I’m always turning over a new leaf. Whenever I find that I’ve been doing something that’s not really working for me any more, I turn over a new leaf. The new year is a time of reflection and opportunity to do things differently.

If you blew your brains out over the holiday season, decided you “needed” a new big screen TV on that buy-now-pay-later plan, went nuts at the mall, or HAD to have a new car, consumer debt is your hangover. If you’re walking around with a big fat line of credit or credit card balance this may be the year you decide you’re finally Done With Debt. Once you make a commitment to paying off your debt and start taking the right steps, you’ll be surprised at the relief you feel. Whether you have to give up your super-de-duper cable package or trim back your coffee habit from two a day to once a week, you can find the money to make this happen. Really determined to be done with debt? Maybe you’ll get yourself an extra job until it’s gone. Now you won’t have time to miss the cable you gave up.

Bad habits are another “turn over a new leaf” opportunity. You may have bad habits you don’t even recognize: the magazines you automatically pick up at the cash register, the over-the-top cell bill, the weekly mani- and pedi you can’t live without.  It’s time to look at how you spent your money in the last couple of months and decide which habits you’re going to change for the better. Whether you decide to pack your lunch, chop back your beer and wine consumption, or exchange smoking for walking, you likely have a number of things you can do differently to make your bottom line balance.

Can’t decide what to do first? Wish you had someone to tell you which priority should take precedence? Indecision is a nasty blocker. And standing holding two ideas without moving is a sure way to get nowhere. It doesn’t really matter which one you pick, you’ll be better off getting in gear than just looking at the options and shaking your head. Yup. Just pick one — any one —and get moving.

If your waffling is based on the fact that you really don’t know what to do – you lack information – then it may be time to turn from ignorance to knowledge. If you are allowing ignorance to be your excuse for not taking control of your money and your life, you’re a world-class dope. Books abound. Websites are full of fabulous information. And you can always find a friend who is good at the very thing you want to accomplish and let her lead you through the maze. Or make a new friend and work on your goals together. But to stay in the dark… man, that’s just dumb.

Course, sometimes people choose darkness because they are just plain lazy. Since it takes real effort to change, to do things differently, some people just can’t be bothered. They rather whine about what’s wrong than create an action plan and focus their energy on what they really want.

If your albatross is your sense of entitlement – I work hard, I deserve a vacation – then turning over a new leaf will mean:

• coming to the realization that you are only entitled to what you can afford,
• you can have it all, but not all at the same time, so you’re going to have to make some choices, and
• you are the author of your own fate, so you can stay mired in misery or finally take control of your money and your life.

If there’s one thing you should head into 2010 believing it is that you are the master of your own fate. You have choices to make and you can make those choices work for you or against you. But it will be YOU who decide through a well-thought out plan, or through apathy and indecision. It’s your life. What do you want it to be?

“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.