Entitlement Mentality - It Decimates Your Finances!

[GoldenEagle]

Thought this was an interesting article I read this morning...

How to Stop the Entitlement Mentality from Decimating Your Finances

by Craig Ford on March 12, 2013

See: http://christianpf.com/entitlement-mentality/

“What is the most common reason why people don’t budget?” That’s a question I ask during my Transforming Your Financial Diet Workshop for churches.

So far, the most repeated answer has been entitlement.

Entitlement involves making purchasing decisions based on what you think you deserve instead of what you can actually afford. Making purchasing decisions from an entitled standpoint can absolutely demolish your finances.

How to Stop the Entitlement Mentality

1. Respect your stage in life.

If you’re young and newly married, it’s unfair to expect to drive new cars and live in a new home. If you have young kids, you’re probably driving around in a messy minivan instead of a stylish sports car.

When my wife and I were first married, we lived in an apartment that only cost $275 per month. We didn’t get to control our own heat, and our neighbor was a chain smoker so everything we owned smelled like smoke.

Did we love the apartment? Not really. But it was what we could afford. We knew that we’d need to endure a few harder years so that we could get to a point that we could afford something a little more homey.

2. Ignore the Joneses.

Just because most of your friends have the latest and greatest doesn’t mean it is something that you can afford or something that can fit within your budget. Too often we do things out of peer pressure – pressure to be included or pressure to fit in. Your needs and your purchasing decisions must be made based on your income and your other fixed expenses.

3. Keep a budget.

The job of a budget is to say, “Here’s what you can and cannot afford.”

A lot of people hate the idea of budgeting because they think it’s going to force them to say no to things they want to buy. There is some truth in that concern.

Money is a limited resource in your pocket. In other words, if you have $50 in your pocket, you cannot buy $70 worth of items. As a result, every time you say “yes” to a purchase, you are simultaneously saying “no” to another purchase.

Budgeting is simply the act of deciding what to say “yes” to and when to say “no.”

4. Practice self control.

Self control is the ability to say no to something that you really want.

It’s a habit that helps in our spiritual lives and in our finances. There is a benefit to denying your own desires.

Self control, like a muscle, must be developed and strengthened. If you how to have self control in your finances, the benefit will apply to all areas of life where you must deny your own wants, needs, and wishes.

5. Make the “can I afford it” question trump all other questions.

Entitled people buy things they know they cannot afford. Somehow they’ve convinced themselves that they deserve an item, and they think that allows them to break the traditional rules of economics.

If you can’t afford it, that should cease all further discussion.

I’ve talked with numerous people who bought something they couldn’t afford because they thought it was important, they thought it was cool, or they thought it would make life better. The only result was debt that they would later have to pay off.

Something might be fantastic to have, but if you can’t afford it, then it’s time to move on to an option that is in your price range.

Where have you witnessed entitlement negatively impact your finances? What do you do to fight against entitlement? Thoughts?

[Tinky]

We are all paying for this entitlement society. Taxes keep going up and up and up to keep those who can work, but won't, comfortable.

Socialism is legalized theft.

[wingnut-]

I experienced this when I was married, unfortunately there is little you can do if your financial future is linked to someone else. I have always been good with money, and never buy anything unless I actually have the money to pay for it. I entered marriage with a student loan and a mortgage, no credit card debt at all. After about two years of marriage I was making a six figure salary and had paid off the student loan, my mortgage was only around 400 a month. I bought the house for 45k, sold it twelve years later for 135k but only walked away with 20k to put down on my next house.

I can't speak for everyone that has spending issues or isn't responsible with money. I think in my ex wife's case the problem was that she wanted everything her parents had and more, and she wanted it NOW. I often told her that it took our parents generation a lifetime to get where they were, it didn't happen overnight, but that never seemed to sink in.

[Coffeespiller87]

entitlement I never seriously thought about that being the trouble for me with my spending. I dont make very much I earn 10 bucks an hr a good paycheck would be like 475 but taxes went up so I think its less then that now. any ways there are always something to want and I have trouble telling myself no when I want something its extremely difficult to suppress my desires. when I want something it is stuck in my brain until I do something about it.