Episode 41 - "We aren't really spenders!"

Have you ever said or heard someone else say, "We aren't really spenders!" Why do we say that? And what does it even mean? We are usually making some type of comparison that will not help us in the pursuit of our goals. Let's talk about it.

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Paul, Welcome to Catholic money talk, where we talk about all things money and finance, and we try to do it through a lens of being Catholic, where our ultimate goal is to one day be in Heaven with the Lord. I am your host. Paul Scarfone, thank you for being here today. So welcome back to Catholic money talk. And today I want to talk about a phrase that I hear a lot, and it comes up in many different situations conversations. I sometimes it's with just friends that I'm speaking to. Other times, it's my clients. And I think it's a phrase that many of us have had in our minds if we haven't said it before, but some things we can sometimes think about. But before we do that, let's say a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen, Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, we ask You for all the grace and wisdom that we need to face the challenges or the circumstances we find ourselves in. We know that you love us and that you have a great plan for us. Allow us to yield to your Holy Spirit. We ask all this in Jesus name, amen, in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen. So the phrase I want to talk about today, well, here it is. Here's the phrase, right, starting quotes. Now, we aren't really spenders. Let me say that again, we aren't really spenders. And sometimes you might hear or say a different version of that. Maybe you're single, and you say, I don't really spend money. Some of us might say, ha, I wish I had money to spend, right? So all these phrases, they're all saying the same thing, we don't really spend much money. We aren't really spenders. I don't have any money to spend. We don't make enough to be spenders. We just don't spend money. When I was speaking to a friend or a family member, they might say it like this, Paul, you know us, we just don't spend money. So what does this phrase even mean? When someone says this, they're usually comparing themselves to someone that they feel is a spender. Maybe they're thinking of a friend or a co worker that likes to, I don't know, eat out a lot or buy lunch all the time. Maybe they're thinking of their neighbor who's constantly driving the latest and greatest vehicle. Maybe they're thinking of someone they saw on Facebook or Instagram that just goes on vacations and trips all the time. Maybe they're thinking of their sister who always has designer shoes and a designer handbag, right? Regardless of what person comes to their mind, they're trying to make sense of their current financial predicament, and they're trying to do it by comparing themselves to someone that they think either spends out of control or they think is just wasteful with money. So why would they? Why would we, if we do this, why would we compare ourselves to other people that we think are out of control? Well, probably to feel better about ourselves, right? And, you know, maybe not feeling better about our situation, but rather feeling better about how we think we are handling money ourselves, or maybe we're trying to make an excuse for our situation. It's kind of like saying, Hey, we're in a tough situation. Maybe we don't have anything safe for retirement, or we're dealing with some debt, and we feel we have no room in our monthly income to cover these items that we feel we should be including in our monthly spending. And so then when this this statement, well, I don't know what we can do. We really just aren't spenders. It comes across as a strong excuse for our behavior. Recently, someone said this to me, the statement, right, we're not really spenders. And the way they that, when they said it, the way it hit me, the way I heard it, it prompted me to want to talk about it on the podcast. When they said this to me, when they said, we aren't really spenders, I tried to listen to what they were trying to say, because that statement just isn't true. I mean, it isn't true for any of us. If you hear me say if you hear me say this, you know it's not true, and in your mind, you're saying you're wrong, Paul, I am not a spender. Well, let me tell you, we're all spenders. There's only three things you can do with money. We can save money, we can give money, and we can spend money. That's it. And I think of those three. Three many of us would feel like two of them are better than the third. Right? We might think of giving and saving as better than spending. Just think, would you want to be known as a giver or a saver, or would you want to be known as a spender? Most of us would probably not want to be known as a spender at why not? Well, because it probably seems immature or maybe even selfish. But here's the deal, most of us like 99.9999% of us, we spend more than we give or save. So when this friend of mine and I was speaking, with when they said we aren't really spenders, I immediately thought of their household income. And so that I don't give away who this friend was, I'll just make up a household income here, but let's say it was $160,000 a year, right between two spouses. And I'm not sure how much they give away, but let's say that they tithe, and so that would be 16,000 that they give. And our conversation was mostly surrounding their challenges to save, and it was saving for purchases and saving for retirement because they don't really save anything. They feel they they just don't have enough or make enough to save. And then her comment about, well, we aren't really spenders. Let's complete BS, they spend over$140,000 per year. If they didn't spend it, they'd be giving or saving it. And they aren't. They are spenders. Yes, they probably aren't spending money like they imagine an out of control, reckless person spends money, but they're spending a lot. They are spenders. They're making an excuse for themselves and comparing themselves to other people on some spectrum of financial relativism? Okay, I might have just made that term up a little bit, but I would define financial relativism as a way of, kind of designating our behavior or our situation as appropriate or inappropriate based on what we think others are or aren't doing. Right? It is us trying to create our own Subjective Truth based on how we feel we are doing relative to others, at least in the realms of finances, right? And these types of comparisons, they're, they're never good. They're they're usually never going to be beneficial to us, because we typically don't know all the details, and the lack of details is means the lack of truth about the situation, it's going to completely send us down the wrong path. When I first mentioned this phrase, I said that the person saying it typically picture someone who in their head right who they think fits the description of a spender, and then saying I'm not a spender is basically saying I'm not like this person. And let's say the person is someone that they see on social media taking several vacations all over the world, right? I gave that as an example. So let's, let's imagine this person. They take vacations all over the world. We know that because we see them on Instagram and Facebook, on social media. Well, maybe, just maybe, that person budgets their money well, and after tithing and saving for retirement, they pay all of their needs, then they save money to go on trips and vacations, because they love to travel. Their financial