Originally Posted by Buehler445
DaFace and Rain Man covered the good stuff, but my recommendation is to take a look in the mirror and get to the root cause of your behavior.
When you spend money (or gamble) what are you feeling? If you can effectively identify the feelings, then you can work on getting to the root cause of your spending problems. Work on rectifying the underlying issues that cause you to spend recklessly.
The easiest problem is boredom - find something cheaper to occupy your attention.
Next is ignorance/laziness - this usually isn't the case because some common sense approaches can address the problem. But if it is Rain Man and DaFace just fixed you problems.
Other stuff, like needing to be in control of something, needing a status symbol, being depressed and thinking something new and shiny will make you feel better are a lot harder, and it has to come from you.
People have come to me a lot over the years saying "DUDE you've got an MBA and you do taxes, fix my finances!" So I would give information similar to Rain Man and DaFace. You have to work with proper information. Find out where your money is going then we can work on a proper allocation of your resources. The problem with that is it is based in logic, and most peoples problems, not restricted to finances (substances, gambling, temper, laziness, whatever), do not become logic from a position of logic. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out, but that's what I've come up with over the years.
As you sit here now, ready to make a change, definitely do those things. But as you get an impulse to buy something or do something stupid, do an introspective examination and try to identify the emotions that drive the troublesome behavior. It's been my experience that you can't affect real change until you have a good handle on those. They're the hardest ones too. I deal in logic and it's difficult to get there. But most people I've run across will start out with the best of intentions and fall flat because they aren't emotionally stable enough to do what they need to do (that's not a crack at you, a shockingly small number of people in society are balanced emotionally).
And it's not just major life changes, hell I struggle with eating right. I'll lay out a good plan, and then have a shit day on the farm and eat some garbage to make myself feel better. It's a real thing. A vast majority of our decisions in any given day aren't necessarily based in logic. Some more than others - I fall firmly on the logic side, but garbage food is an emotional crutch for me.
Beyond that and back to the structure of things, you're in some shit, friend. Understand that I don't know anything about your situation, but here's what I see from what you've posted. I don't know what your living expenses are, but I'd try to knock off any fat you can, even if it takes moving into a smaller apartment, not eating out, kicking nicotine or alcohol or pop or whatever. Streamline your expenses down to the bare minimum.
Then I'd look at the revenue side of the equation. Typically it is easier to earn your way out of trouble than save your way out of trouble. If you can't pick up more hours at work, look at adding another job, a side hustle, or some fill in work. All that shit sucks, but you get money in exchange for work, so that's what it takes.
Philosophically I don't like consumer debt. I have some student loan debt that I refuse to accelerate because it is uncollateralized. It's irrational, but that's where I'm at. Other than that I just have a mortgage. Buy a cheap car and get it paid off ASAP, and don't buy anything on credit. You probably will until you can un**** your situation, but generally don't do it.
I can budget like a mother****er, but I'd be lying if I said I budgeted my personal life. What's served me pretty well is just acting like I don't have any money. For most of my life I didn't and it carried over to when I finally started getting some and it treats me pretty well.
Beyond that, I don't know what kind of plan you have at work, but after the debt is serviced, you need to look hard at saving like a bastard for retirement, too. I think you're about my age, and we're not that young anymore.
Anyway, there is a lot of heavy shit to process in this post, but that's been my experience.
Best of luck bud.
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