true if what you’re being talked into is putting you or your family at financial risk.

7.  Refusing to Live on a Budget If you’ve always just spent your money in response to whatever bills have come in, or whatever shopping you feel like doing, then you’ve formed the habit of NOT managing your money. It’s just slipping through your fingers and you’re never going to know where it’s going. While lotsnlotsa people say they hate the whole idea of budgeting because they feel like budgets are restrictive, they’re just determined never to be accountable for what they are spending. A budget is a plan. It is your thought-out and carefully considered desire to spend your money in a particular way. It is a written indication of your priorities. Refusing to budget is tantamount to refusing to have a plan. Hey, that’s a pretty bad habit – the “no plan” habit. And it likely means you’ll never get a handle on your finances because you have no foundation from which to build. Sure, there are times when you may make enough money that you can survive without a plan. But you will never thrive without a plan.

Holding tight to these seven bad habits virtually guarantees that where you are today is better than where you’ll be down the road. Time will tell.

With all the writing I’ve been doing for Never Too Late, I fell behind on the Polls. But I love getting your feedback so I’m pulling up my socks! A new poll is up on the Blog Home Page. Go vote!

People continue to write to me describing cash flow problems and how they are agonizing over their credit card statements. They can’t keep up with an avalanche of bills, but it doesn’t seem to stop them from spending.

Getting people to make a budget to see where they want their money to go can be a two-edged sword. People are exhilarated by the experience, relieved to finally be doing something to get control of their money. At the same time they are terrified of the deprivation they think they will have to face.

It sometimes tough to remain neutral while folks explain why they can’t give up their pedis, hair cuts and massages, or why they really must take that $4200 vacation this year despite the thousands in debt they are carrying. Sometimes I can’t and words like, “dope”, “delusional” and “nuts” pop out of my mouth.

Lately, I am inundated with more and more letters describing cash-flow-challenged folks. With the economy in the dumper, refinancing is no longer an option as credit dries up. Home equity lines of credit are decreasing or disappearing altogether. Credit card companies are lowering limits. And everyone is raising interest rates.

People are watching as their pay and/or hours are cut. Small biz owners, commissioned salespeople, free-lancers and the self-employed are lamenting incomes that have been slashed. With people losing jobs, two incomes are now one and there are no replacement jobs in sight. It’s not a pretty picture.

The long and short of it is that people have to learn to live within their means. For many, this is the first time they’ve had to watch what they’re spending. And many are finding it tough to cut back.

For a long time I’ve been trying to deliver the message that money is a finite resource. Easy credit made it easy to ignore this truth. But now the story is coming home and people are desperate. While the bad news won’t last forever, this is a terrific opportunity to really tap into what makes us most happy (not the stuff we’ve been buying).

Living within our means doesn’t mean that we have to cut out all the things we love to do. Here are some things you can quit to create a sustainable lifestyle:

Quit spending money on things you can do yourself:  manicures, pedicures, hair colouring, gym workouts. If you must have your hair professionally treated, cut back on the frequency, going every eight weeks instead of every six.

Quit spending money on things you can borrow or trade. Have a movie-swap night with your friends, borrow books and magazines from the library, find ways to use what you have to get what you want without spending any money.

Quit visiting your favorite stores. Every time you go in you enter The Temptation Zone. Don’t want to spend money? Don’t go to places that ask you to take out your wallet. And while you’re at it, delete those shopping sites from your computer and toss out the catalogues unopened.

Quit paying for subscriptions you aren’t using: newspapers, magazines, video rentals, gym memberships, anything online.

Quit eating out. You can eat really well at home for a fraction of the cost. Yes it takes some planning and a little more time. But the money you’ll save with stun you. Ditto buying your lunch at work.

Quit upgrading. The longer you can hold onto things, the less money you’ll have to part with. Just because new technology is available doesn’t mean you have to upgrade from your DVD, computer, appliances, TVs or cell phone.

Quit buying luxury. You can still enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, just switch from $45-bottles to a good $10 bottle. Ditto the restaurants you celebrate in, the perfume you wear and the shoes you buy. It’s downright ludicrous during tough times to waste money on frivolous spending when you really need to be debt free and have a solid emergency fund.

Quit thinking a vacation is your due for working hard. That’s why they paid you. A vacation is what you get when you’ve saved up the money to pay for it. Need some time off? Take it. Enjoy your rest by going on a staycation.

It’s Only has become the justification for just about everything. It’s only ten bucks. It’s only for a few months. It’s only one cookie! How many times have you blown your budget because you fell into the It’s Only Trap? This is one of the biggest holes in most people’s budgets: the small spending that adds up big-time. Hey Gail, now you’re nickel and diming! Darn tootin’ if those nickels and dimes are leading to big bucks on the debt side.

Routinely when I show people how much they’re spending at the drug store, the discount department store, the toy store, the hair-cutting store, the dress store, the bath and bed store, the off-price name-brand store, the health-food store…they look at me and nod. Yes, they did spend that. But $30 here and $25 there isn’t so bad.

Add it up.

Go back over you last bank and credit card statements for the last two months and add up what you spent on all the It’s Onlys. I dare you. Isn’t it amazing how those impulse purchases, those I-see-it-I-want-it transactions, wiggle their way into bank and credit card accounts? Unconscious shopping and It’s Only have a way of eroding whatever progress you may have been making with your budget. While it’s cool to have fun, if you’re not careful, one dollar becomes five, becomes ten, becomes twenty, and in no time at all those It’s Only is really taking a bite out of your planned spending.

