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Some manage to save money even with a small salary, others earn enough, but still live on credit. How is your relationship with money and can it be changed?
It is impossible to live without money. And although many of the things that make us happy don’t cost a dime, we still need a certain amount per month. How much money does it take to feel comfortable? The answer depends on your needs, habits, personal ideas about a decent life. In addition, relationships with money are also a reflection of the usual way of interacting with the world.
In dealing with finances, the balance of coming and going is always important, emphasizes clinical psychologist Kira Romanova, and if it is violated, then difficulties arise. Money begins to be scarce, it is difficult to earn it, or it ends too quickly. No wonder they are compared with energy — cash flows should easily circulate, work, providing us with what is needed at the moment.
There are several ways to handle money, depending on how we manage to combine strategies for finding new funds and retaining them.
“I save on everything, although I have enough money”
These relationships with money are often rooted in family history. If at home it was customary to limit ourselves and survive precisely by saving, most likely, as adults, we will act the same way. We unconsciously adopt parental attitudes and implement them in our own family.
At the same time, another situation is also possible: “If the parents had difficulties with money, they did not know how to save, the child can choose the opposite strategy — start scrupulously saving. But in this case, he is still not free from the family scenario, ”says Kira Romanova.
The desire to save money, to strictly limit oneself in spending, also betrays our attitude towards ourselves, our needs and desires. Most likely, such a person perceives receiving pleasure as something unacceptable. It’s hard for him to indulge himself, and sometimes it’s just to understand what exactly he wants at the moment. Such people also tend to distrust the world, which means they want to play it safe in case the worst happens.
“Money is energy, a resource that needs to be spent not only on the necessities, but also on and on pleasure,” the psychologist emphasizes. Otherwise, burnout is possible: we give a lot of energy at work, but do not feel the return. If we do not have a need to spend more, then additional money is unlikely to appear.
However, what often happens is that we allow ourselves to spend more, and we immediately have new opportunities to increase income. This is not magic, but rather the result of a change in our thinking and attitude towards money.
«Money doesn’t stay with me»
Those who use this strategy often live in debt, regardless of the amount of income. A person not only does not have time to put something aside, but also constantly feels a lack of funds. This makes him borrow money from friends, take loans.
Such a strategy is characterized by a very intense flow of monetary energy: the funds have not yet arrived, but they have already been used. “Often the passion for shopping resembles an addiction: over time, more and more money is needed to experience certain emotions from shopping,” says Kira Romanova.
We are not accustomed to postponing pleasure. As soon as the desire appears, we immediately rush to satisfy it, not thinking about the consequences for the family budget. Lack of savings, life on credit make us dependent on others — on parents, a partner, a bank. We are turning into children who are used to relying on their elders for everything.
The ability to save is just as important as the ability to spend money on pleasure. Savings should not clamp us in a vice, but savings allow us to rely on ourselves in case unforeseen difficulties arise, the psychologist believes.
“I don’t know how to earn a lot”
There are also those who complain about the difficulties in attracting money into their lives: it seems that no matter how hard you work, you can only dream of a decent income. Friends build successful careers and seem to attract money, while we are forced to be content with much more modest professional success and income.
Lack of career advancement may be due to two factors. The first is the fear of venturing into something more. Increasing income always means investing additional forces, searching for new opportunities. “Some believe in the idea of easy money, but money is always a contribution of our resources,” emphasizes Kira Romanova.
The second factor influencing the attraction of money is the responsibility for your income and career advancement. “The employer often becomes the equivalent of a parental figure: we expect too much from him, we shift to him the responsibility that we ourselves must take,” adds the psychologist.
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Is there a proper money management strategy? How much do you need to invest in order to earn enough, how much to spend, and how much to save? Kira Romanova emphasizes that there is no universal balance. It is important to develop your own strategy, to find the best option for distributing cash flows.
The only thing that will be fair in each case is to recognize that more depends on us than it might seem at first glance.