Czy dobre liczenie jest wystarczające, aby radzić sobie z pieniędzmi? Z czego wynika fakt, że niektórzy dobrze świetnie budżetują swoje zarobki, a inni są ciągle w tarapatach? W świetnym tekście Dominika Szareckiego (klasa 3a) dowiemy się o psychologicznym aspekcie zarządzania swoimi zasobami. Zapraszamy do lektury!
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PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF MONEY MANAGMENT
The ability to skilfully manage your finances is crucial for those who want to lead a responsible lifestyle. However, the way they are dealt with varies. It is the case because of different attitudes people have towards money and their approach to managing it. The matter is complicated because of the fact that money management often concerns psychology more than mathematics.
The truth is that we all have the ability to count, but we do not always use it to manage our finances. Money management does not require advanced mathematical knowledge. One’s character traits, their habits and general attitude towards money are what usually causes problems with personal finances management. They are the reason why some people cannot cope even with simple issues, such as controlling your income and expenses. While everyone knows the value of their monthly income, tracking one’s expenses might turn out to be more difficult. Planning purchases troubles many of us, because we have tendencies to make purchases, that are not always reasonable and justified. Thus, for those who lack self-discipline in financial matters, using credit cards might turn out to be particularly risky. That is the case, because credit cards allow to easily spend more money than were originally placed on the account, but it is also easy to lose control over expenses and the amount of debt that will be created. What is crucial in managing personal finances is acquiring reasoned habits related primarily to spending money.
The basic principle in money management is to maintain a balance between income and expenses. Although it seems obvious, in practice it is often not followed. Planning and control of expenses should be the rule. The basic way to comply with it is to monitor expenses and analyze them systematically. In this way, you can determine the structure of expenses and optimize them. By recording expenses and dividing them into individual categories, we obtain valuable information about our finances and can control them. Generally, it is important to properly manage your expenses and adjust the amounts spent to the amount of income you earn. Balancing your income and expenses is the minimum plan for money management.
Another extremely important thing related to proper management of your finances is savings. Rational financial management should lead to a permanent surplus of income over expenses. For most people, having savings is a natural need that gives a sense of security and comfort, as well as prestige. The savings should allow you to survive unfavorable circumstances related to job loss or salary reduction, and cover unforeseen expenses. It is assumed that the cash reserve should be able to cover expenses for a minimum period of three months. Having savings also opens the way to the possibility of multiplying them, becoming a source of additional income. Saving is also associated with appropriate habits, which should be started as early as possible.
Another issue is the threats and errors that appear in running our budget. One of the most common threats in financial management is excessive optimism about achieving income. Many people overestimate their capabilities in this area. Unjustified hope for an improvement in the financial situation most often leads to excessive debt, which, combined with a lack of discipline, may result in insolvency. The ability to repay debt should be strictly respected and monitored. At best, excessive optimism leads to irrational money management and financial instability. Excessive optimism is often accompanied by excessive self-confidence, which, in the absence of appropriate knowledge, may lead to making irrational decisions in the field of personal finance management.
The most common mistakes include lack of interest in one’s finances. As strange as it may sound, manypeople don’t think about managing their money until something bad happens to it. A derivative of thisapproach is the lack of willingness to make changes in one’s approach to finances, because it involvessome effort or giving up habits. The sources of problems are often misguided purchases andfalling for advertising and promotional offers. Lack of planning expenses and giving up on settingpriorities in this area leads to us buying things we could do without and making purchasesimpulsively. We often make them under the influence of fashion, advertising messages, imitation, ortraps set for customers, of which the most popular are occasional price reductions.
There is one more issue that is worth stopping for a moment. You can see that usually, both in thecase of spending and saving, people focus on large amounts of money, while marginalizing theimportance of small amounts of money. Meanwhile, their sum can be quite impressive and couldallow for considerable savings. It is also worth taking advantage of the importance of smallamounts in saving by saving the rest of the total amount or keeping a small percentage of theamount spent. Some banks offer this type of service as part of a personal account or credit card.
As we can see, psychological considerations and character traits play a very important role in money management. They most often determine material success. Qualities such as discipline, systematicity, prudence, and controlling emotions are very useful in these matters. Therefore, it is worth trying to manage them and, above all, develop appropriate habits as early as possible that will help in managing finances.
DOMINIK SZARECKI (3a)
