What your money habits say about your deepest fears

Have you ever taken the time to scrutinise the body language and facial expressions of people who sit at slot machines in a casino? Not the ones that have an occasional flutter but the ones who make gambling a part of their lifestyle, the ones who are on first-name terms with the waiters and cashiers? What you will notice is they do not look like they're having a good time. They share a single face: grim and focused as they throw away that which they most want – money, and lots of it.

Interestingly, this same group of people, who routinely lose 30% of their salaries and, collectively, R16-billion a year at the casinos, will shop at discount stores, buy cheaper brands of coffee and forgo the maintenance on their homes in an effort to save money.

“Gambling in South Africa is a big problem,” says Andrew Warren, head of retail marketing for Liberty. “Many people cancel investments and policies because of gambling debt. Unfortunately the industry is not doing enough to warn people of the dangers. Gambling can be as addictive and destructive as alcohol and drug abuse. It has been proven time and again that the only way to build wealth is to take a considered and systematic approach. The spin of a wheel at a roulette table is not the way to build a financial future.”

Gamblers are the extreme version of people who spend without thought, but what about the people who regularly spend 10%, 20%, and 30% of their salaries on items they don’t need? There are just as many of those as there are gamblers; people who get sucked into the image culture, mindless spending whatever they associate with being more successful, cooler and more upwardly mobile.

Debt to impress

The fact it’s ultimately irrelevant. If someone you care about arrived at your door in a blingmobile would it make you love them more? Of course not, so why do we go into debt to impress?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that many of us have varying levels of insecurity. We may feel we do not have the mettle to achieve dreams or ambitions. We feel if we can’t make the grade we’ll rather fake it till we make it. What we may not be acknowledging is no amount of material acquisition will change the fundamentals of who we are and how we feel about ourselves. And, ironically, the more people try to fake success by subscribing to the retail industry’s version of success, the more indebted they become.

Wake up call

It’s a one-way ticket to financial stress. Examine the negative perceptions you may have about yourself. Did you have family members, peers or teachers routinely making comments like “you are not smart enough; you’ll never amount to anything; you have the wrong background/colour of skin/gender/whatever”?

We often hold onto these beliefs without being fully cognisant of it. If you were habitually told you would not achieve anything you probably now sabotage yourself. You may gear yourself up for a challenge, and then give up as self-doubt sets in.

It’s a relatively simple process to uninstall these negative beliefs. Do some research on Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). It will give you strategies to help reframe the way you think about yourself. According to NLP thinking, it essentially boils down to choice. Why would you choose to believe you are destined to fail when you could just as easily believe you are destined to succeed? Once you have accomplished this mind shift, you will break the pattern of non-achievement. If you can’t do it alone get some professional help. It may be the best investment you ever make.

Money is actually not your problem; it's your attitude towards money - the way you perceive it and interact with it causes the mayhem. When you run into trouble with money after trying and trying to get it under control, don’t look at your lack of discipline but rather at your values. Look at what you believe money can and cannot do for you. There is an inseparable link between our unconscious attitudes about money and the way we relate to money in our lives.

Ultimately, money success comes from self-validation. Work on your core issues and get rid of the emotional issues that propel you towards bad habits. Research shows that that when we're feeling down, we feel compelled to spend more money in an attempt to feel better. The trick is to break free of the debt trap so you can spend your money without the feelings of guilt that so often accompany a shopping trip. If you could spend freely you would be a whole lot happier.

I have never met anyone who was able to borrow their way out of debt – former South African Minister of Finance.

13 December 2010