If you had enough money, you’d feel better about yourself right? Not necessarily. Many times, I have found that my coaching clients use money to actually lower their self-esteem. It’s not often recognized as a tool we use to reflect the way we feel about ourselves.

You use money to lower your self-esteem…

When you…

• Keep increasing your debt.

• Spend money to relieve your guilty feelings.

• Forget to appreciate what you do have.

• Get angry with yourself over past financial mistakes.

I was thinking the other day how easy it is to put money on a pedestal and treat it as the cure for any problem. If we had money, we think, we could achieve our dreams, mend our relationships, improve our appearance, and essentially get everything we always wanted.

Here's Some Signs We Worship Money...

When we...

• Make decisions based on how much money something costs or how much money it will make us.
• Put most, if not all, our attention on ways to get more of it.
• Set money goals -- how much we want and by what date.

Debt can be a vicious cycle. We start the debt cycle by finding a way to JUSTIFY adding on new debt. (See the previous blog to find out more details about What is a Debt Cycle?)

Here are 11 Signs You’re Stuck in a Debt Cycle…

When we…

1. Have little or no savings, investments, or assets.
2. Add new debt right after one debt is paid off.
3. Have several credit cards.
4. Borrow money to pay off credit cards.
5. Put very little money down and set up a longer repayment period to reduce the monthly amount.

Debt can be a vicious cycle. We start the debt cycle by finding a way to JUSTIFY adding on new debt.

Ways we JUSTIFY Adding on New Debt-

1 To rectify our past mistakes.

(Example: You got in a fender bender by not paying attention and you need to fix your bumper.)

2  To reward ourselves.

(Example: You’ve lost weight so you deserve to buy a new outfit.)

3  To get rid of the old debt.

(Example: Taking out a second mortgage to pay off credit cards.)

I talked to two people this week who mentioned that they were tired of being nickel and dimed. This reminded me of a coaching client I had years ago.

This hard-working mother of four children felt shame that she couldn’t give her children more. So we poured over her budget and I learned that every night she was buying fast food for dinner.

Clearly she was nickel and diming her money away. And the habit was costly in other ways. She was overweight and two of her children also were getting chubby. Easy fix, right? Tell the mother to stop the nightly drive-thru runs. But she worked long hours and coming home to cook – her least favorite thing to do –wasn’t likely something she would stick with very long.

Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” In other words, if money is the problem, throwing more money at it is not the solution. Another example is, we cannot get out of debt by taking on more loans. We’re just simply delaying the answer.

It’s one of those mysteries of life, a question everyone has asked in their adult life: “Where did all the money go?” Especially now with finances so tight, it seems your bank account is shrinking at an alarming rate.

And, as that balance gets smaller, the bills seem to come in faster and faster. You never have quite enough to cover everything, and then – WHAM! One of those surprise expenses hits you and sucks away all the savings you have left.

I just heard last week that confidence in the economy is at the lowest level it has ever been.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed an underlying fear that seems to be growing. We are being bombarded by the media, hearing the reports of lay offs, banks failing and stores going out of business (not to mention the entire auto-maker industry), streets with less consumer traffic, and retailers just aren’t as busy as they should be this time of year.

For decades, we Americans have focused on the basic belief that MORE = HAPPINESS. People everywhere say, “If we could only get more, we’d be so much happier. A bigger house, closets of designer clothes, dining out every night, and giving our kids everything we didn’t have. All these things would make life better, right? We’ll have the American dream!”

It didn’t work. The more we got, the more we wanted. We started buying based on the assumption that in the future, everything goes up. Real estate values grow, our incomes rise, the stock market steadily climbs, and we have an endless ability to get more credit when ever we want it.

There is no doubt in my mind, we are going through the most challenging financial situation we have ever gone through in our lives and it’s not even close to the bottom.

The reason our financial situation will get a lot worse before it gets better is because we’re trying to solve it the wrong way. It’s not about money at all, the financial crisis is only the results of a belief most of us have that we gain at other people’s expense. Think about it – why are there so many reports of mortgages going into foreclosures and people being forced to declare Chapter 7? Everyone was looking for a short term gain. Lenders thought they could profit at other’s expense, and the lendees thought they could beat the system.
 

Welcome to the world of Vickie! As I have been watching the news, with the markets crashing and home foreclosures increasing and social security disappearing, I have also been watching levels of panic and confusion rising among the people around me. I’ve had a strong desire to reach out to as many people as I can and, using my knowledge and expertise, do my part to take the fear away through these changing times.