Hoarders

Have you seen the show ‘Hoarders’? I have watched a few episodes but it’s nasty. You see how people can’t let go of things and their whole house fills until there is only an itsy-bitsy pathway left in the midst of junk. What you find out pretty quickly is it isn’t about the stuff. They say they can’t live without that stuffed rabbit wearing a tutu holding a lamp but it really hinges on an emotional issue. They pile up things all around them so they don’t have to deal with the real issue.

We all do this to varying degrees. Thankfully, the degree to which I do it doesn’t bring rats, so there’s that. But we all buy stuff, eat stuff, smoke stuff, sleep through stuff or drink stuff in an effort to cover up the real stuff. And when it comes to our money, make no mistake, we definitely try to cover up the real stuff.

Our friend Eric said to me a few years ago, “When I had no money I felt the most out of control with my spending. It was like I had this need to buy stuff to prove to myself that it wasn’t as bad as it was.” I thought back to when I had no money and I could see the same pattern of trying to prove something by spending what I didn’t have. Here is the crazy part. The more money we made, the less I felt that urge to buy stuff! Isn’t it ironic? Yeah, I really do think. (Sorry that will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day).

You think it’s just lack of willpower or that the sale was really too good to pass up, but spending more than you make is no different than hoarding junk. It’s a cover-up. It’s a scam you are perpetrating on yourself. You are both the scam artist and the victim. Until you can identify the real reason for your spending, you won’t have more than an itsy-bitsy pathway.

Are you able to identify the real reason you bought something you didn’t need recently?