There are lots of ways to get bitten. Take a partner who loves to shop, and you’ll need a shark-cage to defend your wallet. “But hon, you’ve been telling me you want a new outfit and this is only…” or “We talked about getting new cutlery, and it’s only…”  Head into the store that is your major weakness, and watch the It’s Only grab you. Take kids shopping with you, and you’ll feel them nibbling on your wallet. A bottle of juice here… “Mom, I’m thirsty!”… a toy or treat there… “Dad, these tattoos are so cool, it’s only $2, can I Dad? Can I? Can I?”

Sometimes offering a substitute will work to fend of the It’s Onlys.

• Yup, honey, I know you’re thirsty and that’s why your very smart mommy packed you a juice box.
• Okay sweetie, I know you want that pack of new toy cars, but you already have 276 toy cars at home. Let’s go get ‘em and take ‘em over to Jakes so you can play cars together.
• I know you’ve been dying to read that, so let’s stop at the library on the way home and reserve it for next week.

Doing the math also helps to take the bite out of the It’s Onlys. Five dollars a day for one year is $1,825, which would make a pretty decent educational savings plan contribution dontcha think?

There’s nothing wrong with buying treats and having fun. But it’s important that the habit of responding to It’s Only doesn’t become the hole in your plan. If you want to be impulsive from time to time, alot a certain amount in your budget for Mad Money, and carry that cash with you in a separate part of your wallet or handbag. When the money’s gone, you’re done being impulsive for the week.

I have to admit I’m of two minds on the whole issue of adult kids moving home. Termed “Boomerang kids” by the media and these are adult children who have left home only to return to the nest. Whether the cold hard reality of life on their own was too much to take, or they’ve suffered a significant set-back like unemployment, divorce or some other relationship malady, kids are coming home in record numbers. Some stats hold that the Kids-Moving-Back-Home phenomenon has doubled in the last half-century. And according to the National Survey of Households and Families in the U.S., 10% of all children over the age of 25 live with their parents.

Yup, I’m of two minds:

On the one hand, I think it’s terrific that parents are willing and able to help their children, particularly if the set-back those kids are facing is a result of crap happening. Who could foresee that your daughter’s lovely fiancé would turn into a drinking, gambling fool who couldn’t hold a job? Or that the lovely girl your boy brought home from college can’t keep her hand out of his wallet? If divorce happens, and you can help ease the burden by offering a roof and some emotional support, good for you as parents. Ditto kids who find themselves unexpectedly out of work, or dealing with an illness no one could have foreseen.

On the other hand, I think it’s downright dumb the way some parents let their kids move home, do little or nothing to pull their own weight, pay no rent, and still live high off the hog. There are adults living in their parents’ home who think it’s perfectly fine to eat out four nights out of seven, who don’t lift a finger to do anything to help out around the house, and who won’t cough up a penny to help with the costs of living. There are adults living in their parents’ home who get pregnant when they don’t have the money to put a roof over their own heads. There are adults living in their parents’ home who have no plan for how to get the hell out.

I received a letter from a young lady recently bemoaning the fact that she and her husband are still living in her parents’ basement. After moving home with him because she got pregnant and they didn’t yet have their crap together, they proceeded to have four children! Now she wants to know what she should do? Gosh, if you can’t take care of yourself, why would you think it’s okay to have four kids? What ever happened to “grow up” first?

If you have adult children who are planning to move back, you’ll do them no favours if you let them live the life of a teenager: sleeping late, taking no responsibility for themselves, and expecting everything to be done for them. While this is barely acceptable from a kid, it is totally unacceptable from an adult.

I don’t care how much you love your son or daughter. Adults do not have the right to mooch off their parents because the alternative is hard. If your kids have chosen to stay in school for a decade, why do they get to have all the benefits of your (hard working) life while they are students? And if they’re old enough to bring another life into the world, they’re old enough to put a roof over their own heads, and food in that baby’s belly. Enough with the coddling.

That’s not to say that you should turn your children away with a cold shoulder. But if you’re going to let a young adult move home, then you should at least have some rules about what’s what.

Make sure you have an end game in mind.  How long will they live with you? What’s their move-out date? Failing that, when will you sit down again to assess how they’re doing and set the move-out date? Establish a time line up front so your adult children don’t get the idea this is a permanent arrangement. Your kids shouldn’t have to worry about being kicked out on a whim. Nor should they get so comfortable that life at “home” becomes the status quo.

Talk about the money. If your kids are trying to save the downpayment on a home, have them pay you “rent” that not only covers the increased costs of having them under your roof, but sets aside the amount for the downpayment every month. Ditto kids who are paying off debt; make sure the money is going where it’s supposed to go. Unless your child has absolutely no income, they must accept responsibility for some of the household expenses.  And for those who have very limited incomes or who are busting their butts to get debt paid off, exchange what you have to offer for their skills as garbage collectors, cooks, cleaners, laundresses, snow-shovellers, drivers, and whatever else they can do to make your life easier.

One way or another, your adult children need to pay their way to keep their self-respect and not turn back into your “babies.” Let them off the hook on rent and other financial responsibilities – let them spend their income any ol’ way they want – and you’ll be teaching them to live on a disposable income they’ll never again have.  And let them live at home with no expectations for when they’ll leave and they won’t. Why would they? They’ve got it good and they know it.

 Back to the young lady who wrote me…

Sweetie, if you want to have a life, you’ve got to be prepared to pay for it. Life doesn’t come cheap. And it doesn’t come easy. Independence is a sign of maturity. If you’ve finally reached the point where you’ve recognized the importance of becoming independent, then you’ll do WHATEVER IT TAKES to make it so. Thank your parents and get the hell out of their basement!

