By Kara I. Stevens
The August issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine will publish Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research findings which conclude that keeping a food diary can double an individual’s weight loss effort. Similarly, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine uncovered that those that did not jot down their food intake on a daily basis underestimated their caloric levels by an average of 1,050 calories.
Generally speaking, the act of journaling—the process of reflecting and thinking meta-cognitively on a particular set of behaviors and decisions— is an excess-management tool that can prove successful not just for overeaters, but for over-spenders as well. Many financial coaches encourage over-spenders to keep meticulous notes about their purchases in order to identify patterns in their spending habits, holes in their budgets, and areas for money management improvement. Less attention is paid to the psycho-emotional triggers that provoke and incite extraordinary consumption.
However, when it comes to embarking on the road to financial recovery, unearthing the why of spending, is just as important as detailing the “what” of spending. Include observations, anecdotal and notes on the nature of your financial environment, external spending triggers and saving incentives as an integral step toward achieving a fuller, more holistic and more realistic picture of your spending persona.
1. Detail the Types of Income-Generating Establishments in Your Immediate Spending Environment.
There is a strong connection between the nature of our immediate commercial environment and what we spend our money on. I live in a predominately black, working class community in Queens and the appeal to spend my money is geared toward acquiring certain products and services over others.
Within a three-block radius, there emerged a strong message about the options that I have in my neighborhood with regard to spending money. I counted 5-7 different storefront churches, 3-5 barber/beauty salons, 5-7 franchised or “mom and pop” fast food restaurants, 2-4 corner stores (or bodegas), 2 supermarkets, 1 library, 1 check cashing place and a liquor store. Implicit in the disproportionate representation of certain types of stores and the all-together absence of others (i.e. community centers, bookstores, doctor’s offices, banks), is that money in my community should not go beyond catering to personal wants; money in my community is better used for depreciable items, not for investments and savings; money in my community will be used (ironically enough) toward my nutritional detriment. The next time you take a walk through your neighborhood, take note of what your commercial district is telling you about money.
2. Track How You Spend with Your Friends.
Are you a teacher, social worker, or not-for-profit administrator that is expected to spend as freely as your investment banker and corporate lawyer friends at parties, social gatherings, or restaurants? Are you an “up and coming” young professional with a lot of “starving artists”, “down-on-their-luck” friends that is expected to cover their expenses when it comes to most social outings? Writing down how your financial behaviors shift when dealing with friends will illuminate patterns; this data, if used, can shape your future interactions and money-related dealings with them.
3. Monitor Your Emotional Triggers While Overexposed to Media Antics
The tendency to overspend, like the tendency to overeat, is rooted in our emotions. Despite what people would like to think, money is a matter of the heart and soul. Our belief systems and our learned behaviors from friends and family dictate a lot of our spending habits. But you know what especially drives our consumption? Big, juicy insecurity! Yes, the fear that we just missed the mark, are not quite as good as (fill in the blank), and are inherently flawed. Overexposure to big business media antics compounds this fear and drives you to spend. Concretely, while watching television, pay close attention to how you feel after you imbibe the lies that media try to extol. Are you insecure about your beauty? If so, monitor how you feel after sex is sold to push new make-up products, gym memberships, and diet systems. Are you insecure about the amount of money that you make? Be cognizant of how you feel about yourself and your financial priorities after watching commercials for luxury vehicles, reality shows that flaunt wealth and fame, or movies that romanticize excess.
admin @ July 25, 2008
Can Money Buy You Happiness?
We live in an extreme society. A society where we can find the morbidly obese and the fatally thin, both by personal choice and volition. A society where there are those that work eighty hours a week while there are those that refuse to work any. A society of ultraconservatives and “bleeding-heart” liberals.
With such a polarized society, it’s not a shock to find the discussion about the relationship of money and happiness as equally dichotomous and mutually exclusive. To some, money does not create happiness; in fact, it is the source of evil. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have those that worship money, elevating it to a status of omnipotence and employing all means to make more of it. Money and happiness. Those elusive powers and agents. We expend most of our adult lives in search of an abundance of both, one often at the expense of the other. A holistic approach to understanding their relationship and striving for both, then, is in order to strengthen and sustain our financial and spiritual lives.
When It Can and It Can’t
Those that claim that money causes or creates problems and that it has no bearing on contentment and self-actualization needs to take a more thoughtful look at the face of poverty within this country and outside of its borders. Money can buy happiness in the sense that it grants options and voice to those barred from experiencing the most basic human experience, which, at a minimum, includes health, education, safety and life purpose. Once these fundamental needs are met, an increase in money begins to take on diminishing returns because of our human capacity to adapt to our environment. This means two things. First, we get easily bored once we have grown accustomed to a new comfort, whether it be a new car, a new tummy and nose, vacation home or handbag. Secondly and equally important, we keep looking upwards and around at what the next level up has to offer. Newer. Shinier. Faster. Bigger. Sexier. This cycle of using money to make purchases and acquisition of increasingly more exotic, extreme and intense locations and experiences in hopes of attaining a sliver of happiness is what behavioral economists coin, the “hedonistic treadmill”.
And getting off of the treadmill is hard largely because Americans have been conditioned through overexposure to big business media not to think for themselves. Not thinking for yourself leads you to value the opinions of others more than your own. Not thinking for yourself, additionally, puts you at odds with your authentic self and your personal truth. How many times have you been aware or noticed that following pattern? You are excited about the purchase of a particular item, fantasize about how it will complete your look, how important and sexy you will feel when you wear it or own it as you make your way to the counter or sales manager. You buy it. You’re elated. You wear it and/or use it a couple of times. Weeks pass by and you are not as excited about that same item that produced such an intense sense of satisfaction as you were before. So, you go shopping, looking and hoping for something new to catch your eye to make you feel important, alive and centered again.
Intuition would lead you to conclude, then, that shopping and buying a lot of different stuff is not going to fill that void, that thirst, and that want to be fully present. EVER. Yet you continue to do it because you somehow trust the fantasy of television more than you do your own gut. You would prefer to feel that something is wrong with you and perhaps you are not buying the right item or enough of it to bring you joy so you venture to consume more excessively and deliberately.
Stop This Treadmill! I Want to Get Off
Finding happiness with your money begins with first finding peace with yourself. This is not a call to throw away all of your worldly possessions or a campaign to isolate yourself from the conveniences of modern society. What it is, however, is an appeal for you to reflect and unearth your values, interests, likes and wants. Once you have uncovered who you are, you can then align your money with your values–to fund, enhance and nurture these parts of your identity. Below is an example of my interests and how much (or little) money I need to make me feel happy. Please take 15 minutes to do the same. You’ll be surprised to discern that source of your discontent or bliss may be the nature of your spending and not necessarily the amount of money that you spend.
10 Things that Make Kara I. Stevens Happy Cost of Happiness
1. pedicure $12 every three weeks
2. dinner with girlfriends once a month $15-$20
3. long walks $0
4. listening to live salsa $0- $15
5. clean bathroom $10 (cleaning products)
6. photography $50-$75 a month for film/developing
7. taking a Spanish course $660 (tuition)
8. dancing Kompa $10 (cover charge)
9. writing $0
10. reading (borrowed books from the library) $10 (overdue fees)
admin @ June 13, 2008