One Million and Beyond

My Spending and My Childhood

By Matt - Friday, February 23rd, 2007

One of the points that I wanted to cover in this evaluation of my financial self is how I spent money and how I saw money spent when I was a child. For me this is an important item because as Harv Eker describes in his concept of a financial blueprint we have an imprint created that is based on a lot of factors including how we witnessed finances in the world around us. In my particular case I didn’t witness a great deal of financial planning from my parents side though I know that they did plan their finances to some extent. But the items that I did witness were very basic in their nature and I believe that my parents still plan their money this way. At least they had this simple method.

When I grew up I had some very simple planning in place, mostly to cover off my bills even though I know that I should have done more. I figured that you just needed to pay your minimum payments and the bills came in. It was a frustrating combination with my using credit as cash.

Spending money on the other hand was somewhat impulsive at home, my parents would be good with their money for a long period of time and then my dad would go buy something relatively expensive. Initially a lot of this stuff was purchased through payment plans or on credit. There was little to no planning for these expenses and when I started making money I really took up this habit. I would spend money on things that I didn’t need or in some cases didn’t want often for the sake of spending money. This impulsive buying is something I’ve seen for a while in myself and I’ve been able to curtail it to some extent. Unfortunately the urge to just buy stuff is still there; thankfully I see it, recognize it when it happens, and I can avoid it.

The impact of how I witnessed the world when I was a child on how I spent money is something that I have to deal with and work hard to ensure I can outgrow it. I’ve done well in recent months but it’s hard to undo literally years of bad habits. I am starting to put plans in place and care about where my money goes and what it does. I haven’t gotten to the stage where I can invest significant portions of it but I will in due time; first its time to get rid of this debt.

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