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Financially Incapable, Money Is The Problem


Being able to control one’s own finances is one of the important parts of being able to be a independent adult, and is something that is supposed to come along with being one as well.  It means being able to live within a budget and spending one's money wisely within that budget.  It also means having a realistic idea about what your income is and how much money you have to spend and being able to weigh that against financial decisions and the merits of purchases that one wishes to make keeping in mind the required purchase that one has to make and the cost of them.  



Which is why the realization that I seem to be utterly incapable of controlling my finances is coming as such a blow,
one that has brought my mood down a little, for the great place that it has been.  It scares me that I seem so incapable when it comes to my finances and the utter failure to be able to do some of the most basic things to live within a budget. That the revelation that I have stolen over $1000 out of my long term/emergency savings in the period of two months to cover my overspending.  I can’t seem to make prudent choices, and am utterly incapable of factoring in regular required purchase (like gas and such things) instead I have no concept of a budget when I am spending and for the money that I have I spend like it is going out of style on frivolous things. Then when the charges come threw it hits that I don’t have the free money in my checking to cover the charges and that is when I then steal it out of my savings account, not so slowly but surely draining it.  



The problem is that even seeing that when the charges come in I don’t seem to be able to stop to realize that something is wrong and that something needs to change.  instead it is as if I think that the money will magically replenish itself, I don’t know how yet that somehow doesn't seem to be an important part of the equation, which is why having this moment of realization about my behavior is so much more upsetting.



it is all the harder because I don’t know what to do about it or where to turn for help, in no small part because everyone thinks that I am so put together when it comes to my finances and I don’t want them to realize the truth, let alone to have to have others step in and help me with them.  As to have to have others step in and try to sort out the mess and keep me on track is having to admit that I am not able to be an independent adult in one of the most key aspects of being one. It makes me feel as  if I am some sort of overgrown child that even though I have not yet gotten myself into dubet that I am all too capable of undermining my own financial future and doing one of the very things that I fear so much. I feel like there is something so shamefully wrong with me and it is something that I don’t know how to fix as it is something that except it seems to brief windows in time I don’t see as a problem, even though it is.  I am left at such a losse of what to do when it comes to all of this, I just don’t know what is wrong with me.



Comments

  1. 5. ok, now write down the next months bills the same way. now back to our first month. at this point in time you have a few things not listed on your plan: food, gas, eating out, clothing, shoes, savings, FUN [yes fun NEEDS to be included here], and your credit card balance. you need to get a handle on about how much you spend on these items each month, and then go a bit higher. that way it will be easier to stay on track. and if you add in eating out, movies, that new shirt, you wont feel deprived and over spend, and then feel guilty and have to pull from your savings to cover your short falls. however! be wise about what you spend your funding on. eating out is fun, but i'd try to save that for dinners, rather than paying for lunches out when you can bring a nice lunch and save that 20$ a week on dinner and a movie, or a new video game, book, etc.

    6. ok your left over money. lets go back and look at your credit card debt. lets say you owe 3,000$. and your monthly payment is 65$. now if you only pay the minimum you will never ever ever pay your card off. yes there will be months where you have something horrid happen, and will have to pay only the minimum, but try not to make that a habit. figure out what you can afford to pay per month that will decrease your balance.

    7. savings. now this is a very important task, however, if you are really in debt and need to get some of it paid off or down, then this amount will be very small. as you pay off a bill, then add that amount to your savings. at the end of each pay period anything left, toss into your savings account. what? you say that you only have 1.73$ left? ok, so what? toss it into your savings account. this is done much easier if your bank allows you to transfer funds from your checking account to your savings account online.

    8. the reason i wanted you to write in the next months bills is that its easier to keep track of pay periods, bill due dates, etc if you can see at least two months at a glance at first. by keeping track of everything, pay dates, bill dates and amounts etc you will not be so lost and confused. the best way to do this is to know where you stand. and i also wrote down in the space between the bill and the amount due the remainder of the bill, it helps keep you motivated to see the left owing amount decrees every month. this is how i got my hubby and i out of a swirl of late fees, bounced fees, no savings and poor credit. it does work, you just have to stick to it, and after a while, it does become like second nature. good luck!

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  2. Ok, take a breath, this is totally fixable, no really it is. Ready? Now this is an easy to follow set of steps, the tricky part is getting into the habit of keeping track of ALL your money. And here we go.

    1. ok, first step, collect all your bills. for your utilities bills see if you can round up a few from past months, or go from your bank statements to get a average idea of how much these run a month. separate your bills into loans, utilities, credit cards, etc.

    2. now, figure out just what you really owe on your credit cards, yes i know, but this needs to be done.

    3. ok now this can be the tricky bit, but it only has to be done once, add up all of your bills, yes all of em, dont include the monthly credit card bill or the total amount, we'll get to those later. now minus your bring home amount. ok the left over amount is what you are going to use to save money, pay off your credit cards and spend to live, food, clothing, fun, etc.

    4. get a spiral bound notebook, open it up and up on the top, in the upper margin write down the current month. on the top line, write down the date you get paid on, then go down many lines, and do the same for the next paycheck. i found this to be easier at the beginning to start this process by opening the notebook so i could see two pages at once.
    a) ok, so you know how much you owe, and what has to be paid, get your calculator and here we go. write in on the right margin on the same line as your payday, the amount you will be paid. if your pay varies then just pencil in the lowest expected amount. then below that line start with the most expensive bill, say your car loan. and then under your pay amount write that number in. your next biggest bill goes under the second paycheck, and so on. go back and forth between your paydates, writing in your bills so you have about the same amount of money left after paying your bills. now, you have to be careful of due dates, and if you are a long time customer, they might allow you to switch the due dates on some things, like loans and sometimes even credit cards. anything over what you penciled in for your paycheck, dump straight into the savings.

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  3. sorry i did this in the wrong order.

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  4. Luckily I am not in debt. This is so frustrating for me because for large chunks of time I am pretty good at budgeting and don't have such issues. But then other times it is as if I think that money grows on trees, which dose scare me because if I was in a place of my own with a mortgage and bills I would be in big trouble. I look back and I see that this has been an issue for me for a very long time, and it seems to go in cycles.

    It is like I can budget but when I am feeling good even though I know I don't have the money to spend (budgeted for spending) that dose not matter, and I just spend anyway. It is something that I need help with but it is something that I think is separate from being able to budget itself.

    It is one of the things that leaves me feeling like my life is in pices and I just can't seem to pick them up. I feel like I am in need of much more help then I want to be and that it just makes me that much less of a person that any one would want to be with.

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