Everyone knows that if there’s a magazine you love to buy, it makes more sense to get a subscription than to pay the one-of cost every time you hit the check-out. You can save, on average, about 33% by going with a subscription. That’s three issues in ten for “free” when you subscribe. But here’s my big question: Do you read every issue?

I’ve been buying Scientific American Mind, and a couple of other science mags, for a couple of years now. But I don’t buy every issue… just the ones I actually want to read. And I find I’m breaking even or better. How many people get subscriptions to magazines, and renew automatically, just because they always have? The magazines pile up and every time you look at the stack you feel guilty for not getting to them.

The same idea applies to the cable packages you subscribe to. Because  of my move, I’ve rejigged my satellite TV package to be more in keeping with what I watch (as opposed to what my ex and his mother used to watch.) But I’m also putting a date in my calendar… April 1… at which point I’m going to reassess how much benefit I got for the money I spent. It’ll go something like this:

If I spend $70 a month on my satellite service, and I end up watching 28 hours of TV, it will have cost me $2.50 an hour. (I also listen to my favorite radio station — all 70’s all the time — via my satellite, so I’ll have to calculate that in too.) If the kids also watch 28 hours between them, my cost per hour drops to $1.25. Am I then prepared to spend $1.25 an hour for that entertainment?

Lots of people subscribe to things that don’t give them the pleasure or payback they expected, but they keep on keeping on because the change takes effort. Think of all those Classmates subscriptions that auto-renew to a credit card automatically for $9.99 a year because you can never remember to cancel them until you see the next charge go through. Or the auto-ship face cream. Or the book-of-the-month membership.

Ditto those movie discs that arrive automatically that you never have time to watch, or the satellite radio with a million choices that go un-listened-to, and that gym membership that you just won’t cancel because you know you SHOULD being going… and you will… one day. In the mean time you keep paying as if no other gym would ever have you. Hmmm.

One of the dangers of subscriptions is that the individual monthly bill is extremely affordable. That can lull you into subscribing to lots of services over time, which quickly add up to something Really Significant. If you used to play WoW online and still have your subscription, but never play, maybe it’s time to cancel.

There are lots of ways to make subscriptions you like less expensive. Negotiate hard. Threaten to switch your service. Buy at a cheaper site… you can get magazine subscriptions at a discount at some sites. And buy in bulk.

I have a subscription to Audible.com, which is where I get the books I listen to on my Ip-Od when I’m driving all over Hell’s Half-acre for work. Because I buy a two-year subscription at once, I end up paying just $10 per book download… and since I listen to unabridged looooong books, I know I’m getting my money’s worth. That ten bucks can buy me 20 hours of listening pleasure – that’s 50¢ an hour. Worth every penny.

CASE STUDY:

I know how y’all love a good case study so here’s one to sink your teeth into:

Trish is a newly separated single mother with three small kids. She wants to be able to save some money for herself and the kids but never seem to have anything left after all the bills are paid. Her net income is currently $4000.00 a month and she pays:

• Mortgage: 500/every 2 weeks
  
• RRSP/RESP: 250.00/month
  
• Taxes: 187.00/month (she’s responsible for the taxes on her child-support payments),
  
• House, life & auto insurance: 650.00/month.
  
• Trish owes $4200.00 on a credit card and $5000.00 on a PLC.
  

She and the kids currently live in a very small community where housing is cheap but are moving back to The Very Expensive Big City at the end of June and she wants to be able to buy a house. While she won’t be getting as much from her ex, Trish plans to go back to work after the move.

What advice do you have for Trish?

GAIL CLUB NEWS: The Gail Club boards are getting lots of play. I’m glad you’re able to connect, share ideas, and use each other’s expertise. You might want to pop in and have a look at what people are talking about to see if there’s anything useful for your club. Keep in mind that when you’re first starting up a group you may have to recruit from among friends and family to get some momentum going… tell everyone what you’re doing and start spreading the word that Financially Smart is the new Black! With all the crap in the news about the economy, those of you who are getting your stuff together are on the leading edge of The New Reality.

“People, you’re in denial. You can justify spending money like a pro. And you refuse to accept that you’re spending more money than you make.”

There’s something you’re not surprised to hear come out of my mouth, right? But how often can a girl say the same thing without starting to sound like a broken record? And yet, even though season six of Til Debt Do Us Part is airing this Friday night, I’m still getting loads of questions from people who just don’t have a clue about how much they are spending. Sometimes they don’t even know how much they’re making. Really? You can’t see the money going in and out of your account? 

Denial doesn’t just assert itself because people don’t make enough money and don’t want to admit it. (Hey, you know my cure for that right?) It doesn’t seem to matter how much people make, they manage to spend it all… and more. Even while they know they’re slipping further and further into debt, they won’t look at the details.  They are always paying late fees, chronically short of cash, and bouncing cheques like basketballs. Yet they refuse to get out the paperwork, do the math and figure out where the holes are.

Even people with only a small amount of debt are in denial if they are spending everything they’re bringing in because they are “denying” the potential disaster that’s just around the corner. Just one small slip, one tiny emergency, and their just-in-time system unravels and they fall behind.

Then there are the people who refuse to file their tax returns because they think they owe money but would rather deny their obligation to pay than just pay up and be done with it. People, the tax man can go into your bank account and take his money… leaving you short for your mortgage or rent payment. Yup, he can do it! And he does. So if he hasn’t gotten to you yet, consider yourself lucky that you have the time to fix what’s broke.

There are the folks who find themselves financially stuck, unable to reduce your debt because they’re only making their minimum payments. Whazzup with that? Are you so committed to spending money on crap that you’re willing to pay double (when you add in the interest) and carry the debt for a decade?

