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Do you spend money to block out your feelings? Then you could be a
compulsive spender, according to Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan in their
book Money Drunk/Money Sober: 90 Days to Financial Freedom. Learning to handle stress without spending money or accruing debt is critical
to your financial health, say the authors. Here are a few questions
they recommend you ask yourself to assess whether or not you are a
compulsive spender:
- Do you hide the things that you buy?
- Do you feel great right after you buy something and then feel
terrible later?
- Do you fill up one credit card with debt and then move on to the
next, with no plan as to how you are going to pay the debt?
- Do you buy a lot of things you really don't need or can't afford?
- Do you shop to cheer yourself up?
- Do you stray from your shopping list or your budget constantly?
- Do you always use up your savings account-or even fail to have one?
Answers of yes to three or more of these questions could indicate you
have a spending problem.
-adapted from Money Drunk/Money Sober: 90 days to Financial Freedom, by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan
Is using your debit card costing you?
In a recent study, the New York Public Interest Research Group found
that 57 percent of the banks it surveyed were charging a debit card fee at the point of sale. The study questioned banks about hidden fees and found that they charged an average fee of 89 cents per transaction. Individual fees ranged from 25 cents to $1.50. Enforcement of the fees varied from bank to bank with some banks charging for every transaction and other banks charging after a preset number of transactions had been exceeded. Others charged when the account balance fell below a minimum level or on a monthly basis. Customers are not warned of these charges at the point of sale so that they can decide whether the transaction is worth it to them or not.
Some banks justify their fees by saying that the customer is paying
for the convenience of using the debit card.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York says "Encouraging people to use
debit cards instead of checks or cash and then springing hidden
charges on them is not only dishonest, it's bad business. If banks
want to charge consumers for each transaction, let them know and let
them decide whether or not it's worth it. Taking their money without
letting them know milks the consumer and breeds resentment against the
banks. It's bad for everyone."
-adapted from Charles E. Schumer's Senate Web site and www.creditcards.com
Your memory and money
Learning how you relate to and think about money is one key to
building financial success, says personal finance guru and author Suze Orman.
In order to understand how you think about, and in turn deal with
money, Orman says it is helpful to go back into your past and dredge
up some of your own memories and ideas about money. She tells her own
tale of how when she was a little girl she loved to go swimming with
her friends at a pool that cost $1 for entry. One day she asked her
mother for the dollar, and her mother told her that they did not have
a dollar for her to go swimming.
This caused Orman to feel ashamed and she was afraid her friends would
no longer like her for not having the money. After that she began
secretly slipping money out of her dad's pockets and buying her
friends gifts, to ensure their friendship. She continued this practice
well into her adulthood.
Orman believes that by looking back into your past and remembering the
things that money did for and to you, you can begin to see how those
powerful childhood moments can be affecting your quality of life as an
adult.
Looking at money squarely, she says, allows you to see the
insecurities, self-doubt and fear that paralyze many people
emotionally and financially.
-adapted from The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, By Suze Orman
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