Chapter 10
Money: You Make Your Own Misery

If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil.
--- HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754)

“Last week in the city: It was pathetic. There was this woman, dressed in filthy rags, reeking to high heaven, a hopeless case, sitting on the sidewalk with her little boy. A cardboard sign round her neck said: ‘HUNGRY’, and she had an open box to throw coins in.”

Eva, the 35-year-old middle-class lady who told me this grim recollection wasn’t expressing the compassionate concern that we all feel. She was expressing the haunting fear that she might end up like the street person she had witnessed. She wanted to leave her husband, Brian, but was afraid of the financial consequences.

“Leaving Brian scares the daylights out of me. Me with my kids on the street. A total wreck. It haunts me whenever I think about escaping from him.”

Possibilities Are Not Probabilities

I asked Eva: “Why dwell on that gruesome scenario? You may just as well picture yourself diagnosed with cancer the next time you go for a checkup or being burned to a crisp in a flaming car crash the next time you drive to the supermarket. In fact, either of these is immensely more probable than that you would ever become homeless.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right. But when you mention those other grim scenarios, they’re just like—unreal. The beggarwoman picture is my nightmare. Unbelievably dreadful. Maybe something to do with my childhood. My parents had a bad attitude towards money. I guess I’ll have to figure that out.”

“Well, yes and no,” I countered. “It would be helpful to figure out why your thoughts turn to this ‘doomsday’ scenario when you consider walking out on your husband. But the answer to that ‘Why?’ does not lie in your childhood, nor in your parents’ attitudes. It lies in the way you think right now—in your demands, your ‘musts’ and your ‘shoulds.’ ”

“Really?” Eva was clearly flabbergasted to hear this from a therapist. “I don’t have to relive my childhood experiences? Wow, that’s something to think about!”

A Shattered Marriage

Statuesque, with long auburn hair, Eva had been married for ten years and had two young sons. Although still living with her husband, she was currently pursuing her third affair. Eva and Brian lived in a large, eleven-room house in a northern suburb of New York. She had a master’s degree in fine-art photography and had constructed a dark room in the basement of her house. Her excitable manner came across in a loose, tangential, free-associative way of talking.

Eva and Brian, a specialist physician, often argued about the kids, their in-laws, and money—especially Eva’s excessive spending. Eva resented Brian and no longer felt any warmth toward him, but whenever she considered leaving, the specter of poverty would appear and paralyze her decision. Behind Eva’s anxiety and indecision lay the demand: I MUST have an ironclad guarantee that if I leave Brian, life will not be financially difficult for me and the boys!

I encouraged Eva to attack this poisonous notion by doing Three Minute Exercises. At first she balked at the self-discipline involved, but I assured her that after some practice it would amount to about three minutes a day. She soon became enthusiastic and started grinding out Three Minute Exercises at a furious rate. Here’s one of many.

Eva’s Three Minute Exercise

  1. (Activating event): Uncertainty about making it financially if I leave Brian.

  2. (irrational Belief): I MUST have a guarantee that if I leave Brian I will succeed at making ends meet.

  3. (emotional and behavioral Consequences): Anxiety and indecisiveness.

  4. (Disputing the irrational belief): Why MUST I have a guarantee that if I leave Brian I’ll easily be able to make ends meet?

  5. (Effective new thinking): I don’t NEED and can’t reasonably EXPECT a guarantee that I’ll make ends meet. I have no reason to suppose that God or the President will write me such a guarantee. There are no guarantees—except that we will all die someday, and even that isn’t cast-iron, for we can’t be sure that scientists won’t devise a method to extend life indefinitely.

    Demanding an unattainable guarantee practically guarantees that I’ll make myself anxious, and experience great indecision about leaving Brian. I do have a reasonable probability that, if I work conscientiously, I’ll mostly have a steady income, with occasional brief periods of unemployment.

  6. (new Feeling and behavior): No anxiety or indecisiveness, but concern and a serious endeavor to make the decision that’s best for me.

Eva did finally move out, and later she unexpectedly started to date Brian. Their relationship improved now that they were living apart and seeing each other less frequently. Eva dealt with the financial difficulties well. She was glad she had made the break.

Sharona, The Sheepish Shoplifter

A few weeks after Christmas, Sharona was sent to me by the court. She had been apprehended in a local department store, stealing three expensive boys’ shirts. “I don’t know what came over me,” she said.