There are the people who having paid off a horribly high balance, rush out and run their card right back up to the limit taking a vacation, shopping, doing whatever they’ve not been doing while they paid down their debt because they’ve “earned” it. How much of a masochist are you?

If you find yourself behaving in ways you know you shouldn’t – buying another outfit when you’ve said paying off your line of credit is the most important thing, or eating out when you promised yourself you’d cook at home, then you’re in denial. If you can’t resist spending money even when you know that means you’re going home to juggle bills, you’re in denial. If you haven’t told your family and friends that you’re in hock up to your eyeballs so you can pretend everything is “fine, just fine”, you’re in denial.

And if you hear yourself saying things like:

• Everyone else is doing it
• I work hard, so I deserve it
• I don’t care. I’ll figure it out later

you are definitely in denial.

Tired of living with the spectre of disaster looming? You have to find someone to talk to about whatever it is you’re in denial about. Talking about it is the only thing that will help dissolved the denial. That’s one of the things I do for the couples I work with: I open up the cupboards of their financial lives and air them out. We talk about why they’re acting like dopes, and what they actually want to achieve. Then we make a plan.

So, what are you in denial about? And who are you going to fess up to, so you can get the Denial Monkey off your back?

Hey, I’m listening.

People can justify spending gobs of money on just about anything. I’ve seen people in deep debt turn themselves inside out to explain why the thing I’m telling them to sell or not buy is sooooooo important.

There’s the new electronic toy that they’ve just bought or are planning to buy on a Buy-now-pay-later program. They say things like, “I have six months to pay it off before there’s any interest. We’ll have it paid off by then.”?? Wanna bet?

If you think you have the discipline to do this, then why didn’t you simply set aside the money you’ll be making in payments until you’d saved enough to pay cash? Because you DIDN’T have the discipline to do it. And when that bill finally does come due, the interest rate will be RETROACTIVE to the date you took that big screen TV with surround sound home, and your interest rate will be about 36%, so you’ll end up spending TWICE what you thought you had.

Here’s another whine that’s like nails on a chalkboard for me: “But it’s my wedding! I dreamed about it forever. It has to be fabulous!”?Really? You owe $30K in student loans and another $15K on your car, never mind the $8 on your line of credit, and you’re going to run up another $35,000 in debt for a party?

If your wedding day is so all-fired important to you, and you want to pretend to be a prince or princess for a day, then why haven’t you saved the money to make it so? I have no problem with how people spend their money, as long as it’s THEIR money they are spending, and not credit. You want to blow $50,000 on a wedding, then have $50,000 in the bank. It’s that simple. But to go into debt for a wedding is just about the stupidest thing I can think of. (Ditto to the parents out there who take on this kind of debt so their little angel can have her dream wedding.)

I’ve heard cars and trucks justified as “safer for the kids.” I’ve heard vacations justified because “we work so hard.”  I’ve heard new furniture justified as “an investment.” All the while, the debt keeps growing.

Buying bigger houses than we need is another example of how we can justify spending money beyond our means. We listen to the “experts” who support our desires – they guys who reassure us that the appreciation over time will more than warrant the cost – and then we plunge right in. After all, how can bigger not be better?

We spend on gifts we are giving others that we can’t afford because we don’t want people to think us cheap. We spend money we don’t have so that other people won’t know we don’t have the money. We spend money because we feel guilty and are using stuff to replace the time we should be giving to our friends and family.

And sometimes we spend money because we are laaaazzeee! Instead of doing the research, looking for the deal and spending the least amount necessary, we just buy what’s at hand because it’s convenient, damn the cost.

Having become a society of consumers, we can justify just about anything we want to put on credit. There’s always a “good” reason to spend.

Here’s a quote from Your Money or Your Life:

“…money has become the movie screen on which our lives play out.  We project onto money the capacity to fulfill our fantasies, allay our fears, soothe our pain, and send us soaring to the heights.  In fact, we moderns meet most of our needs, wants, and desires through money.  We buy everything from hope to happiness.  We no longer live life.  We consume it.”

Now it’s your turn. What have you seen people go into debt for that made you shake your head?  And what’s the dumbest thing you ever put on credit?

I’m always amazed at the amount of money people let slip through their fingers every month. Let’s take the $1.50 many people pay to take money out of a bank machine that isn’t theirs. They do this four or five times a week, which works out to about $390 a year. Over thirty years of banking (from age 20 to age 50) that’s almost $12,000 totally wasted.

Bankrate.com estimates that Americans will pay more than $4.3 billion in ATM fees for withdrawing money in a way that most people justify as “more convenient.” $4.3 billion for convenience? You’re kidding me, right?

How about that cuppa cawfee every morning at $2.50 a pop? That’s $650 a year (assuming you only have one cup and work a five-day week) or almost $20,000 from age 20 to age 50.

The Specialty Coffee Association of America, which watches consumer spending of high quality coffee says that Americans spent about $8 billion in 2001. By 2006, that number had jumped to $12 billion. TWELVE BILLION DOLLARS! On coffee? Wow!

Hey, don’t tell me you don’t know where you’re money is going? It’s going up in smoke, down the Ivory Throne, or out the window.

Once upon a time there was an old saying: Take care of the pennies and the dollars will look after themselves. It’s time to start focusing on the pennies once again.

I know it’s easy to say, “It’s a cuppa cawfee, goshdarnit… just $2.50. It’s a small pleasure.” And it is. But if you’re doing it unconsciously and you’re going into debt at the same time, it’s still a stupid waste of money.