house is in order, and they create space in their budget to take these trips. Or maybe, maybe they paid off their mortgage five years ago, and now they're able to spend those old mortgage payments right, those old dollars that they were putting towards the mortgage. Maybe now they save them up and spend them on travel, or maybe they have a wealthy friend or family member who just is able to invite them on various vacations regularly, who knows? Maybe none of that is true. Maybe they have the attitude of YOLO, right? You only live once they load up credit cards, they rack up debt to do all the travel they're doing. But whatever the situation is, their behavior has no bearing on your financial situation. And if you're living in a world of comparisons, it will never have a good effect on you. It's never going to be to your benefit. One of the most common pieces of advice I give my clients is, don't worry about what anyone else is doing. Focus on your behaviors and controlling you. So this friend who recently said to me, we aren't really spent. Ers, I happen to know they aren't budgeting. They don't have a plan that creates a budget every month that's moving them towards their goals. I actually, I don't even think they have financial goals, not real goals that they can articulate and make a plan to achieve they just hope to be in a better position at some point, you know, a stable found financial foundation to them probably seems more like this far off wish than something that they can actually see happening in their future. And when we don't create goals and set plans to achieve them, we can easily slip into a victim mentality. And this mentality, it takes the posture of feeling like we're just a victim of our situation, and until our situation miraculously changes, there's no path towards success. Instead, we need to embrace the reality that we can determine and we can impact our situation. You know, we where we are is, it's kind of like the sum of the decisions that we've made. Right now, other things happen to us that are we can't control, but the way we react to them we can totally control. And our future is going to be the result of the new decisions we make based on the new things that happen to us or the new situations we find ourselves in. Our our behavior and our decisions are going to impact the trajectory that we set out on. So when we make a statement like we aren't really spenders, that's just admitting that we have a lack of vision and we fail to see clearly where we are. So again, if you feel this way, take a look at what is driving you to say that. Try to think of the people that you're comparing yourselves to and uncover the truth, the objective truth, about those situations you make X amount you spend, X amount you're a spender. Don't worry about what other people are doing. Brainstorm your goals. Prayerfully determine which goals should be the priorities. Create a plan that includes a monthly budget that will move you towards your goals. Don't wait to do this. Do it now. You know, the older I get, the more and more I realize how fast time goes by. I was just thinking about this the other day. My wife and I was we're planning kind of for the year with finances and stuff, and we're trying to pay off the mortgage, and we're trying to see where, where do we think we could be by the time we're 50, right? So I'm 42 right now, and the years seem to go by faster and faster right now. Today, none of my children. I have six kids. None of them are adults. My oldest is 17. But in eight years, I'm going to be 50. In eight years, it goes by quickly. In eight years, I will have four adult children. Right now I have zero adult children in in eight years, more than half of my kids, right? I have six kids, four of them will be adult children. That's crazy to me. So when you look at your life and you look at your situation, you started to find your goals. Make a plan to get after them. Today, time is going to keep ticking. Don't wait. I firmly believe the Lord put goals. He puts goals and desires on our hearts because he has an awesome plan for us, a plan that in Jeremiah, 29 verse 11, it says it's a plan for our welfare, not our woe, so as to give us a future of hope. It's a plan of success. The Lord wants to fill us with joy and hope and peace. God has an awesome, unique plan for every one of us, and we can pause and not move towards His plan and His goal. When we get stuck just comparing ourselves to everybody else, we need to do our part and ask Him to reveal it to us, right. Lord, reveal your plan. What? What do you want me to do, Lord God, where do you want me to be? And then we get to participate with His grace to get after it. And again, it's unique plan. They're all different. We can't We can't spend time comparing ourselves to others or trying to rank ourselves against other people on some. Relative spectrum. Seek the Lord's will for you. And don't make excuses. Don't buy into these thoughts and phrases. Don't say them. Don't thank them that are simply untrue. Seek the truth. Seek the good, seek the plan that the Lord has for you. So next time when you start to say we aren't really spenders, instead ask yourself, how are we spending our money? How are we using our finances in good order? Have we clearly articulated goals that we feel the Lord has inspired us to achieve. Have we created a plan to achieve those goals? Do we have a monthly budget that mirrors our plan to achieve those goals? If not, what is stopping us, what is in our way from pursuing all the Lord has for us. So stay away from comparisons, kind of you know, put the blinders on and say, Lord, I'm looking at you. What do you want me to do? I'm not going to let the other things happening to my left and right distract me from you and what you want me to achieve here. And don't say phrases like, again, I'm not really a spender, right? Like, there's such a deep place where that comes from, right? Yes, I talk about their savers and spenders. That talks about tendencies, right? But legit, when you're looking at your problems and you go, you know what? I don't know what our problem is, like, we're not really spenders. Blow the whistle, right? Bs, you are. If you're not saving all your money, if you're not giving all your money, then there's an element that you're you're spending and most people who say we're not really spenders aren't saving or giving, right? It's just an excuse. It's complete untrue of them trying to just compare themselves to other people that they think are reckless. So that's what we're tackling today, this question. But there's other ones too that aren't true and that we're using in some comparison game to maybe feel better about the way we behave with money. Let's cut that out. Let's focus on the truth, and let's ask the Lord to kind of guide where we're going. Don't be worried about what other people are doing. Don't compare ourselves to other people that we maybe think we're doing better than, or we're doing worse than, or whatever. But let's say, Lord, what do you want for me? What's this awesome plan that you have for me, and what are the goals that you want me to pursue? What are the steps you want me to take? What do you what is in front of me? Lord, that I can do that will lead me closer to you and to the goals and successes you have for me. So that's it. I hope this has been helpful. Thank you again for joining me today. God bless. Thank you for listening to Catholic money talk. I hope you join us again next time, please click Subscribe on your podcast app to get notified of new episodes. God bless you and have a great day. Foreign.