Things I wish someone had told me!

pennyforthem · 30 August 2022 at 1:22PM

With costs spiralling out of control, I can see my Mum in the same mindset that I was when I purchased "the chair" She's got a lot on her mind worried about how she will be able to afford to live soon, and she's in a spiral of thinking if she spends money on stuff that she will save money with no proper thought of practicality of use or cost to gain ratio.

That is because when we have beyond a certain amount on our minds, our ability to make rational decisions diminishes, it's part of our survival strategy. So if you have a lot on your mind, be aware to take extra time to consider your spending, so you don't end up with a £260 chair that you cannot use for medical reasons and nothing to sit on!

The other thing is when we have problems that we cannot control, we are unhappy with our lives, or maybe you are just bored, it is easy to take up things to avoid living in reality. So you have probably heard of gaming addictions, drug addicts, gambling etc, but it can also be less obvious things and is actually defined as anything that has a negative effect on our lives and carried out compulsively like spending money on needless things. When you break it down, it is a need to avoid an unpleasant thing in your life,( which in itself is unlikely to make it better.) I only learnt this when it had become habitable, so I wrote a list of positive activities I could be doing instead, and every time I caught myself going back to the negative coping strategies I looked at the list.

So if you spend a lot of time doing something, stop and ask yourself is this actually benefiting my life or am I using it to avoid something and I do mean properly think about it because I was convinced I was being productive and making a difference but in reality all I was doing was blundering from one idea to gain my life back to another whilst throwing money at my ideas that all for one reason or another turned out that I was incapable of doing. The only need it for filled was for my mind not to be in reality, and I now have piles of things that need to get rid of. The sad fact is nobody even tried to stop me and an awful lot of money was wasted in the process, all one person had to do was point out that I was trying to escape the pain of living, but I was actually adding to the problem.

I hope with the current spiralling costs that this can prevent some people making my mistakes!