Many people are totally unaware of what is happening in their own accounts… where their money is going, what their “small indulgences” are, how much money they are spending unconsciously. Most people hardly pay attention to their bank statements, let alone balancing their cheque books to see just how quickly those small costs add up.

Worse still, there are the people who are so far in denial that they refuse to look at the balance in their bank account before they go off to waste some more money. The result, they go into overdraft, bounce cheques, and rack up fees. I’ve just finished working up a family where they were spending over $300 a month on bank fees (because of so many NSFs), which over a thirty-year time frame would amount to $108,000!

But surely people wouldn’t be dumb enough to do that every month, Gail. I mean you’re exaggerating to make your point, aren’t you?

Am I?

People like to point out that the folks on my show are the extreme cases. Really? So you only go to the bank machine twice a month?  Every time you spend money you write it down or keep the receipt so that you can update your budget? All your bills are paid in full, on time, every month? You’ve got your wills and powers of attorney in place? You’ve got disability insurance? You’re saving for your children’s education, your own retirement, and to have some money just in case? You don’t spend money without thinking about it? And you’re content, feel safe, aren’t worried about when it’s all going to catch up with you?

Maybe you have got it down just right. Good for you. But if you haven’t yet mastered the art of conscious spending it’s time to fess up, at least to yourself.

So how do waste money, and how much are you really wasting?

Pick something you do “religiously”, without thinking about it, unconsciously, and figure out what the long-term cost of your “small indulgence” is. Whether you’re a bottle-of-wine a week (or night) girl, a magazine-at-the-checkout chick, or a doodad-at-the-automotive-store dude, add it up. Yup, actually add it up. Multiply it by 52 if you do it weekly, 250 if you do it every work day, or 365 if you do it daily. (Check out what it costs for a small spend like a newspaper done daily over 30 years and you’ll see what I mean.) Once you figure out what you’re spending in a year, multiply it by 30 to see what it’s costing you long-term.

The point isn’t to eliminate every small pleasure from your life. The point is to choose those pleasures consciously and, therefore, consciously enjoy them. If every sip of that beer brings you pleasure, and you can afford it, you’re doing fine. But if it’s your third bottle and you can’t remember the other two, well, kiddo, you got some Consciousness Raising to do.

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People are always asking me about what they should be spending in various areas of their budget. I don’t like giving specific answers because there are so many variables: where you live, your priorities, your income.

Speaking of which, I know I’ve said this before but I’m going to shout it this time: YOUR GROSS INCOME IS NOT YOUR IINCOME. Your gross income is yours and the government’s income. If you want a budget that works, you have to work with your NET income.

If you gross $60,000 a year – the average Canadian FAMILY earned just over $66,000 in 2007 — you don’t have $5,000 a month to spend because:

• If you live in B.C. you have to give $12,455 to the government
• If you live in Alberta you have to give $13,491 to the government
• If you live in Saskatchewan you have to give $15,141 to the government
• If you live in Manitoba you have to give $15,317 to the government
• If you live in Ontario you have to give $12,957 to the government
• If you live in Quebec you have to give $16,518 to the government
• If you live in New Brunswick you have to give $15,679 to the government
• If you live in Nova Scotia you have to give $15,590 to the government
• If you live in P.E.I. you have to give $15,353 to the government
• If you live in Newfoundland you have to give $15,189 to the government
• If you live in N.W.T. you have to give $12,568 to the government
• If you live in the Yukon you have to give $13,240 to the government
• If you live in Nunavut you have to give $11,717 to the government.

(BTW: According to the book Tax Facts 15, income taxes account for only 34.7% of the taxes the average Canadian family paid in 2007. Ouch!

Okay, let’s take Manitoba as our example. Instead of $5,000 a month, AFTER TAXES your NET income – would be $3,723.58.  Hey, wait a minute. That’s not your TAKE HOME PAY. If you have deductions your TAKE HOME PAY WOULD BE LESS. You might have to pay employment insurance, CPP/QPP, or other deductions. And if you get company benefits – health benefits, for example – that are taxable, they’re going to take even more tax off your cheque.

Let’s face it, if you earn $60,000, you can’t just divide by 12 and think that’s your income. And if you’re basing your budget – and more importantly, your thinking – on your GROSS income, it’s no wonder you’re going deeper and deeper into debt each year.

So, if you make $60,000 a year and bring home $3,600 a month after deductions, how much should you spend on housing. According to the Gail Pie – and this is only a guide, people, it’s not written in stone – you should spend no more than 35% of your income on rent/mortgage payments, taxes/condo fees, heat, electricity and maintenance. That tops you out at about $1,260 a month.

Does $1,260 seem like a lot or a little to you? With rents and house prices eating a larger and larger portion of our income, we’re becoming numb to the impact on our ability to spend, which ultimately pushes us to use our credit.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the average house price in June this year in Canada was $341,100.

Assuming you put down just 5% as a down payment and amortized for 25 years at 5.5% your monthly mortgage payment would be $1977.94. So you couldn’t afford the average house. Let’s say you got into the market a while ago, and had a $200,000 mortgage, your monthly payment would be $1220.78, which would leave a whopping $40 to cover your taxes, heat, electricity and maintenance. Hmmmm.

But wait, Gail, you said that the percentage wasn’t written in stone.

It’s not. If you can find a way to get to work without spending 15% of your budget on transportation – which would be $540 a month – you could lump the rest into your housing budget. Or if you had no debt, you could lump that 15% into your housing budget, or your transportation budget, or your LIFE budget.

Most of us aren’t don’t or can’t hoof it to work every day, so we have a car and with it a car payment, insurance, maintenance and fuel costs. According to the Stats Man, the average Canadian household spent $9240 a year – or $770 a month – on transportation. But this was back in 2006 (the last year for which he has numbers) before gas was over a buck a litre, so we’re spending a tad more now, me’thinks.

