Are You Good With Money?

You Are Great With Money

You know the value of a dollar - and you save and spend wisely. By living below your means, you've set yourself up for a rich future. And while it may hurt to sacrifice now, you'll probably have plenty of money later on. You're on your way to riches - just keep it up.

Are You Good With Money?

This is not a topic I write about much, but finances used to be a huge struggle for me. I lived with a serious poverty mentality. I grew up not having much and was on my own fairly young, making a lot of mistakes that young people make in accumulating debt.

But over the last five or ten years, my relationship to money has changed quite a bit. I'm not rich or wealthy, but I have enough to be comfortable. Most of that is due to learning to live within my means. Aside from a serious book addiction (and a lot of supplements), I don't spend much money on anything other than travel. And even that is not very frequent due to my job requirements (clients get testy when I go away for a while).

One of the great things about becoming more self aware is learning to stop when I feel the "need" to buy some new toy and ask myself if I really need it. Usually I don't. This has been a great lesson in not feeding cravings and attachment. I like things as much as any other guy, but I generally don't feel the need to buy them.

It seems to me that a lot of people in this culture still define themselves by the things they own -- their car, house, clothes, toys, or whatever. The culture feeds that mistaken sense of identity in the way companies sell their products.

One of the first steps toward being good with money, it seems to me, is to break that connection of self-worth and possessions. I still struggle with this sometimes, but I've gotten a lot better with it over the years. If I have become good with money, this was one of the first steps toward getting there.

Tags: blogthings, Are You Good With Money?, memes, finances, attachment, self worth