Sharona was a lean, dark-eyed woman, with eight children. Her husband Emiliano worked in Chicago, and stayed there Monday through Friday. He returned home, a hundred miles south, on weekends. He worked as a security guard, but his real talents lay in running up credit card bills and parking tickets.

Although the family finances were shaky, Sharona had not stolen the shirts out of sheer hardship. All the children had adequate clothes for school and for play. Sharona soon disclosed to me that she had stolen several times before, without being caught, usually just before Christmas. Her voice was filled with guilt and self-loathing, but also with genuine puzzlement at her dishonest behavior.

“I don’t know why I did it,” she told me tearfully. “I couldn’t help myself.”

I assured Sharona that we could quickly discover precisely why she had committed the crimes. We would simply pinpoint the thoughts in her head right before she reached for the shirts and stuffed them into her shopping bag.

“It was automatic. I wasn’t thinking anything. I didn’t know what I was doing. I saw the shirts and I reached out and took them,” she whispered.

The Motive Uncovered

I questioned her about the immediate background to the latest incident, and encouraged her to imagine, step by step, the detailed course of events in the clothing store.

“I was feeling bad that I couldn’t get my kids some nice things for Christmas. We never seem to be able to make ends meet,” she said. “Emiliano’s always running up the credit card, buying things we don’t need without consulting me. Like the other day he comes in carrying a new laptop computer—he’ll probably never use it for anything except spaceship games.” Her eyes opened wide. “I couldn’t believe it. I never know what to tell the credit card companies when they call. They tell me I’m responsible for the payments too, even though he’s the one spending.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I think I hear a ‘must’ or a ‘should’ in there,” I told her. “Can you see what it is?”

Sharona couldn’t, so I explained that “compulsive” behavior—behavior you believe you have no control over—is generated by unrealistic or “musty” thinking. It probably begins with “Life must . . . .”

As Sharona’s “musts” and “shoulds” surfaced, I reflected them back to her:

  • Life MUST not consist of one financial hassle after another

  • My situation MUST not be so unfair

  • The universe SHOULD supply me with an engraved warranty that my life will improve

  • My kids MUST not be deprived of all the little extras that my friends’ kids nearly all have

  • My kids MUST not feel bad

  • I SHOULD provide my kids with more

  • My fairy godmother SHOULD protect me from the consequences of my stealing

  • It SHOULD not be so difficult to make ends meet

After a little coaching, Sharona was able to see the connection between her “musts” and her “out of control” actions. She felt particularly overwhelmed by “Life MUST not consist of one financial hassle after another” and worked conscientiously on that. Here’s one of her Three Minute Exercises:

Sharona’s Three Minute Exercise

  1. (Activating event): The bill collector phoned. Three overdue parking tickets arrived in the mail. Emiliano bought a speedboat on credit. Christmas is coming, and there’s no money left to buy the children decent presents.

  2. (irrational Belief): Life MUST not consist of one financial hassle after another for a poor slob like me.

  3. (emotional and behavioral Consequences): Self-pity, crying, compulsive stealing.

  4. (Disputing the irrational belief): Why MUST life not consist of one financial hassle after another? How does having financial hassles magically turn me into a poor slob?

  5. (Effective new thinking): Reality is reality, not what I think it MUST be. It’s a shame that I have great financial problems, but hardly the end of my life. No one has decreed that I run the universe, so nothing says that my life MUST not involve money worries. Life has always consisted of one frustration after another; it always has and it always will. No reason exists why it SHOULD not. At worst, I’ll have serious financial hassles for the rest of my life—but they’re just hassles, obnoxious pains in the rear end, not horrors, terrors, or catastrophes.

    There’s no evidence that I’m a weak slob with no control over my fate. I’m imperfect and I make mistakes. Like every other human who ever existed, I act weakly at times, but that hardly qualifies me as a worthless, weak person.

  6. (new Feeling and behavior): Discomfort and dissatisfaction, but no self-pity or stealing.

Within a few weeks, Sharona’s thinking was strikingly more realistic. When I heard from her last, she was long off probation and had not stolen for the past three Christmases. She had not succeeded in reforming her spendthrift husband, and had decided that, given all her circumstances, it was better to tolerate him than to shoot him or walk out. As far as I know, she is realistically putting up with her constrained financial position, rather than ripping herself up inside about her husband’s behavior.