It’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet, while having at least some of the things we WANT.  There’s a better TV, a better cell phone, a better digital camera. How about a holiday down south, or a trip to Europe, or a boondoggle to Vegas? And since the styles of clothes, shoes, handbags keep changing, we have to buy at least a couple of new things each season just to stay current, especially if we have a visible job. And those darned kids just keep growing! Never mind what we have to put out for skating lessons, piano lessons, hockey equipment… the list is endless.

Retailers know how to help us part with our money. But they’re always looking for new ways. According to a Cornell University team, if restaurants use a numerical price format without the accompanying “$” symbol, diners spend more on a meal. I guess without the dollar sign there as a reminder that we’re spending MONEY, we forget. Really?

Okay, so you’re not as rich as you think. Your housing costs are eating a bigger part of your budget. Transportation costs are soaring. Demands on our pockets keep growing and retailers are coming up with new and improved ways of parting us from our hard earned moolah. What’s a person to do

Back to basics boys and girls:

Make a budget. You’ve got to WRITE IT DOWN. And I don’t mean in a notebook, or on a post-it note. I mean on a BUDGET WORKSHEET.  Start by looking at your June bank statement and using only the income you put in the bank. Never mind that some months you earn commission, or your partner does an extra job and brings home a little more, or your deductions fall because you’re close to the end of the year and you’re all paid up. If you have a fluctuating income, then you’ll have to build a two-tiered budget: one for the basics when the well is dry, and one for the extras when the money is flowing.

Get rid of your debt. If you have no debt, you have more money to do the things you want to with your family. If you have debt, get it paid off. It doesn’t matter what you have to give up or how much harder you have to work, GET OUT OF DEBT.  Once you’ve figured out your budget, if the amount allocated to debt repayment means it’ll take more than three years to be debt free, you MUST find a way to increase your debt repayment amounts.

Dump the expenses that you think you HAVE to have, but aren’t related to keeping body and soul together. Once upon a time there were no cell phones and we didn’t die. Once upon a time there was no cable and we didn’t die. Prepared meals didn’t exist.  Coffee was something we brewed at home. Eating out was for special occasions. Nails were something we grew and food never had the word “junk” in front of it.

Now we spend money on energy drinks, buy sixty-two versions of cleaning products (whatever happened to a mop and bucket?) and wouldn’t dream of NOT buying our lottery tickets because if our numbers came up we’d be mad as heck! We throw huge weddings, going thousands into debt for ONE NIGHT of fun and frolic. We throw ridiculous birthday parties for our kids, inviting whole classes so no one will be offended. We spend buckets of money to try and not look old, lose weight, be healthy. (It’s not fooling anyone but you. Sorry.) And we believe that if the deal is good enough, it justifies spending money we haven’t yet earned.

If you want a life that’s not riddled with stress, you’ve got to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. It doesn’t mean throwing wads at the wall and hoping something sticks. If you don’t have a written budget that you’re following like the gospel, then you’re a Wad Thrower and you’re doomed. ‘Course you won’t have to wait to die to go to hell; you’re there now!

A lot of the people who watch my show are not in debt. They watch because they find the stories so compelling. But over and over I’m asked, “How can people get themselves into such a mess?” I’m less aghast. I know falling into the debt hole isn’t as hard as it looks.

First there are the people who’ve had a significant change in their life, but haven’t come to terms with the financial implications. Whether it’s through divorce, the loss of a job, sickness or death, changes in our lives don’t necessarily translate into changes in how we manage our money. So later, when we suddenly realize what we’re doing isn’t working, we’re stunned at the mess we’ve made and at a total loss as to what to do about it.

There are also some psychological factors that play into our Dance with Debt. At a website called The Frontal Cortex there’s an interesting article on how the subprime crisis happened. It boils down to the fact that we’re wired to be more responsive to short-term gains than long-term risks. It’s the old, “bird in the hand” principal. Johan Lehrer says, “Our feelings are thrilled by the prospect of a new home, but can’t really grapple with the long-term fiscal consequences of the decision. Our impulsivity encounters little resistance, and so we sign on the bottom line. We want the house. We’ll figure out how to pay for it later.” Whether we’re talking about subprime mortgage or zero-down home-ownership or whipping out our credit cards so we can go on holiday, the same principals apply. The reward now is more powerful than the potential cost in the future.

There are also a fair number of people who feel entitled. “I work hard, I deserve a vacation.” If I had a dollar for every time someone has said this to me, I could cruise around the world…twice. People believe that just because they want something they have a right to it, regardless of whether they can afford it. That’s how Buy Now Pay Later became such a hit. “I want it. I have to have it. If I can’t pay for it, I’ll just find a way to get it without paying for it.” Then when the bill comes due at a whopping thirty-something percent, people whine about how rapacious the rates are.

And then there are the people who are Delusionally Wealthy. They have a big screen TV, a late model car, computers, the latest cell phone (which, like dopes, they lined up for when they could have been working)… the list goes on. Instead of measuring ourselves by the amount of money we have accumulated (which is what wealth is), we use stuff, things, crap to create the delusion of wealth.

The brother-in-law to Delusionally Wealthy is Capriciously Credit-worthy. These are the people who measure their success in life by how much credit they’ve been granted. I’ve met people who brag about how much borrowing power they have. I remember when we used to braq about how much we had saved. Not anymore. Now it’s all about how deep in the hole we can go. Wow!

