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Don't Bury Your Head in the Sand!
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- Don't
Bury Your Head in the Sand!
- By Jill Cooper
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I had a dog once, who when
I would scold him, would run and hide under the bed. He knew
he had done something wrong and thought that by hiding he wouldn't
get into trouble as much. I think he figured if he couldn't see
me, I couldn't see him and he wouldn't get scolded.
There was just one slight problem.
He couldn't fit under the bed. Only his head and front paws were
hidden but his back half was in full view. He had put himself
in the worst possible position but since he had buried himself
under the bed he didn't know that.
It's human (and critter) nature
to think that if I don't acknowledge something that it won't
come to pass or it will go away and I won't have to deal with
it. We are often like the two year old who thinks there's a monster
in his room. He will cover his head up with a pillow thinking
"If I can't see the monster then the monster can't see me
and it will go away."
We as adults laugh and think
how silly this is. We know that if there really WAS a monster,
hiding our head under a pillow would not help us. If anything
hiding our heads would make it worse because we can't see what
the monster is doing and so we are unable to come up with a plan
of attack to protect ourselves. Meanwhile, the monster takes
a bite out of our britches.
Even though we find the dog
or the two year old's actions foolish and amusing, many of us
do the very same thing when we don't deal with our financial
situation and our debt. Have you ever decided not to open a bill
or look at a credit card statement because you don't want to
know what the balance is? Clicking your heels and saying "There's
no place like home" is not going to help.
How about your bank statement?
Do you balance it every month or just throw it in with the pile
of unopened bills because you don't want to know how much is
in your account? I hear someone saying "But I don't know
how to balance it." Then learn. There isn't a bank in the
world that isn't willing to show you how to balance a checkbook
if you ask.
My grandson in the third grade
has enough math skills to balance a checkbook but I often hear
from college graduates, full of pride with their degrees, that
they can't balance a bank statement. It is just another excuse
that helps them keep their heads buried in the sand. Learning
to balance your checkbook is much easier, much less time consuming
and much less stressful than hiding from the monster.
Another excuse many people
use is refusing to use cash. Often when helping people get their
credit card debt under control, I suggest that they get rid of
the credit cards and just carry a small amount of cash in their
wallet. The first thing that I always hear (and I have honestly
never had anyone yet say anything different) is "I can't
carry cash because I will spend it". This statement makes
no sense to me. What do they think they are doing when they pull
out their credit cards to buy something? Lack of self control
is lack of self control no matter how you package it.
If you allow yourself $20 cash,
don't keep credit cards in your wallet and you are shopping you
MAY spend the full $20, but when it is gone there just "ain't
no more" to spend. On the other hand, when you use a credit
card, once you spend $20, you can pull it out again and spend
another $20 and another and then maybe even $100. You don't even
have to keep track of how much you spend for the day. Just stuff
the receipt away and put your head under the bed!
If you have a credit card problem,
you will end up spending 2-4 times as much more with the credit
card than if you just use cash... But this is why people in financial
denial love credit cards... They don't have to acknowledge or
see how much they have spent. "If I don't see it it won't
hurt me."
In 1 Corinthians 13:11, it
says "When I was a child I talked like a child, I thought
like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I
put away childish things." We need to put away childish
or foolish actions where our money is concerned and start using
adult reasoning concerning it.
If this is you, stop burying
your head in the sand! Stop being afraid and start taking an
honest look at your finances. Open those bills, balance those
bank statements and acknowledge how much you spend! Then figure
out how to get it under control.
Just to keep our e-mail box
from overflowing with misunderstanding, I thought I should clarify
this one thing: If your financial situation is fully under control,
but you use a credit card for convenience or for reward points
or some other reason and pay it off every month, this story is
not referring to you. I am specifically addressing people who
don't know how much they spend or who do not spend within their
income.
_______________________________________
Jill Cooper is a frugal living
experts and the co-editor of http://www.LivingOnADime.com. As a single
mother of two, Jill Cooper started her own business without any
capital and paid off $35,000 debt in 5 years on $1,000 a month
income.
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ARTICLE POSTED
April 23, 2007
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