November/December 2002 Living Now
Money and Spirit

by Fred Brown

Fred Brown
"Well, I think you ought to go from pay check to paycheck", was all I could say to the young man, named Jim, who telephoned me to confess that he had lost control of his spending and was struggling to find an anchor to hold himself in check. For over six months I’d been working with Jim and had watched him slowly come out of financial chaos. He had been responsible enough to pay off his credit card debts from money he received from his parents, and had dutifully monitored his spending by daily subtracting his expenses from his monthly spending goal. I was just getting optimistic that soon he would improve his financial decision-making enough to consistently live with his income when this call came and undid everything we had worked so hard on to achieve. "What happened?" I had asked. "My parents are giving me a hard time", Jim replied, "They don’t want me to leave my job and go back to school. They say I can’t afford to make the move. They don’t understand me." "That’s tough," I said. "It’s really set me off," Jim said, "I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything. I find myself getting depressed, and when I’m in that mood I just go out and spend money. Jim shook his head despondently. "It makes me feel awful."

"You’re only being human," I said, "lots of people lose control of their money when they are caught up in emotional issues. As I said these words, I was thinking about how I had lost control of my own accounting during our recent move. The trauma of being in transit and not knowing where our next home or bank would be had completely disrupted my record keeping so that I had no idea where I stood. Only after living two and a half months in our new home was I able to get my financial pieces together.

"I lost control of my spending when I was moving to Portland," I said, "I was so stressed out by our move." "That makes me feel better," Jim said, "But I know I won’t be able to work on my finances until I get this issue with my parents settled." "How much money do you have in your checking account right now?" I asked. "$600," Jim replied. "When is your next pay check?" I asked. "In ten days," Jim replied. "I suggest that you just concentrate on making that $600 last until your next pay check. Subtract your check payments from your balances conscientiously each day and do whatever is necessary to stay within the amount you have." I said. I paused and then asked, "Have you been using your credit cards?"

"I have, and I’m not sure how much I’ve spent." Jim said.

My heart sank as I was afraid that Jim’s old credit card habits may have "kicked in."

"Find out how much you’ve charged, and in our next session we can decide on how to handle them", I said, and as an after thought, "please try not to charge anymore on your cards."

Jim’s case got me thinking about the power that emotional issues have in setting us back from our personal financial growth. I remembered another case in which a client named Hank had also replayed almost the same scenario that got him into financial trouble the first time. Hank had originally come to me because in the course of divorcing his wife, he had put thousands of dollars in legal fees on his credit card that he couldn’t afford to pay.

I warned him about getting into hassles with his former wife, and to my chagrin, I watched a complete replay of the legal frustrations and credit card difficulties that had plagued Hank during his divorce. There was nothing I could say to help Hank as he got so absorbed in his own feeling of victimization, that he couldn’t see what he was doing to himself. In reflecting on these two cases I can see that in both instances the individuals got so caught up in their issues that they lost the will to control their money. Periodically this can happen to all of us. Our best recourse when this happens is to accept our chaos without judgment and regroup as soon as we can-a hard lesson for most of us.

Fred Brown, a Personal Financial Consultant/Therapist for over thirty years, has had five published books on personal finance. He can be reached at 503-771-7650 or through his web site @ moneyandspirit.com.