Letting Money Control You

In July, I published a post about bad financial habits. One of my top bad financial habits happens to be letting money control my life. I know that a lot of you consider this a bad habit of yours as well, as a ton of you said that you had the same habit.

I am very guilty of letting money control my life. Everyone knows this, and I probably have the label of “The Biggest Worrier in Personal Finance.” Letting money control my life is a big part of my life that I do not like. I let money control me in that I think about money before I think about my health. I am working a ton of hours every week, when I should be thinking about my health and enjoying life.

I also calculate our financial goals all day long it seems like. I am always afraid that we will fall behind with a financial goal, and I will let it eat me alive. Fact is that we are doing good, so why do I let everything bother me so much?

I keep a huge buffer in our checking account because I am afraid that I will forget about an expense. This is definitely not good because this means that I am earning around 0% interest when I could be investing this money instead.

Money also controls me in that I've always worked a ton of hours. Ever since I was a preteen, I have been working. I feel like I've never stopped. While I am extremely happy with my life, I do need to step back and enjoy life a little more.

Right now I am working a ton. And WHY?! Well, because I am afraid that something will happen. I think I learned this from both of my parents. My dad was always all about saving money, whereas my mom has always had money issues. My dad was good with money but always checked his accounts. I even remember him balancing his checkbook all the time when I was younger.

Since my mom has never been good with money, I never want to be in her place. I want to control my finances and not have to worry about whether or not I can ever retire.

Life should not be all about money. We have a high level of income and a low amount of expenses. Why should money bother us? I guess I am afraid of falling back into bad habits, our income falling and everything going downhill. BUT WHAT'S THE CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING MICHELLE?

Maybe I need to start working on being more optimistic. That's the root for a lot of this.

My plan to stop letting money control me:

I need to stop calculating our money and finances everyday.

What does this even help? It just makes me think about our finances even more and takes up time when I could be doing something else. We are doing great with our finances, so why do I let the smallest things bother me? Who cares if we are a couple of dollars away from our financial goal for the month?

Life doesn't follow a plan. Not all goals will be met. I also need to be more realistic with goals.

Be happy with where we are.

We are doing good. I need to be happy, because not everyone is where we are with our finances. I'm always comparing myself to others, and I need to stop doing that. I also need to stop working so much because there's only so much money that you can make before life just wastes away before you.

I don't need things to make me happy.

Yes, we do spend money. I'm definitely not a minimalist. However, I want to be more frugal with our money and enjoy other things in life, such as going camping, hiking, kayaking and so on. I prefer experiences over material items.

Rewarding ourselves is important.

Since I'm always thinking about money, I don't reward myself too often. And when I do buy things for myself, I tend to over-think it to the point where I no longer enjoy what I bought.

This comment that I received on my Bad Financial Habits post pretty much sums everything up. We all need to enjoy life!:

Do you let money control your life? How so? Why?

P.S I'm leaving for New Orleans tonight. WOOHOOO! Life is good. Don't let this negative sounding post make you think that I'm not happy. Because I am 🙂