And then there’s Hubris, or the belief that god-like we will always be able to magically escape whatever mess we’ve made. There’s nothing magic about money or economics or the process of debt repayment. The belief that we’ll never have to pay the piper, that we’re above the rules, is what gets us into a mess and then keeps us there.

Sadly, even in today’s very difficult economic times (will it get worse?), there are people who cannot smell the coffee burning. For them, and those who love them, the caca is still to hit the fan, and there will be hell to pay and pay and pay. 

In my humble (yah!) opinion, The I-Work-Hard-So-I-Deserve-It Gremlin is, perhaps, the hardest to combat. Having slaved away in the mines all day, we feel entitled to a pint with the boys, that new pair of shoes, or dinner out. We need a glass of wine to relax. We need a vacation. We need a new car.

Nothing brings this home faster than when I see people lined up to exchange their money for the latest techno-gadget. I can’t believe that people are so rabid to spend their money that they’ll get in a loooooong line, get rained or snowed on, sleep on the sidewalk just the be able to say they had it first. (Really? First?

Many of the couples I work with demonstrate that they’re walking around with the I-Work-Hard-So-I-Deserve-It Gremlin in tow. They’re willing to exchange their future incomes (yeah, that’s what credit is, people) for STUFF they deserve to have. I’ve had people tell me, “We work really hard, we deserve a vacation.” I’ve had people tell me, “I have a great job, I deserve to drive a nice car.” And I’ve had people tell me, “I do twelve-hour shifts, I deserve dinner out.”

Hey, for all the people who want to drop $700 on the latest cell phone who HAVE THE MONEY IN THE BANK, I don’t have a thing to say to you. It’s your money; spend it any way you wish. But for the dopes who are planning to put that new phone on credit and then carry the balance around for a few years at some ridiculous interest rate (any interest rate), give your head a shake.

The thing about the I-Work-Hard-So-I-Deserve-It Gremlin is that it can trick you into pledging many years of future income for the pleasures you’re seeking today. It doesn’t care how much interest you’re going to have to pay, how much more expensive that Have-to-Have-It item will be when you tack on the interest, or how long it’ll take you to get out of debt. And it doesn’t care that what else may end up losing if your circumstances change and you find you can’t pay for that holiday you deserved.

Advertisers know that people love to take a stroll down Luxury Lane with the I-Work-Hard-So-I-Deserve-It Gremlin. They put it in their clients’ slogans, sing it to you, show you people just like you who are buying what you will come to feel you, too, deserve.

Nowhere has the I-Work-Hard-So-I-Deserve-It Gremlin done more damage than in the arena of home-ownership. We have come to believe we deserve to own our own homes. Never mind that we haven’t had the commitment, the discipline, or the foresight to save a downpayment. Lenders have played into this delusion by offering borrowers far more credit than they should have access to. So there are people who have bought homes they can barely afford. Sadly, when the time comes to renew the mortgage, even a small upward movement in interest rates will make payments unmanageable.

The current foreclosure mess in the U.S. is the fallout of hanging out with the I-Work-Hard-So-I-Deserve-It Gremlin.  Re-framed as a “right”, the American dream of homeownership was assumed by too many people who never considered the true costs and sacrifices required to make the dream a reality. And so now the dreams have been shattered and families are finding themselves out in the cold, literally.

I see a lot of people struggling to repay debt for things they felt they deserved. In 2006, almost 100,000 Canadians had to file a creditor proposal or declare bankruptcy because they lost the struggle. In the U.S., 618,000 people filed for bankruptcy. I’m willing to bet dogs to donuts none of those people felt they deserved it.

BTW: No blog tomorrow. We’re taking the kids to Stratford for some Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet. Back Monday. Have a great weekend. 

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He who dies with the most toys wins. This sentiment is usually attributed to men. I’m not sure why, but it applies to anybody who has been listening to the Having-More-Means-A-Better-Life Gremlin.

In our very consumer-focused, advertisement driven, marketing molded world, “better” has come to mean “more”. People think that their lives will be better if they can just figure out how to have more – more big screen TVs, more shoes, more money.

Ya know what, based on my experience, more STUFF doesn’t make us more HAPPY. Nope. In fact, I’ve seen an inverse relationship. It seems the more UNHAPPY we are, the more STUFF we need, as if it is a balm to soothe our sense of what’s missing.

If more made us happy, then lottery winners, people who inherited, and people with the highest income would be the happiest in our land. Not so. Studies have shown that those who suddenly come into “more” are often worse off five years later.

According to a study by Princeton economist Alan Krueger and Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, “The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory.

So why this obsession with accumulating STUFF? Why the drive to have the latest phone, the newest in fashion, the shiniest car? It may simply be that we’ve stopped measuring the richness of our lives by the things we take for granted, that other people would die for. Things like clean air, an abundance of water, healthy food, good health, the availability of education, meaningful work, and freedom of religion and speech, to name just the most obvious.

When Barbara Walters interviewed billionaire David Geffen and asked, ‘O.K., David, now that you’re a billionaire, are you happy?’ his response was ‘Barbara, anybody who believes money makes you happy doesn’t have money.’

Bill McKibben’s recent book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Community and a Durable Future explores the idea that the foundation of our economic assumptions must be re-evaluated and re-tooled. While our civilization has conditioned us to believe that more is better, it ain’t so. However, many of us are willing to go deeper into debt every day to prove how well we’re doing.

We have substituted consumerism for what people really want: love and community, a sense of belonging, worthwhile effort, happiness. The work of overcoming our rampant consumer addiction can only be done inside ourselves. Nobody else can fix this for us. We need, individually, to fix it for ourselves.

How?