Money Management for the Clueless

Money worries afflict people at all income levels. I have had clients with six-figure salaries who have made themselves sick with anxiety about their finances. I’ve also known many people getting less than half of the national average salary who have been free of financial anxiety. People who do suffer from money worries imagine that at some higher level of income—usually about twice their current income—their financial fears would vanish. This belief is nearly always mistaken because money worries aren’t caused by the objective financial circumstances. They are caused by a person’s foolish thinking.

There are many books and other sources of advice on financial management. This book does not compete with them. However, some people easily intimidate themselves about even the simplest books and lectures from the experts because they get a glimpse of a world that seems as complex as quantum physics. A few guidelines could help immensely.

It’s not true that “If a thing’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well.” Some things are only worth doing poorly, and some things are much better done poorly than not done at all. If you don’t know the difference between a NOW account and an IRA, it’s worth learning some simple principles which will help you. (However, you may want to pursue this a bit further. The effort and time needed to absorb a simple guide to personal finances, available from your local library, is about the same as that required to follow a TV soap for a few weeks and probably slightly more entertaining.)

Whatever your circumstances, bear in mind two principles:

  1. Unless someone just happens to give you a substantial sum, enough to live comfortably without working, there’s only one reliable way to improve your financial position: work, save, and invest your savings.

  2. Low-risk investments have low rates of return. Investments with high rates of return are risky—the higher the return, the greater the risk. Any proposition that seems to contravene this rule is sure to be a scam.

From Rags to Riches

Let’s consider the circumstances you might be in:

If you’re down and out, sleeping in the streets and in a Salvation Army center, the way to financial improvement is to get a regular job. (You don’t have to do this; there’s no “must” about it, but it’s what’s required if you aim to have a good chance of being significantly better off a couple of years down the road.)

Probably any job you’re likely to get will be tedious, harsh, and low-paying. This increases the temptation to going back to being a street person, but if you put up with the job for six months, it may not seem so onerous, and you’ll be more likely to find a better job.

It will be to your advantage to work hard, show up on time, every time, and be invariably polite and obliging, regardless of provocations.

Now let’s suppose that you have a steady job with a well below-average income. It’s a useful idea to start saving—even a small amount per pay period. You can put the money in a savings account. Your initial goal is to save enough so that you can live for six months without working. This will mean that, if you lose your job, you’ll be able to take some time looking for a better job.

The next step is to increase your earnings. You may find it useful to take evening courses at your local community college to gain marketable skills. Get into the habit of scanning the “Help Wanted” ads to become familiar with what jobs are available and what the qualifications are. But ignore all claims that you can make fantastic sums with little effort. No matter what anyone tells you, there are always hundreds of job openings in any city. You could also look for jobs that have promotion prospects. Remember that in low-to-average paying jobs, it’s steady reliability that most impresses supervisors. For example, there are always jobs available to people with a clean driver’s license, a little driving experience, and a smidgen of presentability. You can make it a goal to acquire these three attributes.

Now we’ll suppose you have made it into a close-to-average income position. You can either live strictly within your means, or you can accumulate debt. Both alternatives have their advantages and disadvantages. (The advantage of the latter is that you more quickly enjoy the things you buy. This may be particularly advantageous if you are buying durable equipment that will provide service for many years, like a personal computer.)

Most people find it best to take up a position somewhere between these extremes. It’s generally unwise to rely on credit for regular consumer spending, like meals, unless you pay off the debt with the very next bill—credit card rates are very high. You can easily find yourself hovering around your credit limit and paying the interest on that amount with little lasting benefit to you.

Every time your income rises, increase your savings, even if only slightly. Keep a check on where your money goes. If I ask you right now: “What percentage of your take-home pay do you spend on food/accommodation/clothing/reading material/drinks and smokes/going out and having a good time?” Can you immediately give a fairly accurate response?

Once you have a good handle on your expenses, you can think more seriously about how to reduce them. Do you buy any magazines you don’t read all the way through? Could you skim them by visiting the local library? Could you cut down your eating bills? If you find it difficult to find ways to cut, try this exercise: Once you know where your money goes, imagine that your income is abruptly cut by ten or twenty percent and there is nothing you can immediately do to restore your present income. You would then have to cut your spending by a similar amount. What would you cut? Write it down and look at it. Now, carefully consider: Would you rather have what you’re currently spending that money on, or would you rather have a growing nest egg that may prove extremely useful for the rest of your life?

