Find out your negative spending patterns and change them for the better

No matter how much like black, do you always seem to find yourself in the red? There are three main types of debtors. Take our quiz to find out which type you are.

Q1 You take out ?10 at the cash point on the way to work. How long does it last?

A ? as far as the newsagent. Two magazines, a packet of fags and some gum. Whoops!

B ? until I need to buy lunch. There?s no need to spend until then.

C- Cash? My bank hasn?t let me have cash since 1983 and then it was in error!

Q2 It?s a rainy, miserable day so you?re spending lunchtime at your desk. Doing what?

A ? eBay! 12 bids in 20 minutes. Some of them nearly identical. Oh dear.

B ? checking out expensive cars or holidays online. Hm, with a bit of budgeting?

C ? I always spend lunch at my desk. I?m too poor to go out.

Q3 In your ?winning the lottery? fantasy you:

A ? shop like Mrs Beckham, treat friends, gift charities, spend, spend, spend!

B ? buy a huge house, a Ferrari, a villa abroad, retire in the sun.

C ? pay off all my debts and start again

Q4 A relative dies leaving you just enough to clear your debts. Six months later you:

A ? meant to clear them but instead went shopping. No change in debts

B ? cleared some but spent the rest on a car, holiday or other big burnout

C ? cleared the lot but somehow find myself back in debt again

Q5 How much of your income goes on planning for the future?

A ? I meant to set up a pension fund last year. No, two years ago. Five? Still time!

B ? I have a company pension

C ? I?m too tied up paying for my past!

Mostly As - The Impulse Shopper

You may only take small amounts out of the cash point or get small sums in cash back at the supermarket, but it leaks out of your pocket in an instant and you have little idea where it goes! If you have money in your wallet or in your bank account you feel almost compelled to fritter it away. You find it hard to pass up any shopping experience or opportunity to spend. Impulse shoppers are often frustrated ?creative? types whose imagination fuels their sprees.

What?s going on here? There are two reasons for frittering and you could fall into either bracket. If you have low self-esteem you might literally feel that you do not deserve prosperity and try to hand it away to other people. By handing over your cash you are in a way handing over responsibility for your life or decision making.

If that doesn?t sound like you, then perhaps you are the other type of fritterer: the Treat-Me. Maybe you felt deprived as a child and always dreamed of treating yourself or maybe you were brought up in an atmosphere of treats for grey days. Either way, you associate buying yourself little nothings with feeling good. The down side is that when you look at your bank balance or think about your spending you feel down again ? and probably end up treating yourself to give yourself a boost!

Whilst you impulse shoppers are not necessarily those who get themselves deepest into debt, your constant need to fulfil a mental dream takes a lot more work to cure than other types of spenders. You need to work out other ways of using your creativity.

Mostly Bs - The Investment Shopper

You tell yourself that you are not a shopper or not a spender, but you still manage to be in debt. How does that work? If you look back over the last six months or a year you know you?ve been spending money but it?s on big things. Well Buster, buying a car is still spending! You?ve probably convinced yourself that buying a new car or motorbike is an investment. Hey, it?s an asset, isn?t it, therefore you can sell it on. But the reality is that cars and bikes rarely hold their value. The key factor is: if you are putting yourself uncomfortably into the red to get your latest toy then you?re paying for it more than money ? you?re stressing yourself out too. The only assets that are truly investments are those that accrue interest or value, like a house.

What?s the answer? If you really want a new toy, why not make like a kid again: remember when your parents promised to match you pound for pound if you saved up for that new BMX? (Well, mine never did, the tightwads, but I?ve heard about it happening!) This works as much for holidays and weddings as it does for cars and motorbikes. Don?t just imagine that you?re going to pay for it all later. By saving regular amounts now you?ll lesson your burden ? and feel better about that ?investment? you?re about to make! Check out some of the online banks who give you a whopping 5% interest for a minimum ?1 initial investment - see www.moneysupermarket.com. If you set up a standing order from your current account then you?ll soon find it mounting up. It?s like a loan in reverse!

Mostly Cs -The Habitual Debtor

In his book ?How to Attract Money?, Robert Griswold talks about Poverty Consciousness. This phenomenon occurs where you have an unconscious financial threshold of sweet f.a. In other words, you?re so used to having nothing or less than nothing that you habitually default back to this, even when your debts are cleared or you find yourself (miraculously) in the black again. You actually don?t feel comfortable when you?re in credit. To change your mindset you need to make it a goal for yourself to achieve what Griswold calls ?Prosperity Consciousness?.

As an American, Griswold is very fond of ?affirmative statements? and what us Brits scorn as pop psychology, but if it works don?t knock it! He suggests that you look at why you believe you don?t deserve wealth and then reprogram your beliefs. This you do by exchanging negative beliefs and statements for positive, eg don?t say (or think) ?I?m in debt? but ?I?m getting out of debt?. Run a ?mental movie? of yourself living a prosperous life. On their own, these steps don?t amount to much, but you may be surprised at how just thinking differently will have you behaving differently.

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