 Financial
Chaos…Or Responsibility?by
Diana Woloson In
Dear Abby’s column on June 14, 2000 there were responses to an earlier
column regarding a woman who ran up $17,000 of debt of which her husband
wasn’t aware. One widower responded that because his wife was in charge
of their finances, he had no idea how much indebtedness he was under until
she died. The column, in a nutshell, was telling the men (and women!) to
pay attention to their financial world and not just leave it to their
partners Abuse
of those poor credit cards seems to be the culprit in most instances. In
the column, credit counseling was recommended as well as communication
between partners. Until someone is ready and willing to get to the root,
the cause, of their spending habits, credit counseling is a quick “fix
me, so I can go do it some more.” What was really being pointed out was
taking responsibility and becoming aware of what is happening in your
life, instead of totally turning things over to someone else. What
a lot of people have chosen to not understand is that credit cards are a
luxury, not a necessity. Yet, most “can’t live without one.” If
responsibility isn’t taken, then at some point a person may have to live
without one. Wouldn’t it be better to start curbing ourselves on the
“quick fix,” “gotta have it now” spending? I don’t know about
the rest of you, but I wouldn’t want to be without my credit card as it
is a convenience and comes in real handy in an emergency. One
of the things I do is to set my own “limit.” I try to keep the
outstanding amount down to about 1/5 of whatever the actual limit is on
the credit card. Yes, I do go over my own limit and when I do, I make a
concerted effort to pay it off immediately. (I always pay over the minimum
amount due, regardless of my balance. I’m usually not far from paying it
down to a zero balance if I haven’t kept it there.) I’m not willing to
be in debt where I can only pay the minimum balance and there’s not
enough cash or credit card availability to be able to buy the necessities.
Of course, there are those who will spend any way they please and don’t
care whether their debts are being paid — and the rest of us are paying
for that attitude. Keeping
up with current trends can be expensive. Unless we are earning the income
to cover those luxuries, we need to think hard about how we are spending
our money. How
do we do this? We always want to ask ourselves: “Do I need this or do I
just want it?” It’s called prioritizing. Does this mean we can never
have something we want? Absolutely not! Save those pennies. Manifest
through prayer, meditation, visualization, whatever works for you to let
the Universe know what you need or want. Is it really necessary to get a
brand new car every year or two? My car is over five years old, looks new
and I have no car payment. When I turned in my prior car, it was almost
ten years old and was like new. Hypothetically, my choices with the money
that would normally be used for a car payment are: (a) put the money aside
towards another car, (b) invest (c) pay off credit cards and other
outstanding bills, (d) take a vacation that wasn’t taken due to not
enough money to do it before, (e) use it to buy some of those luxury items
I’d been putting off or (f) do a combination plan of all of the above. Are
you dependent on your credit card to get the necessities? What are the
necessities of life — food, shelter and clothing? Then we go from there.
That new CD player (or even a CD) is not a necessity. The television bit
the dust? It isn’t a necessity either (even though it may feel like it
sometimes!) Maybe this is an opportunity that’s being presented to
explore other forms of entertainment that may be more enriching for us. How
many of us have created a business? Has everything been turned over to a
bookkeeper or accountant assuming they know everything? I had a client who
did exactly that, let someone else take charge of the books in every way
both personally as well as professionally. It was assumed that everything
was being taken care of properly. The result was embezzlement, audits of
all kinds and financial chaos because the client chose not to accept the
responsibility of being aware of what was going on with the business.
There were no procedures of checks and balances, nor was there a
professional advisory team in place to help the client understand what was
happening with the business. Does
this mean the owner has to do the books? No. Yet that person needs to be
aware of not only the money coming into the business, but where it is
going. Is the money being disbursed to the correct accounts? Clerical
errors and misunderstandings can create some hefty outflows to government
agencies when those errors aren’t caught and corrected. If
balancing a checkbook is not our forte, does that mean we never do it and
depend on the bank’s information? This is a great way to create expenses
in the form of overdrawn accounts and bounced check charges if money is
tight. ATM charges can also mount up. What
happens when two are using the same account and writing checks and/or
making ATM withdrawals? Unless both are aware and communicate with the
other, this can also create chaos... financial as well as otherwise! Yes,
most times, it is convenient for one person to be in charge of keeping the
books; however, that doesn’t mean the other should not have a clue about
what is happening with the family or business finances. Will
you continue to assume that everything in your financial world is OK and
risk the possibility that it really isn’t? Or will you choose to take
responsibility for your life and know what you think is happening is the
reality? It’s
Your Choice! Diana is a writer, motivator, healer and workshop facilitator. For help with creating a personalized spending plan leave msg at 702-228-7118, Las Vegas. She is also the founder of Mystical Enlightenments and works with aromatherapy - Essential Oils. |