The sheer power of steady, accumulated saving is often underestimated. If you save $1,000 per year at an interest rate of 10 percent and keep saving all the interest, you will have $63,000 after 20 years, and $181,000 after 30 years. But remember, you have no duty or obligation to save. It’s simply a wise thing to do if you aim to improve your financial position.

Danielle’s Dilemma

In response to my opening query: “How can I be of help to you?” most clients immediately relate their shortcomings, failures, interpersonal conflicts, and a whole host of other woes. Danielle was different. This petite 39-year-old, with an open, oval face and scarlet fingernails, began in an upbeat tone:

“I love people. I’m honest and sensitive. Being health-conscious is important to me.” But Danielle wasn’t free of troubles. She had split up with her boyfriend and was experiencing deep depression and guilt about supposedly having failed to make the relationship work.

Surprisingly, Danielle began the third session with an as yet undisclosed issue concerning both her work situation and her rapidly deteriorating finances. Her employment history consisted of a string of offbeat and varied occupations, including landscaper, freelance men’s personal fashion advisor, and bartender. Currently, she was a customer representative for a major credit card company.

Danielle was in mounting debt. She was paying off loans on a car and other major purchases. She frequently got “disconnect” bills from the phone company and warning letters from her landlord about late rent. Much of her depression related to her financial straits.

As soon as I began to explain the concept of “shoulds” and “musts,” Danielle rattled off a bunch of her own “musts,” as if they were well-rehearsed—which, of course, they were!

“Life MUST not be so unfair as to give me such financial hassles! Life MUST give me everything I want, including a flashy car, unlimited credit, gourmet dining, modern furniture, and exotic travel! I MUST keep up with the Joneses! I MUST have a good credit rating—and there’s something rotten about me if I don’t! I MUST not disappoint the bill collectors! I MUST not get evicted and end up on the street! I MUST not seem poor to others, and I’m worthless if I do!”

From Misconceptions To New Directions

I discussed with Danielle her major “musts” and their antidotes:

Life MUST not be so unfair as to give me such financial hassles! “It sometimes helps to consider the worst-case scenario and learn to accept that,” I told Danielle. “Let’s assume the worst, that life is utterly unfair to you. Can you think of any reason why it shouldn’t be?”

Danielle couldn’t think of any reason.

“The universe is hardly under any obligation to treat you fairly,” I continued. “And is it really true that life is unfair to you? You don’t have a painful, terminal illness. You weren’t born into a starving family in Ethiopia. In fact, your standard of living is far higher than that of the vast majority of humans who have ever lived or are alive today. What have you ever done to deserve such favored treatment?” She was amused to see her situation in that light.

Life MUST give me everything I want, including a flashy car, unlimited credit, gourmet dining, modern furniture, and exotic travel! “The technical term for that kind of thinking is ‘Low Frustration Tolerance,’ ” I informed her, in a half-joking manner. “It’s a fact that life consists of one deprivation, one inconvenience, one hassle, after another. If you demand that you alone be exempt from frustration, this implies that you should be magically protected from the normal stresses of living.”

“But can’t I dream about having all these things?” she asked plaintively.

“Certainly you may dream. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming, as long as you know that it is indeed dreaming. You can even do better than dreaming. Once you give up the angry demand that you be free from life’s slings and arrows, you will find it easier to methodically pursue some or all of what you dream about. You will then be more likely to turn at least some part of your dream into reality.”

“That sounds good,” she smiled.

“But let’s be realistic,” I said. “If you achieved every one of these things—and you probably could if you disciplined yourself to be clear-headed and hard-working enough—you would no doubt find daily life somewhat easier, but life would not be continuous, unremitting bliss. You can be sure that you would develop new wants, new unrequited preferences, and you would experience new frustrations.” After a couple of minutes pondering and discussing this, Danielle wholeheartedly agreed.

I MUST keep up with the Joneses! Many therapists try to get their clients to abandon such a “futile” and “superficial” goal as keeping up with the Joneses. On the contrary, I view such a goal as legitimate and reasonable. But like all human goals, no law of the universe states that it must be achieved.