Move from being Impulsive to Thoughtful. Stop choosing short term gratification over our long-term benefits. Saving for retirement might be boring, but it’s going to be really important when you finally do stop working and are looking for a way to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly.

Stop Rationalizing. You can always find a “good reason” to scratch your acquisition itch. We are the masters of rationalization. We’re saving so much on an item, we just have to buy it. People take this to the extreme buying things they don’t need, don’t want, and can’t use, just because they’re focusing on how much they are saving. (Hey, if you’re spending you’re not saving.) Or we decide that buying “quality” is worth going into debt. Really? Or we focus on some extraneous issue: since I am fat, I need to spend more money on clothes so people won’t think I’m ashamed of my body. Hmmm. We apply this rationalization to why we need to buy a certain car, acquire a bigger house, or  wear brand names. It isn’t about meeting needs. It’s about the Having-More-Means-A-Better-Life Gremlin weaving its magic spell.

Undo Your Illusions. People confuse the medium for happiness with the actual results, the most famous example being money. Even though money itself doesn’t make people happier, we continue to work harder to get more money. More is better. But it isn’t. Sometimes more is just more.

Alan Krueger and Daniel Kahneman study found a weaker-than-expected correlation between income and happiness. Looking at a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey on how people with various levels of income spend their time, they discovered that women who make over $100,000 a year spend 19.6% of their time having fun, while those who make less than $20,000, spend 33.5% of their time kicking back or socializing.

The Having-More-Means-A-Better-Life Gremlin is misleading us to work for more money even when happier pursuits would ultimately do us more good.

How are you going to conquer the Having-More-Means-A-Better-Life Gremlin? Books, websites, gurus on “simplification” abound, and the message is trickling down slowly. Very slowly. And perhaps now that we’re having to spend significantly more of our income on NEEDS — fuel for our cars, fuel for our bodies — we’ll move back to focusing on what’s really important, and not on the STUFF. 

Tomorrow’s Gremlin: The I-Work-Hard-So-I-Deserve-It Gremlin

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I’ve just finished working with a couple that I LOVED! Sweet, enthusiastic, bent. So much room for improvement. The first thing I noticed when I Dropped My Bag And Had A Quick Look Around was that there wasn’t a corner of the house that didn’t have a doodad of some sort in it. I asked if this was part of her culture – if she was recreating the home she’d grown up in. Noooo. That wasn’t it. She was just a Stuff Gatherer. I pointed out that there wasn’t a corner of the house that didn’t have a little table with stuff on it, candles, or some other doohickey. She didn’t see what I saw.

Later I went into the main floor bathroom and, as I was having a pee, I noticed that in front of me, in the corner, was a set of candles – tall – just standing there in a threesome. How strange, I thought. When I glanced under the sink, there in the corner was a picture, leaning up against the wall, UNDER THE SINK. I brought my Tchotchke Queen into the bathroom. She gasped. She’d never noticed that she was filling her corners with STUFF.

Three gremlins were at work in this house. And I’m sure they inhabit many homes, so I’m sending you around your house to look for them and evict them. I’m going to deal with them one at a time so you have some time to come to terms with these gremlins if they are at work in your psyche.

First up, the I’m-the-Shopper Gremlin, which was always whispering in Lucy’s ear. Since she was responsible for keeping her house beautiful, keeping her children beautiful, keeping her husband beautiful, she was always shopping. She loved a good bargain and made a habit of hitting the Everything-60%-Off-Everyday Store every chance she got, which was usually EVERY DAY during lunch hour since there was a store right across the street from work. And she hardly ever went in without buying something. New hand towels, a shirt for her husband, clothes for her kids, a beautiful set of glasses, another picture, yet one more candle… Her family had made her responsible for the acquisition of what they needed and she was taking her role as BUYER very seriously.

Problem is, the I’m-the-Shopper Gremlin has no clue about the difference between a NEED and a WANT. It just wants to SHOP. And so, with this gremlin whispering soothing messages of love, caring and responsibility in her ear Lucy shopped.

The first thing I needed to do was bring her to her senses on what was a NEED versus what was a WANT. With some help, she had to go through rooms of her home and take out the “wants”, piling them up for me to see. More importantly, she was piling them up so she could see the crap she’d gone into debt for. What a success! Worked like a sledgehammer. So there was Lucy, surrounded by her stuff, wondering how the hell she could have been so unconscious in her shopping.

Lucy isn’t alone. There are loads of people who do this. But Lucy got the message. As I was showing off my new, snappy shoes (pink, green and yellow high-heeled sandals which I picked up for $16), she quipped, “Were they a need or a want, Gail.” Ha!

So how do you get a handle on the I’m-the-Shopper Gremlin?

Some people decide they will only shop one day of the week. You’ve seen me encourage fams to do this, since it takes away the temptation of the Impulse Buy.

Some people decide to shop with a list and only buy what’s on the list. If they see something they want, they add it to their next list.

Some people declare a moratorium on shopping, deciding to participate in Shop-Free days two or three or four days of the week. So they can’t buy ANYTHING on Shop-Free Saturday, for example.

Then there are the folks who challenge themselves to see how long they can go without buying anything. (Usually gas and food are the exceptions since they are virtually always NEEDS.) If they do shop, they have to start their counting again, and they’re always trying to beat their last best No Shopping Streak.

If you’ve got this gremlin running rampant through your life, what’s your plan to cope? Without a plan,  the I’m-the-Shopper Gremlin will not only end up costing you a lot of money, it’ll also end up making you spend way more time than you should have to DUSTING! ? Boo, hiss to the  I’m-the-Shopper Gremlin.

Up next, the Having-More-Means-A-Better-Life Gremlin.