Learn to control money but do not allow it to control you

adrisco

Just read through the whole of your diary. You really should write for a newspaper/magazine. Absolutely wonderful. Good luck with the debt busting. Will look out for all your postings.

Firewalker

Thanks Adrisco - for me writing here really keeps me sane. Well, relatively speaking.

Firewalker

bugbabe1970

Hi Firewalker,
I have also just read the whole of your diary. How inspiring and interesting. You write beautifully.
Good luck on your journey. You have achieved so much already, keep up the good work.
x

ninky_2

strange times indeed. there are a lot of angry people out there and it is only going to get worse once the measures kick in. it feels a little like watching the murmurings of discontent in tsarist russia or revolutionary france. things could well turn very very nasty.

quite rightly people are angry that some have lined their pockets, governments have failed to protect them, and it is 'ordinary' people who are having to pay the price.

even we in the uk are paying 1.1 billion (that we can't really afford) to help the greeks. but is it really the greek population we are helping? and if other european countries go the same way (as is looking likely), who will be left to help? and what concessions will have to be made?

Firewalker

Have to say that I have been thinking about ‘wants’ and value systems and the way to figure out one’s ‘hierarchy of wants’...a lot actually. But have concluded that announcing that this week I’ll crack it, was a bit overly confident. I am still quite determined to do it and the reason is fairly simple and selfish. The more I think about it the more convinced I am that controlling expenditure is doomed if one does not work out one’s ‘hierarchy of wants’. Cutting back too much on a high ranking ‘want’ would inevitably lead to feeling of deprivation and a relapse. That is why many people save, save and then go and really splash out.

In my case cutting too much on books, movies and the theatre would have this effect. Actually I am more than ready to sell all my pairs of shoes (except the basketball shoes, of course) and to cut the food budget down to almost nothing. I am more than ready not to buy any clothes for the next decade – well probably a bit of an exaggeration but not too much. But I have to have my books and be able to go to the cinema and the theatre. I get a panic attack only thinking about the vague possibility of selling my books.

Problem is, I don’t have any guarantee that this is true – I believe it is because this is how it has always been. What I am set on doing is developing a way to regularly check what one’s hierarchy of wants is – because this is very dynamics as well. Have been looking at some existing methods and will be examining them in more detail later.

There is a complication that ought to be mentioned – sometimes we have, what I would call ‘phantom wants’, and these can appear to be high in the hierarchy of wants. But will write more about this one tomorrow – now feeling really tired.

And yes, I did vote today. In the end had to decide that I am voting for a person (our local MP candidate(s)) and that given that I have nothing to tell the local Lib Dem candidate, and voting Tory is out of the question – I have mentioned previously my deeply socialist roots. Cognitive dissonance resolved and civic duty fulfilled.

Firewalker

Firewalker

How exciting! Last night OH and I just heard the first three results – all Labour – and went to bed. This morning the radio woke me up to the news that actually no party has won.

The media appears to be in raptures – there is finally something to talk about. ‘Experts’ and political scientists are gleefully rubbing their hands – loads of explaining to do, loads of PhD dissertations to supervise. But why, why am I asking, is so much nonsense spoken this morning?

Radio 4: ‘The British people have spoken but it is not very clear what they have said.’ Get off! Of course it is clear. The British people just told all political parties to !!!!!! off. Another quote by an ‘expert’: ‘Currently we have three very strong parties...’. Really? In fact at the moment we seem to have three extremely weak parties that probably could win an election between them. One party has experience and technical competence but no flare or attraction; another one could possibly do the job of governing but has an affinity for electing baby faced upper class misfits for their leaders (lately); and the third one has someone who in five years will be a leader but for the time being is an interesting boy.

Socialist roots aside, after all the gaffs that Labour party as a whole and Gordon Brown more specifically made, the Tories should have not simply walked but run these elections. What an incompetent bunch....

Firewalker

savingwannabe

Thanks Firewalker. I feel better. I woke up at 4.30 after a nightmare that everyone was wearing blue, no one was allowed to care any more and they were taking away the red post boxes due to another privatisation. When i turned the tv on, it appeared to be coming true!!!!

Firewalker

I noticed your posts at 4.35 a.m. SW - had to have a second take on that one. I am awake so early in morning only if it is late...

Can't figure out what happens next though and even less what is best for the coutry. I think that the best thing for the coutry will be a government of experts which deals with the task at hand - strengthening the economy and bacically doing what we on this Forum do at micro level. But I doubt this is an option at all.

Labout and Lib Dem - very unstable and not good for us. Tory Lib Dem - maximum six months survival time. And what next?

Agrrrrrrrr!

Firewalker

Jo_R_2

Really interested in your post about the hierarchy of wants.

Certainly a lot of truth in that. The thing is, for me, my hierarchy of wants has either not been immediately apparent, or has been somewhat fluid (ie changing with the months) or changed according to current circumstance.

Eg, we moved house last year to a much bigger place. I couldn't fit much by the way of furniture in the old place, it was somewhere I moved into with my ex and held bad memories so I didn't invest much time or money in making it homely.

However, moving into this place signified a new start with my OH and a baby and our family, and I now find myself wanting to make it homely, not overly so but little touches, bits of furniture, which I can safely say has NEVER figured on my list of priorities before.

I also find as I go through each month, and pay off debts, that the little extra money that becomes available makes me think about buying things I would like (and indeed need, such as clothes and shoes) rather than putting it off, and off - I've just never had the spare money before to prioritise buying clothes and shoes but inevitably needs must at times and I have found it more important to be reasonably smart now I have a little spare money to be able to do so, rather than before when it didn't bother me because I couldn't let it, if that makes sense.

Then of course there is the dilemma - should I be throwing the same amount of surplus money at my debts as I did when I first started, or is it okay to take a little that used to go towards debts that are now paid off, to buy something that may have previously been considered somewhat of a luxury (and when I say 'luxury' I really only mean things that were a real treat before, such as a meal out with the family at the local pub, a new jacket from ebay, a decent pair of shoes?)

And how do you justify how much money to spend on 'you' - maintaining an air of sanity and some kind of life whilst balancing personal wants with paying off debts? You mention books, movies and the theatre as examples, and it is apparent that different people balance this in different ways when you read through DFW diaries, whilst still managing to make it work. I spend what I think of as a very small amount on 'me' at the mo, although it does increase as my surplus increases.

I think I know what you mean by phantom wants, would be interested to hear your thoughts.

ninky_2

firewalker - regarding your obsession with books. have you tried your local library? even if they don't have the book you want you can request it (for a very small fee) and they have to get it for you. also try digital books - less wasteful for the planet.

i too get a bit attached to books but many i just keep as a memento i have read them (this is probably an 'ego' thing). or that i would like to read them (and they have sat there for years). Ii now have a small number of bookshelves and limit myself to the number of books that will fit on them. i resist the temptation to store books in the loft. so i am only allowed to acquire a new book if i get rid of an old one.

it's also quite amazing what you can find on the internet these days which largely does away for the need for all those reference books.