Managing Money

[ailbhe]

Some 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.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I used to be bad at it then became good, because I previously didn't realise that you have to look at how much money you get to decide how much money you should spend. It's one of those really fundamental conceptual fails, like people who believe in washing up fairies and wonder why their kitchen smells a bit funny.

An extension of this is knowing that you get paid some and spend some and shouldn't spend money you haven't got, but being too scared of feeling like you've failed to open some envelopes and read the contents, and not coming to terms with the idea that there's going to be a problem if you don't look sometime soon. I guess that's like somebody who drops the milk, knows they should mop it up but doesn't want to because cleaning dirty things is icky and puts some mental block in front of the idea that if the milk stays there bacteria, fungi and eventually mice will move in and clean it up for you because mice are also icky and oh look an obvious distraction like buying a shiny new car has conveniently become more important.