Lose the Debt – Go Analogue and Write Everything Down.
Key Points:
- Financial debt brain fog is not an exaggeration. Most people have no idea where their money goes from day to day.
- You don’t need a fancy notebook with silk ribbons and an embossed cover. You need a dollar store, run of the mill, tiny book into which you, like the millions of others who have recovered from debt, are practicing this important daily routine.
- Here’s what the spending record is and isn’t: It’s not a budget. It’s not a set of guidelines. It doesn’t establish a goal. It is simply a record of the money you actually do spend, perhaps for the first time in your life.
- The spending record is designed for habit destruction and replacement.
I spent four years with a global debt recovery group learning how to get out of debt and keeping it that way. Having learned many things during my time with them, including what worked and what didn’t in debt recovery. I will be frank though; it was a stop-start and iterative experience. At times, I thought I’d make progress thinking I beat the debt cycle only to fall back and go hog wild buying things with money I didn’t have. However, a key pivot point for me was when I mastered the spending record. I learned how incredibly important and non-negotiable it was, to get clarity on what I was doing.
Many participants in the program, including myself, initially scoffed at the idea of carrying around a small notebook, making notes each time I opened my wallet. By that point, I’d advanced through the program with the self-reflection and surrender steps, typical of 12 step programs of which Debtors Anonymous and Compulsive Shoppers Anonymous are two.
I was encouraged by my own progress, but the introduction of a daily spending record with handwritten notes was a decisive turning point. Being reminded over and over it was the only way I could truly monitor myself and prevent me from incurring more debt. I soon got used to it. My experience with this I wrote about in my book Debt Slavery.
Mastering the spending record is without question a critical key to debt recovery. Notice I say record and not plan. Planning is like a budget, and budgets don’t work well if you’ve been in chronic. Forget about planning for now. What does work is getting to know where your money is going. You’ve got to be absolutely clear about where your money is going. This sounds obvious but I can tell you I had no inkling of where mine went. I walked around in a fog, blinded by my own denialism, just like hundreds of thousands of other people.
Financial brain fog is not an exaggeration. Most people have no idea where their money goes from day to day or week to week. People who say their money ‘comes and goes’ are really saying they have no idea where the money is, how they’re spending it and how much debt they have. As long as you don’t know where your money is going, you are in that money comes and goes funhouse of distorted mirrors.
Here’s what the spending record is, and isn’t:
- It’s not a budget.
- It’s not a set of guidelines.
- It doesn’t establish a goal.
It is simply a record of the money you actually do spend, perhaps for the first time in your life.
Additional point. There are many digital apps that work as spending records. Even though they allow you to enter your daily spending amounts, I don’t recommend using them. Keep it analogue. Why?
Most people feel psychologically distant when using digital tools. It’s as if it doesn’t hurt as much when you enter numbers in an app. Handwriting, on the other hand, feels real, visceral and personal. For me, having a very small notebook to record everything I’d spend, what I was spending the money on, and sometimes even the time of day I spent it, was the ticket for me. I started with the back of an envelope, then found miniature coil bound notebooks at the dollar store, which worked nicely.
The point is you want the experience of recording your spending to be highly personalized. My recovery emphasized the handling of daily cash and personal note taking. I never had any doubt, on any given day or any hour, how much I was spending. At the grocery store right in front of the cashier I’d jot down what the total was on the receipt. I’d flip out my tiny book at the gas station and write down the total. If I met someone at a coffee shop – I wrote down what I was spending that day for a cup of coffee. Nothing escaped me. Some people think carrying around a small notebook just has to be awkward. I’ll tell you what’s awkward: having no idea where your money is going! Like I said – handwritten notes tell no lies.
My daily routine revolved around recording all my spending. Make it your priority too. Before you leave your place in the morning, open the notebook or the pad of paper and write down the days’ date. Each time you spend cash during the day – whether cold cash – or to pay a bill online – write it down. Not just the amount but what you spent it on but what it was for.
Example:
- Coffee…..$2.57
- Sandwich (discounted, day old) … $4.28
- Subway tokens (return trip) …. $6
- Bottle of Water ……… $2
- Chicken Burger + Bottle of Water ……$7.50
Other Examples, combining bill payment:
- Cell phone ………. $52.00 (for May 2024)
- Water & Gas ……..$151.00 (for May – August period)
- Parking ………….. $9.00
- Eye drops …………$13.47
That’s it in a nutshell. It’s very simple. You don’t need a fancy notebook with silk ribbons and an embossed cover. You need a dollar store, run of the mill, tiny book into which you, like the millions of others who have recovered from debt, are practicing this important daily routine. You’ll spend a minute at most writing down your expenditures. And it will change your life. For the first time you’ll know exactly and unapologetically where your money is going. Never again will you guess.
References:
- Liberty, I. (2014). From Debt Collection to Debt Slavery. Rutgers Race & L. Rev..
- Valins, O. (2004). When debt becomes a problem: A literature Study. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Social Development.
- Fitch, C., Hamilton, S., Bassett, P., & Davey, R. (2011). The relationship between personal debt and mental health: a systematic review. Mental Health Review Journal, 16(4), 153-166.
About the Author:
Reformed Debtor is an anonymous American businessman & author of “Debt Slavery” – whose personal account of his debt slide and recovery is a cautionary tale for all.
His candid, no fluff, no jargon account of how he got himself out of $200,000 worth of debt – without declaring bankruptcy – is a refreshing and deeply honest look of how he succeeded.