How to Control Your Finances When the System Is Working Against You

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Your bills are damn high, the economy sucks, and debt traps are everywhere . Managing your finances is tricky, but here’s the thing: if you really want to improve your finances, focusing on these injustices, even if they are real, will not help. On the other hand, gaining control can help more than you think.

No one apologizes to the commercial schools that keep you in debt , the banks that hope you are too busy or apathetic to read the fine print, and the lenders that trick you into taking on more than you can afford. These are terrible practices. But there is so much you can do with them, and succumbing to helplessness is exactly what these entities want.

Control is a huge part of financial freedom. If you don’t feel like you are in control of your situation, you are at the mercy of a failed system. There are several ways to take control of yourself, even if the situation seems grim.

Focus on solutions

Problems that make you feel financially helpless are easy to get carried away. Things like:

  • Inability to pay the minimum credit card
  • Emergency Response You Can’t Afford
  • You can hardly afford to buy groceries because your other bills are too high

These problems can bring you to your knees. If you want something to change, you cannot get carried away by something that you cannot control. Instead, focus on what you can do. Find solutions, even if they are non-standard . For example, you might think:

Are these one-stop solutions for everyone? Of course not. You may not have time to plan meals. You may not have to rent out the junk. It may be that your lender denied your difficulties. As I struggled to pay off my debt, my mom told me a story about a friend who sold her car to pay her off. I immediately defended myself because selling my car was not an option. Instead of focusing on my point, I continue to focus on what was not possible, what is not good thinking to create positive change .

The point is, look for what works, rather than focus on what doesn’t. Try a lot of things. There is no guarantee that you will find a solution, but the more you try, the better you will be able to find it. If it helps, think of it as fighting a system that benefits from your failures.

Come up with a plan

Nothing makes you feel better than developing a solid plan. Even if you’re just writing off a tiny amount of your huge debt, the plan can make you feel like you’re betting on and taming the beast. And the good news is that there are simple instructions for just about every financial plan you might need. Here are a few:

Every time we write these guides, we usually add a disclaimer: your own situation may be different, so plan accordingly . This is a pretty broad statement, but it is necessary, and it supports the view that putting all the crap together is about control. Ultimately, you must come up with a plan that works for you, even if it means breaking some of these rules .

Make your plan realistic . Don’t try to come up with a plan that’s too difficult to follow, or you risk self-defeating. For example, don’t try to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle by spending only $ 25 on groceries a week by telling yourself you will survive on beans and top ramen. This is unrealistic and you will most likely lose. When your plan takes over, you lose control again. It is best to do this slowly and evenly. Better to have complete control of a plan that will get you out of debt in ten years than to get off the rails trying to do it in two.

Master your willpower

Taming your finances is a balance between being realistic about money and striving to achieve your goals. In any case, willpower is needed.

Even if you don’t spend a ton of money on fun things like games, drinks, or clothes, willpower is still there. You will need willpower to stick to the budget you’ve created. It’s going to take willpower to spend the $ 20 you got for Christmas on paying off your debt. You need it to fend off distracting ads that lead to cost overruns. It is very important to use your willpower to use it to your advantage. First, it means recognizing that you have a limited supply of it . According to the New York Times , willpower is “a bit like a muscle, as it can get fatigued if overused.”

You want to keep these muscles healthy and strong. For example, when I paid off my student loan, I grossly overestimated my willpower. I told myself that I would never do anything fun and would spend 100% of my discretionary income on paying off the principal. Of course, I have so much willpower. In the end, I stretched it to the maximum, ruining my plan. Once it was destroyed, I gave up, immediately went back to overspending, and I had to start from scratch.

It would be better for my willpower to give myself a little respite. For example, our very own Eric Ravenscraft explained how allowing himself to be indulged from time to time , even if it was a hot dog at a gas station, helped him stay sane and protect his own willpower.

To master your willpower, periodically evaluate it. Check your progress towards your monetary goal from time to time. Review your expenses on your account statements. See how the payment of your debt is progressing. After assessing how well you did the self-test, you can recalibrate. If you have failed, you can identify where you failed and adjust your financial plan accordingly.

You can alleviate this by setting specific goals for yourself. Researcher Kathleen Vos tells the New York Times :

“If or when I do this, I will do it … For example,“ When I’m done with work, I’ll go to the gym, ”works much better than“ I have to go to the gym. ” Or, “If I’m offered dessert, I’ll ask for a cup of coffee instead.” “

Another specific goal is to reward yourself for paying off a $ 1,000 debt. Or put cash into your savings account every time you give in to the temptation to spend .

Just like muscles, you can also build and strengthen your willpower. Try developing a completely unrelated little habit, such as emptying the dishwasher every night, or saying yes instead of yes. It sounds crazy, but nurturing this discipline will help you feel stronger.

Stay in the driver’s seat

Put yourself in your place and stay there. Ever since I failed my goal of paying off my debt, I have asked myself this question when making tough financial decisions: Will this decision make me feel more or less in control?

When I was in debt, I wanted to put more money into my loan, but that meant I was very confused, which put me in a vulnerable position. This decision might have made financial sense on paper, but it made me lose control of the situation, so it was a bad decision for me. I blew my budget, increased late fees and overdraft fees.

Another example: you spent all your money buying a house, and then you were unable to pay for anything else. The common term for this is “poor house ” and it basically means that your finances are very thin because you spent everything on your house and you have nothing left. Owning a home is great, but only if you can’t pay the bills.

When you relinquish control of your financial decisions, you become vulnerable to pitfalls like payday loans or debt consolidation. These financial services seek to ensure that you are in their power, and they do so by offering a “solution” when you’re desperate. Asking if this decision will make me feel more or less in control? can help you avoid desperate and vulnerable decisions.

In short, staying in the proverbial driver’s seat means trying to avoid potential pitfalls. These traps make you feel helpless and strain your willpower. When you feel helpless, powerless, and desperate, you usually don’t make optimal financial decisions. You are not driving, so you cannot manage your finances in the direction you want.

Make your own decisions

Make decisions based on your own values, not others . It’s easy to make assumptions about people based on their job, age group, or income. Freelance writers have to be poor. Artists must starve. Young people must live from hand to mouth. These generalizations may sound true, but you don’t need to live up to these assumptions; you can try to get around them. All your friends may be broke and think that because you have a low-paying job, you are broke too. I once had a good friend who worked full-time at Starbucks, and I thought that, like me, he was a typical bankrupt in his early twenties. I was very surprised when I found out that he earned a decent nest by saving, saving and taking on a part-time job.

Never mind the financial shame. And that’s quite a lot. Millennials don’t like going back to their parents. Baby boomers screwed up their retirement. These offensive generalizations are not only useless, but also useless. People will tell you that you are taking the easy path. They will say that you skip the latte cheap. They will laugh at you for returning to your parents. It does not matter. The important thing is that you put yourself in a position of control and stay there. The most important monetary rules never change , and critics may be right, but in the end, you have to do what works for you.

Many of us are broke these days. There is no easy solution to the social and structural problems that drag people down. Nobody gives out money or get out of debt cards. However, the best way to fight back is to take control as much as possible and operate your financial ship. Even if you are slow and steady, you will achieve more by feeling in control than by feeling dominated by an imperfect system.

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