Debt-Free Forever Gail Vaz-Oxlade (best ereader for epub TXT) 📖

of cleaning products (whatever happened to a mop and bucket?), and wouldn’t dream of not buying lottery tickets because if their numbers came up they’d be mad as heck! Folks throw huge weddings, going thousands of dollars into debt for one night of fun and frolic. Parents throw ridiculous birthday parties for kids, inviting whole classes so no one will be offended. Guys and dolls spend buckets of money trying to look youthful, to lose weight, to be healthy. And just about everyone believes that if the deal is good enough, it justifies spending money they haven’t yet earned.

Most of the people I have worked with have had a problem with impulse spending. Do you? If you walk into a shoe store and see a pair of shoes you like, do you buy them? If you are grocery shopping, and the smell of the bakery wafts in your direction, do you fill your cart with yummy goodies? I’ve even met people who have bought a car on impulse because “they looked good in it.” You’ve got to be kidding me!

Putting away your credit cards, working with the Magic Jars, and writing down everything you spend will go a long way to making you change your spending patterns because it’ll make you aware of what you’re doing with your money. No awareness—shopping unconsciously—means the Impulse Gremlin can ride around on your back whispering sweet nothings in your ears.

If you let the Impulse Gremlin live on your back, nothing much is going to change in your life. You’ll always be responding to the Gremlin’s whispers. You’ll never have a cent saved. And your debt will continue to grow. But if you’re determined that you are no longer going to be at the beck and call of a Great Sale, the Last Day, or the Best Price, there are some steps you can take to help yourself. The place to start is to understand just what your Shopping Gremlin looks like and how it is leading you down the wrong path.

“I’M THE SHOPPER” GREMLIN

Shopping is easy; stopping isn’t! If you are responsible for keeping your house beautiful, keeping your children beautiful, keeping your partner beautiful, you’re probably always shopping. You may love a good bargain. Maybe you’ve made a habit of hitting the Everything’s 60% Off Everyday Store every chance you get. I’ll bet not a day goes by in which you don’t buy something: food, clothes, stuff for the kids, a pack of gum, a magazine—your job is to shop and you’re damn good at it.

Problem is, the “I’m the Shopper” Gremlin has no clue about the difference between a need and a want. It just wants to SHOP. And so, with this Gremlin whispering soothing messages of love, caring, and responsibility in your ear, you keep shopping.

The first thing you have to come to terms with is the difference between a need and a want. Needs are the things you must have to keep on keeping on. You must keep a roof over your head, so basic accommodation is a need. Having a six-bedroom, four-bathroom home with hardwood floors and cathedral ceilings is a want. Basic sustenance is a need. Lobster, shrimp, and filet mignon are wants. So are beer, wine, and cigarettes. (I don’t care if you’re addicted, it’s a want.) A snowsuit for Baby Jane is a need. Anything beyond your fourth pair of shoes is a want. Health coverage, insurance, and the ability to get to and from work are all needs. Vacations, big-screen televisions, and nicer cars are all wants.

If you’ve got the “I’m the Shopper” Gremlin running rampant through your life, then you have to build in some structure so that you stop shopping unconsciously. Some people decide they will only shop one day of the week since it removes the temptation of the impulse buy. Some people decide to shop with a list and buy only what’s on the list. If they see something they want, they add it to their next list. Some people declare a moratorium on shopping, deciding to participate in shop-free days two, three, or four days of the week. They don’t buy anything on those days. Then there are the folks who challenge themselves to see how long they can go without buying anything. (Gas and food are the usual exceptions since they are virtually always needs.) If they do shop, they have to start their count again, and they’re always trying to beat their best no-shopping streak.

“HAVING MORE MEANS A BETTER LIFE” GREMLIN

In our very consumer-focused, advertisement-driven, marketing-moulded world, “better” has come to mean “more.” People think that their lives will be better if they can just figure out how to have more stuff. They have been listening to the “Having More Means a Better Life” Gremlin.

Ya know what? More stuff doesn’t make you happier. Nope. In fact, I’ve seen an inverse relationship. It seems the more unhappy you are, the more stuff you need, as if shopping is the balm that soothes your sense of what is missing.

If more made you happy, then lottery winners, people who inherited, and people with the highest incomes would be the happiest in our land. Not so. Studies have shown that those who suddenly come into “more” are often worse off five years later.

So why then do we have an obsession with accumulating more stuff? Why the drive to have the latest cell phone, the newest fashions, the shiniest car? It may simply be that we’ve stopped measuring the richness of our lives by the things we take for granted, that other people would die for: clean air, an abundance of water, healthy food, good health, the availability of education, meaningful work, and freedom of religion and speech, to name just the most obvious. We have substituted consumerism for what people really want: love and community, a sense of belonging, worthwhile effort, happiness. The work of overcoming our rampant consumer addiction can only be done inside ourselves. Nobody else can