Have you ever bought a stunning pair of heels and then felt guilty about it because they cost your weekly salary? Well, you’re not alone! Apparently, 72% of Australians have felt guilty about spending money (according to research commissioned by Evolution Media Group), with 22% saying it happens regularly! We’re quite a feel-guilty lot, and Vanessa Stoykov – a finance and money expert, and creator of Channel Nine’s Learn From The Money Masters: The Investment Series – explores this tendency with our spending habits in her new book The Breakfast Club for 40-Somethings.
According to Vanessa, “The fact that such a significant number of Australians feel guilty for spending their own hard-earned money is frightening. From my experience, most negative emotions associated with money come from a lack of awareness. Making payments blindly, without knowing how much is or isn’t in the bank account, is a scary feeling for anyone.”
Other data from the research is equally alarming:
- Only a mere 22% of people refrain from buying items they can’t afford.
- Females are almost three times more likely to feel guilty about their spending habits on a regular basis.
In her book The Breakfast Club for 40-Somethings, Vanessa provides a new and entertaining way to help change people’s long-term behaviours and lives for the better, by helping them be financially savvy.
Financially Savvy Tips
Some of Vanessa’s expert tips to stop feeling guilty include:
- Work out exactly how much debt you are in. To get a true picture of your financial situation, you need to calculate all your debt and be real about it. Understand your true position and the assets you have versus your liabilities (debts) so you have an honest financial view of your personal situation. Only by doing this work can you know what to change.
- Calculate and consolidate. The reality of knowing an actual figure can be frightening, but not knowing how much money you really have is much scarier than having a plan to pay it off. A simple step like consolidating all of your credit cards into one low-interest card can make a huge difference in getting you out of credit card debt far more quickly. An extra tip – commit to paying more than the minimum each month in order to pay off that credit card debt even faster and get you back on track.
You can purchase your copy of The Breakfast Club for 40-Somethings on Vanessa’s website. The book is published by Wiley and is available in all major bookstores, including Big W, now at A$25.95.
