Understanding Your Debting Habit

Posted On: 2005-12-03
Length: 15:06

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Hi, this is Joan and this is episode 19 of The Prosperity Show. Thanks for stopping by. Our main site is prosperityplace.com where you can find lots of information about improving your relationship with money and yourself, and you can read about build your money muscles, nine simple exercises for improving your relationship with money, which is my new book that isn't officially out yet, but is available on our site. Because so many people deal with debt, credit card debt, and other kinds of debt, I'd like to kind of look at debting today and help you understand the dynamics behind debting, the pattern of debting and how you can begin to get out of it. Most people, when I talk to them before we set up coaching sessions, they tell me they want to get out of debt. And the debt goes across all income levels-people who make $25,000 a years, $40,000 a year, $100,000 a years, $200,000 a year and more, deal with some kind of debt. And this is often the cause of a lot of discomfort. Because the fact is, when you have habitual debt, you can't be in a very good prosperous place. Debting and prosperity don't go together. So let's take a look at what debting is all about, and why people debt in the first place.

One of the reasons that people debt is to feel connected. If I owe you money, you're not going to forget about me. On the lending side, if I lend you money, you're not going to forget about me, if you owe me money, you're not going to forget about me. So very often debting on a very deep level is a way of feeling connected. Also, people who feel deprived will often spend more than they have to "fix" for the moment, the pain that they feel of deprivation. So that if I see a lot of ads for fancy cars, or let's take it to the clothing level where I read the newspaper and I see all these sales that are going on, well I can justify buying something on sale perhaps, and even though I can't really afford it, I'm feeling so deprived today that I go out and buy it and put it on my credit card. And then when the credit card bills come, I feel a whole different set of feelings. I feel somewhat ashamed, I feel trapped by the debt, and the whole thing becomes a cycle. What I find interesting, now that people can get credit cards starting in high school, debting and the debting way of life becomes a habit...