There are a lot of people going broke saving money. If you are one of these people, I’m not picking on you. In fact, I’d like to help your situation get better. I bring up this phrase, “going broke saving money” because it’s a small example that relates to other parts of our life. Let’s unpack what’s going on here and see how it translates to other areas.
Lack of goals
The first thing I’d like to address is that this behavior of buying things because they are on sale reveals a lack of clear financial goals. One of the best tools to avoid wandering and being controlled by circumstances is to set and keep goals. Having a written spending plan clarifies goals around spending.
Do you want to save for your kid’s college? Put it in the plan. Do you want to take that family vacation? Put it in the plan. The spending plan then reflects your values and your goals around money.
If you don’t have a spending plan, you haven’t gotten clear on your financial goals. And if you’re going broke saving money, I can pretty much guarantee that you don’t have a spending plan that your family has agreed to.
Language
The second thing is the language and words we use around the behavior. I don’t know if the phrase, “buy my thing and save money” is from some evil marketing genius or if it just emerged, but the phrase is in fact a lie for most people. Saving money is when you set aside some money and don’t spend it. Like when you save money for college, you put the money in a college fund or an account reserved for college. The money is then not spent on anything except college.
We aren’t saving money when we buy that thing. We are spending money when we buy that thing. It’s the complete opposite. And if we honestly examine the money we didn’t spend (because we spent less compared to an alternative), we don’t set that “saved” money aside for something in particular. Instead we spend it at the next store on something else. By definition, we didn’t save it.
The phrase “buy this thing and save money” gives you the exact opposite impression of what’s really going on. Our subconscious tells us, we’re being smart with money, “we’re saving money,” when in fact, we are doing the opposite. We are spending money.
The words we use around this buying behavior doesn’t support us in our goals. It doesn’t support us inactually being smart with money. It confuses us about what is smart money management and what is not.
Note that a better phrase would be “spending less,” which is more accurate and supports us making better buying decisions.
Lots of Activity, No Results
For people who are going broke saving money, I suspect this thought eventually comes up, “How can I be so broke? I work so hard to get all these great deals, and I’m no further ahead. What gives?”
This highlights the fact that activity does not equal results. Rarely do results show up all by themselves, but by the same token, the activity needs be engaged with an eye on results.
When we don’t get results many of us swing to one of two extremes: we either die, or we go insane. We die by giving up. Having no goals or dreams is a lifeless existence. And maybe you’re not really dead, but the part of you that wanted that dream or goal dies inside you.
The other extreme is to go insane – you know, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If the activity isn’t producing the results, you must quit the activity and try something else, or you’re going insane.
Translation
If we examine our hearts about what we deeply desire in life – for us, for our loved one, and for others, we’ll find that we could engage in a whole lot more meaningful endeavors. But if we “looked under the hood” and examined what’s really going on in our life, we’ll find that we don’t have clear goals around these meaningful endeavors, we use words and thought patterns that hinder us, and while we are really busy, we don’t get the meaningful results we really want.
To have life with more meaning and impact, we need the following:
1. Clear goals and outcomes
2. Supportive words and thought processes
3. Activity with an eye on results
So, while we can be going broke saving money, we can also have hearts and dreams “going broke” even while we are protecting our hearts and guarding our dreams. I think it’s time for a shift, don’t you?
