Carrie Rocha, creator of PocketYourDollars.com,
engages readers in Pocket Your Dollars
to help change attitudes regarding financial stewardship. She shares ways to
help pay down debt, avoid financial stress, and allow earners to keep more of
what they make. Unlike many of the step-by-step financial programs available,
Carrie’s plan begins with attitude adjustment which leads to behavior
modification.
Throughout the first half of Pocket Your Dollars, Carries suggest there are five attitudes
holding us back from succeeding in our financial fitness: 1.If I only had more
money, 2.I deserve a treat, 3.It won’t happen to me, 4.I’ll fake it ‘til I make
it and 5. I can’t afford it.
Carrie suggests, “Personal responsibility is the core issue. When
we believe that our financial problems are caused solely by a lack of money, we
refuse to acknowledge our current situation as something we’ve brought about.
We deny the fact that the power for changing our future lies within us. And if
we continue to deny this fact, change will never come.
One of Carrie’s biggest contentions to keeping your
dollars stems from the idea of treats as being the leaky toilets in finances. Every time we treat ourselves to
something because we feel we deserve it – the chai tea, the quick lunch, the
new shoes – we are giving our hard earned dollars away. Carrie suggests we
replace the notion of I deserve a treat
with the idea I work too hard for my
money. By creating a larger than ourselves goal, we can create our own
financial frame and stick to it.
In addition to creating our own financial framework,
we need to be aware of our monetary priorities. Carrie outlines them as bills,
financial leaks, goals, and waste. By writing down and prioritizing our entire
spending, it allows us to get a better picture of our stewardship as well as
our leaky toilets. Carrie writes “Quantify it monetarily and then prioritize
to stay out of debt.”
Consumerism drives our attitudes. Everywhere we
turn, there are things to purchase and ways to increase our spending. We buy new dishes
because we like the pattern or new clothes, not because the old ones are worn
out but because it’s a new season. However, these items are not long term assets.
“Consumption
is not a goal of the affluent,” Carrie states. She suggests we change
what we don’t like to what we do like about our current situation. We might not
have the newest car, but we do have a car which runs good and gets us to work.
In
addition to being financially thrifty, we must ensure we do not become misery
along the way. “The
I-can’t-afford-it attitude harbors guilt or shame when spending money. Addressing
this underlying shame is important to relieving lifetime financial stress.” Carrie
offers a way to overcome this shame through her happy and relationship tests.
In the second half of Pocket Your Dollars, Carrie addresses the skills needed to overcome
our attitudes. She offers up her ideas in how
to change your self-talk through idea supplementation; how to stand up to
pressure via self-control, will power and distress tolerance techniques; how to
stay in for the long haul using motivation; as well as, how to create a
spending plan by acknowledging your predictable monthly and non-monthly
expenses and your unpredictable emergencies.
When it comes to paying off your debt, Carrie
encourages the use of the debt snowball method in which the bill with the
lowest amount is paid off first, regardless of interest. By using this
approach, it helps to boost our egos and offers us a positive win in debt
management.
If you are currently working through your debt and
looking at a better way to impact your financial goals, Pocket Your Dollars will give you a great start at changing your
attitudes to change your behavior. Carrie offers plenty of great references on
her website to help begin your journey to become debt-free.
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Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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