I pointed out to Danielle that she had other goals, as well as keeping up with the Joneses. She could successfully pursue some of these other goals, even if the Joneses continued to outstrip her.

I also emphasized the point that the mere objective fact that she earned less than the Joneses had no power to make her miserable. Only her own view of the situation, her own emotional judgment on the facts, could make her feel wretched. She could compare her income and wealth with those of the Joneses, and be motivated to acquire more than they, without making it a “must” or rating her self in terms of the outcome.

The message soon began to sink in. “If I have less than the Joneses, so be it,” she concluded. “I guess I’d better stop bellyaching about it.”

I MUST have a good credit rating—and there’s something rotten about me if I don’t! “A poor credit rating does not rate YOU, in toto. It’s just a statement about one of the millions of aspects of you. You have good traits, bad traits, and neutral traits—and you have the potential to improve many of your bad traits. The bad traits show that you are an imperfect person; they don’t show that you’re a bad person.

“Also, credit ratings are not entirely static. They change, and you have some control over that. Simply by making payments promptly from now on, you can ensure that your credit rating will eventually improve.”

In trying to tackle Danielle’s guilt about her poor credit rating, I emphasized that having a flaw doesn’t make anyone worthless. “Every human walking the face of the Earth has major flaws,” I contended.

“Major flaws? Oh, I can think of a few people who really seem to have it together,” she said skeptically.

“You often won’t realize it unless you know them intimately,” I pointed out. “And even then they could keep their deficits hidden by limiting their lives. For example, someone with a fear of flying may avoid air travel, or someone who feels quite insecure under pressure will lose herself in a fairly safe, predictable job that doesn’t challenge her abilities to the full. People often arrange their lives so that their flaws are inconspicuous, but the flaws are there!”

I MUST not disappoint the bill collectors! The core of this “must” is excessive concern with disapproval. It’s not necessary to avoid other people’s disapproval, especially people like bill collectors with whom you will have no contact in your daily life.

Of course it would be good to have no debts and be free from bothersome calls by bill collectors. But Danielle seemed more concerned with protecting the bill collectors from disappointment than with protecting herself from their nuisance. “I can’t think of any practical disadvantages of their not liking me,” admitted Danielle thoughtfully.

“So you’re just worried about the wheels turning in their heads. If the bill collectors hate you, they hate you. How unfortunate! They have been disappointed before and they’ll be disappointed again. Actually, they probably think very little about you personally—you’re just one more case to them. Since people like you keep them employed, they have every reason to feel grateful to you. But even if they do hate and despise you, that’s their problem!”

I MUST not get evicted and end up on the street! “That certainly would be unpleasant and sad, but hardly the end of the universe,” I argued. “And how likely is it that you would end up on the street?” I asked, trying to inject some reality.

“Well, if it came to it, I guess I could stay with a friend, or my aunt, until I got back on my feet,” she mused.

“Right. Like the vast majority of people, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning several times in one week than to end up on the street. And if you did somehow ‘end up’ on the street, you’d be off it again, with a job and an apartment, within a week or two. But still, suppose you did end up on the street. That’s unpleasant, but you can stand unpleasantness, even extreme unpleasantness, although you don’t like it.”

I MUST not seem poor to others—and I’m worthless if I do! “Most people you meet really won’t care if you’re poor,” I told Danielle. “A few may dislike you for being poor. Some will actually like you for being poor. This is a statement about other people’s likes and dislikes, not about your worth as a person.”

“Their opinions of you exist only inside their brains. Science fiction movies to the contrary, their brains cannot emit fearsome death rays which make your stomach churn, raise your blood pressure, or muddle your thinking. But your brain—and only your brain—can indeed emit such ‘rays’ though they are really hormonal and electrical messages rather than rays. This isn’t science fiction, but medical fact.”

After a few sessions, Danielle calmed herself down about her financial status. Now able to view her situation more objectively, she decided to stay with her present position in order to build up seniority and become eligible for scheduled raises and promotions, and she made various adjustments in the way she did her personal bookkeeping. Currently, in therapy, she is working on her loneliness about not being in a relationship and her Low Frustration Tolerance about taking the initiative to find the kind of man she hopes to marry.

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Dr. Michael R. Edelstein
Clinical Psychologist, San Francisco
415-673-2848 (24 hours)
DrEdelstein@ThreeMinuteTherapy.com
www.ThreeMinuteTherapy.com