Are You a Good Financial Manager?

Holiday spending is now behind us. The new year presents a time of reflection over the past year and helps us make resolutions for the coming year. This is a good time to examine spending habits. In retrospect, would you say that you spent wisely over the holidays? Or are you a money miser? Or an impulse buyer? Do you deprive yourself? Or do you seek others’ love through lavish gift giving? Knowing your money personality is key toward taking control of your financial health.

So what is a healthy approach to money? It is living within one’s budget. Do you spend with discipline, having both short and long term financial goals? Are you paying bills and taxes on time, giving to self and other’s generously, and having enough to feel content?

Sally Palaian, author of Spent: Break the Buying Obsession and Discover Your True Worth, compares uncontrolled money behavior to an addiction. She says there is a continuum from healthy financial behaviors, to financial problems, to full-scale money addiction.

People who manage money well can delay gratification, save for purchases and resist impulse buys. However, people with financial problems tend to use spending to make them happy. They will spend on credit without a plan to pay off the debt.

On the other hand, people with financial addictions meet the qualifications for many other addictions. There is increased tolerance as evidenced by the need for increased purchases to achieve the same amount of pleasure. Withdrawal is what you experience when unable to spend such as anxiety or restlessness. There are unsuccessful efforts to cut down as you realize you are powerless over spending in spite of your best efforts to stop. You become preoccupied with the next purchase and hide your spending. You stop getting pleasure from nonmaterial things. Your thinking about spending keeps you from time with family and friends, unless they are shopping with you. Shopping becomes your life. And the spending continues in spite of negative consequences; you fail to see the problem or the consequences. You don’t stop even if you can’t pay your bills, have marital problems, or you face foreclosure.

Palaian’s book offers solutions to untangling you from poor money management by understanding your patterns, living with a spending plan, knowing how to change your thinking, feelings and compulsive actions, and understanding your triggers toward relapses.

There is hope. May the new year bring you financial health and a sense of well-being.