Managing Money
Jul. 17th, 2009 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheSome people are good at it, some people are ok as long as there's plenty of money, and some people are dreadful at it. I have never really worked out what makes people so. I know people from poor backgrounds and wealthy backgrounds in all categories, as well as people from varying degrees of comfortable backgrounds.
Some people seem to learn to manage money by living in fear of poverty (raises hand) and some people seem to learn by good example (raises hand) and some people seem to learn by being involved in the financial planning and management of their families as they grow up (like good example but more hands-on) (raises hand again) and most people probably have some combination of all three going on.
But the part I can't work out is what makes people who know what bad management does, up to a point (a point between stress and hunger, say) nonetheless continue to manage badly. What do Groups A, B and C learn which group D can't seem to? Let's not assume that group D are delusional, or want to rely on other people in their lives to pick up the pieces - let's assume that their desire and intention is to be able to spend only 252 pence in the guinea and not forever hanker after the half-a-crown that isn't there.
Some people seem to learn to manage money by living in fear of poverty (raises hand) and some people seem to learn by good example (raises hand) and some people seem to learn by being involved in the financial planning and management of their families as they grow up (like good example but more hands-on) (raises hand again) and most people probably have some combination of all three going on.
But the part I can't work out is what makes people who know what bad management does, up to a point (a point between stress and hunger, say) nonetheless continue to manage badly. What do Groups A, B and C learn which group D can't seem to? Let's not assume that group D are delusional, or want to rely on other people in their lives to pick up the pieces - let's assume that their desire and intention is to be able to spend only 252 pence in the guinea and not forever hanker after the half-a-crown that isn't there.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 08:18 pm (UTC)The basic assumption is that no-one I'm talking about *wants* to be so bad at money that other people bail them out all the time or they get evicted and end up hungry, and that some people are relatively effortlessly quite good at it. I'm aware that there *are* people who are either delusional (don't think real life rules about money apply to them at all) or genuinely happy to have other people dig them out of financial holes of their own making, and I'm not interested in that group, because I've lived with them and life is too short to think about them.
Someone elsewhere made the comment that money and emotions are very linked and I think a hell of a lot of it boils down to that.