Keris Stainton continues her self-improvement quest...
I’m utterly crap with money. I don’t spend anything without feeling guilty about it. My debts outweigh my assets. I spend everything I earn as soon as I get it and then find myself having to squeak by until the next pay day. I realised a while ago that this crapness is just another manifestation of my self-sabotage and way of keeping myself trapped in an unsatisfying life. Whew.
Last year I read Suze Orman’s The Laws of Money to try and work out where it all comes from. And guess what? It's from my parents. Shocker.
I listed all my money memories and found that I didn't have a single happy one. From my mum crying because her purse (containing the family allowance) had been stolen out of her bag (while she was watching me on the swings) ... to my dad stopping my pocket money because I was so happy accumulating coins in my snappy ladybird clasp purse that I was picking up loose change from all over the house ... to getting caught stealing from the Johnnie Walker change bottle (Dad fashioned a slot for the top from cardboard to stop it happening again) ... to my parents installing a payphone in the house (and for which my sister soon found the key). All shameful, guilty, angry memories. And Suze Orman claims that it is associating money with shame, guilt and anger that stops us from having any. Okay then. 'splains a lot.
The first task was to throw out all the half-used, unused, accumulated crap that you feel too guilty to get rid of. So away went my (crummy) watch that I've been meaning to get a new battery for for - ooh! - about three years now, badly-chosen lipsticks, half-empty (half-full?) moisturisers, all sorts of junk. Next up was to search the house for loose change. Apparently the average person has approximately £20 secreted around the house. Not me.
Next was to give stuff to charity. You're not supposed to sell it because selling it for less than it’s worth is indulging in the guilt/shame thing again, but I've given tons of my stuff to charity (I'm a money bulimic: binge and then purge) and so I sold a lot of stuff on ebay.
I’m still not right, money-wise though, but thankfully I’ve discovered Paula Langguth Ryan’s weekly podcasts. There are 18 episodes up there so far and I’ve only listened to four, but my perception of money is changing already. I’m not in control of my finances yet (don't worry, it’s pay day tomorrow), but I’m getting there.
Keris co-edits Shiny Media’s fabulous women’s fiction blog, Trashionista and contributes to TV Scoop and The Bag Lady. She in no way spent more on ebay than she earned.
