Comments on: Dealing With Shame About Your Personal Finances (And Anything Else)

By: Tabatha

Tabatha — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 17:37:27 +0000

I love this post. It’s something everyone really knows, but it’s very helpful to have someone give it to you as advice. Kind of a second opinion. Thanks. :)

By: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:38:52 +0000

If it’s my fault and I can’t fix it, why shouldn’t I be ashamed?

By: lydia

lydia — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:40:10 +0000

My personal regrets are announcing to everyone about my personal desire to retire with no debt to stop living paycheck to paycheck and take responsiblity for my financial success. In nearly 15 years of government service I have never received a pay cut, only increase. I just need to develop the discipline necessary to implement it and stop being emotionally ruled and develop consistency, and in three years I will become debt free from cc,tax debt so I will be able to leave a legacy to my family, even though I don’t have any children and not married YET.

By: MO

MO — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:56:51 +0000

LOVE THIS POST!
VERY TRUE.

By: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:28:28 +0000

I deeply regret having gone to college and having thereby blown the $4,000 (more than $20K in today’s dollars) I had worked hard to save up by the time I graduated high school.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:42:41 +0000

You might be interested in the short article on regret that’s in the latest issue of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans’ magazine. http://www.thrivent.com/magazine/fall07/livingwell.html

By: JReed

JReed — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:38:23 +0000

It is amazing that you wrote this on the precise day that I woke up to a situation that I viewed as shameful. You gave me the incentive to take alot of action…I’ve done as much as I can do about it today including writing a list of what I’m going to do about it tomorrow.
I feel so much better at least having started the process. Thank you for this inspirational article.

By: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:21:56 +0000

I’m ashamed of my apparent inability to earn anything more than minimum wage. I’m NOT ashamed of my spending, since I’m confident I am living very frugally. But I can’t FTF and I’d rather hide behind my keyboard.

Most people would say it IS my fault, so I can’t really say it’s beyond my control, but I don’t see much I can do about it now. The wolf is constantly at my door and a long-term fix won’t come in time to save me.

By: English Major

English Major — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:21:20 +0000

I agree with Sandy, that shame can work in this way, as a healthy indicator of a problem brewing, or it can work as a dysfunctional and paralyzing force. The trick is figuring out which is which.

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:45:09 +0000

While I love being able to get things out on my blog, I also feel ashamed if I slip up or don’t do as well as I feel I should. Because it’s so public. As a general rule, the blog helps me stay responsible. It’d be great if I could comprehend that readers don’t expect one to be perfect, just trying.

I recently admitted our lack of medical insurance, but people were supportive and we’re nor working on getting some. :) I’d been very embarrassed about that, but until I posted it kind of paralyzed me.

By: Toxic

Toxic — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:07:22 +0000

Great post! I can relate to most of it… Shame is what I felt when I finally realized that everything I owned was financed by credit cards and that I couldn’t afford to buy anything, unless I used my credit cards. But then I recognized that I could change my life around. That’s when shame went away, and I became so proud of myself; I didn’t want to make any financial mistakes because I didn’t want to feel ashamed.

But it could have gone the other way too… sometimes people fall so deeply into shame that they don’t know how to get out of it. They just keep sliding further down. The more they are ashamed, the more they continue to make the same mistakes… I am glad I realized that I could still change my life… hopefully someone ashamed reading your, mine or someone else’s “success story” blog will realize that they can get rid of the shame and change their life around, too.

By: pfodyssey

pfodyssey — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:05:30 +0000

So true. What I have always found interesting is that the shame you feel is often a magnitude of 10 of how people will perceive it themselves (ex: when you make a blunder at work and feel that everyone noticed it and think you are a goof, but in reality, hardly anyone even noticed it at all (or gave it any thought if they did). I think the theme here is that everything in your life is much more important to you than to everyone else.

The same goes for personal finance. Whatever burden of shame you might carry, there are those who would not judge you so harshly as yourself and in many cases would like to help!

By: debtdieter

debtdieter — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:24:56 +0000

I think I’m in the same boat as Oswegan now.

I don’t seem to mind who knows about my debt as I’m actively taking steps to adress the issue.

I’m still not entirely comfortable discussing the total amount to friends and family, but I’ll freely discuss anything else.

By: Oswegan

Oswegan — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:46:49 +0000

I felt the same way when I was deep in it.

But now that I’m intense about it, and am digging my way out, I’m very proud of my progress, and I’m much more open and care free about the whole thing. I really don’t care what people know, or think about me.

But I think I’m starting to make the Joneses nervous and uncomfortable.

~Oswegan

By: Sandy

Sandy — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:11:03 +0000

There’s a distinction between healthy shame and unhealthy shame. The latter might be when as kids, our parents ridiculed us & we carry shame from that, and anyone from a dysfunctional family knows what I’m talking about. But healthy shame is completely different, and a good thing because it is our wake-up call to find a fix to what it is that is causing us our shame and embarrassment. I wasn’t disaplined about my spending in the past, and got into the credit card trap and felt SO ashamed about that, I shudder to even recall. Thank goodness I’ve turned it around and reached a 0 balance last month. I have confidence in myself now that I will not go there again, just from the sheer shame feelings alone, but won’t be able to truly relax about it until perhaps a year has gone by and I’ve proven it to myself by still having a 0 balance.

By: Money Blue Book

Money Blue Book — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:04:40 +0000

It’s not only just being ashamed about your financial situation, it can also be embarrassment over things like – your experience of being scammed by someone online.

I’ve learned from my experience, but it was tough deciding whether to share it or not.
-R

By: Heidi

Heidi — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:47:30 +0000

Excellent post!

I am in the process of beginning a PF blog and I don’t want to tell anyone who actually knows me about it because of this shame (which, I think, is even worse than a “normal” person’s shame because I work in the financial services industry and I should know better).

I want to change and have been using your story as a template for the changes I want to make in my life. Thanks for being an inspiration.