Use more sense than cents when spending

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Keep calm - and spend ...

Everywhere we go it seems we are encouraged to spend more than we may have planned to or we walk into a store and end up buying things we don’t really need. Being responsible with our money doesn’t seem to be a popular message. Who wants to have the oldest model of phone, car or style of clothing? Who really wishes they had less money to spend on things?

The way we spend our money says a lot about our values, ed what we believe about ourselves and where we find our identity. Welcome to week 3 of the Heartlines Values & Money campaign. This week we focus on the money value, responsibility in spending.

We seem to overspend for a number of reasons: to impress others; because we feel we deserve it; to show progress in our lives (maybe from a childhood of poverty); to hide our fears or insecurities; for pleasure – and even for stress relief (retail therapy).

But spending irresponsibly can affect our true happiness, our bank balance and our peace of mind. In South Africa we have more than 9.53 million people with bad credit records. Too many people are overspending and getting into all sorts of trouble. Just ask Axe Gumede (from Nothing for Mahala).

If we are honest with ourselves about the reasons we spend the way we do, we may find that it becomes easier to make responsible spending decisions. The poet Oscar Wilde said, “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Let’s challenge ourselves to question the true value of everything we spend money on. Let’s use more sense and fewer cents when spending.

Week 3 of the Heartlines Values & Money campaign.

Join the conversation. Live the values.

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