Are your emotions affecting your spending and building your debt?

Most of us don’t realize how much our emotions are tied into our spending habits and our build up of debt. Both of which eat away at our future by reducing how much we are contributing and building for retirement. Many of our clients at No More Mortgage have felt the same way until they experienced the peace of mind that comes with being in control of your finances and having a solid plan in place.

Do you have a fear of your financial health lurking around in the back of your mind? It’s normal. Until you get a handle on your finances and your debt, knowing exactly where you stand and putting a plan in place, you’re living in the financial wilderness. And the wolves are waiting to pounce on your money and your future.

We’re all familiar with the term “comfort food” and often partake when fear, worry, or frustration are eating at us. The same can go for spending for many people. They go out and spend when they fell stressed out or frustrated. Or they buy something on “impulse” without thinking about how it affects their bottom line and their future.

Fear, worry, and stress all create a climate for making bad choices and a lack of focus on what you should be doing and what you want for your future. And as you buy more of what you really don’t need, your robbing yourself of your future income for retirement by not contributing more, or even enough. Your emotions can lead you to become focused on today and trying to comfort yourself  while you push your needs for tomorrow into the back of your mind. If you aren’t thinking about your future, it’s one less thing to be stressed about. So when are you going to think about your future?

Where do you feel you are right now financially? Are you treading water with no land in sight? Are you on a path where you think you’re heading in the right direction but aren’t really sure? Are you just winging it and hoping for the best? Or do you have a plan in place and know right where you are financially?

I’m going to guess that where you are today is not where you thought you would be if you had written it down 10 years ago. Most people haven’t made much progress in the last 2 years on paying down their debt and many have increased their debt.

If you’re not where you want to be, getting ahead of your debt and building your future, why aren’t you? Let’s look at a couple of the pitfalls or mistakes we make in managing our finances.

First of all, who do you listen to? Are you getting advice on your finances from your friends or family? They’re usually in the same financial situation that you are. We tend to spend our time with people that are a lot like us. So if they aren’t in a drastically better place than you are, why would you listen to them?  You need to listen to people that are either much better off than you due to what they did themselves about their finances, or you need to listen to a financial professional with a track record.

What about the people on TV, talk shows, or the internet? Be careful there. You have to remember that many of the big personalities make a lot of money off of books, website subscriptions, advertising, and newsletters. They may not appear to be charging people for their “advice”, but they are getting paid a lot money through other ways. Some of them give great advice and some of them really don’t. And it’s easy to get into information overload when you spend your time watching or listening to them since they have to cover many topics to appeal to a large audience.

Another mistake that almost everyone makes is to not know how much money they really owe when you include the interest that you will pay out based on how you’ve actually been paying your bills. You can’t rely on looking at the balances due on your statements.

Fortunately, you can change the path you are on quite easily. You really need to find out how much you owe on all of your debt and how long it will take to pay off. Knowing this alone could help you make better decisions and could help you reduce unneeded spending.

We offer a free service at No More Mortgage where we create a “no cost, no obligation” analysis of your debt that shows you not only how much money you will pay out on your debt but how long it will take to pay it off based on how you pay your bills today. Our analysis also shows how much you could save in interest and how much sooner you could be completely debt free with our automated program that does the work for you.

Watch this short video on No More Mortgage and then call us for your free analysis at 800.285.9102

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