How to Deal With Your Finances When You Hate Money
6 August 2006How could someone hate money? Well, people do, as this post by My Financial Awareness indicates. A lot of people have the attitude that money is something evil – and that to think about it or talk about it makes you greedy or some kind of heartless Scrooge. Some people think it’s almost virtuous to waste it – the fact that they don’t care means they must not be materialistic. That’s a bad attitude to have – because in the long run, if you don’t ever think about money or make plans relating to it, you’re not going to be able to live your life the way you want to.
The suggestions in that post are a little too New Agey for me, but if they make you comfortable with financial planning and talking about money, then great. I’m not one of those people who have a problem with money, but my suggestions if you do:
1) Just get over it. It should be that simple – you shouldn’t need to come up with some kind of rationalization for what you’re doing. Everyone needs money in our society. Maybe you think the world would be great if we were all happily singing and dancing in circles and giving stuff to each other for free. Maybe it would. But the world isn’t that way, so you need to deal with the way it is.
2) Remember that money is a symbol, not a thing. People don’t like money because of some fascination for little green pieces of paper. They want it because it lets them get things that they actually do want. If you’re a person with an aversion to thinking about money, ask yourself this: would you like to vacation around the world, learning about different cultures and expanding your intellectual horizons? Would you like to feed someone who has no food and is starving to death? Would you like to paint a great work of art that is remembered after you die?
Well, money can let you do those things – by freeing up your time and by paying for them. Which should obviously point out to you that:
3) Things are not good or bad, people are. Even if you hate money because some people love it because they want a shiny BMW, servants, and a pair of shoes that cost more than a normal car, you don’t have to be those people. A rock can be used to smash someone’s skull open, as a paperweight, as a painted piece of art, or as a pet. But the rock isn’t good or bad – the person deciding to use it that way is. So when you’re doing your financial planning, don’t just have financial goals – and don’t start out thinking about those goals. If you really don’t care about money, your goal should be something like “I want to not have to work at all so I can spend lots of time with my grandkids after age 60.” Then figure out how much money you need to achieve that goal. Money is just a tool towards a goal, which can be good or bad.
Remind yourself of what your goal is, and it won’t seem so stingy to be scrimping and saving. You’re not after the $25 you saved on your electric bill – you’re after the time to read that book on Polynesian art or hang out with little Billy.
4) Talking about money is good, not bad. If you’re worried about politeness, do it over the Internet. Lots of people have an attitude that it’s rude to ever talk about money. Sometimes it is. You don’t want to blab on and on about how you make $200,000 a year in front of your starving artist friend. That’s rude. It’s not rude to ask your friends for advice, though – lots of people would be more comfortable asking a friend for advice about sex or a relationship than about money, and those are a lot more personal. It’s all about the presentation – avoid bragging, and you should be able to have a frank discussion with people. And those discussions are good – you don’t have all the answers, and you might be able to get help from people who’ve got experience with some financial stuff you don’t.
What if you are still uncomfortable? As ever, I’m going to plug this site’s forums. Go sign up and talk to people in there about your finances. How are they ever going to know who you are? They won’t, so you can go into detail about what your problems are, how much you make, and ask what you should do. Anonymity is your friend – you can do stuff on the Internet you would never do in real life, and while that’s usually bad – sometimes it’s a good thing.
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