Massage & Bodywork

NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2016

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MINDFUL MONEY best practices Forgive Your Money Mistakes By Jennie Hastings 34 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k n o v e m b e r / d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 6 Have you ever made a mistake with money? It can happen in many ways. You lend money to a friend or relative and they never repay you. Or you make a spur-of-the-moment buying decision, and by the time the ink is dry on the contract, you are kicking yourself. You spend too much on your credit cards or get in a hole with taxes. The business deal that looked too good to pass up takes you to the cleaners, or you trust someone who leads you astray. Whatever it is, and whenever it was, most of us can probably own up to a money mistake. Our financial lives are potentially as fraught with peril as our love lives. And just like love, there is no right way to handle money, only the way that feels right to us as individuals. In the learning process, there are bound to be mistakes. The amount we lose through our mistakes does not usually matter as much as the way our mistakes make us feel. Some people feel worse about making a mistake with a few hundred dollars than others feel about making a mistake with thousands of dollars. It's all relative. MY OWN MISTAKES When I think of my own past money mistakes, I think of my spontaneous decision to buy a new car. Without any forethought or research, I showed up on a car lot and returned home that day with a brand-new Toyota Yaris. The car cost about $14,000, and I had a loan for just around $20,000. I'd been sold on all the warranties and accepted only $800 for my trade-in, on which I still owed money. I used to be really embarrassed about this experience. When I thought about it, I would get upset at the car salesman who preyed on me that day. I was ashamed of myself for being a gullible buyer. The fact that my loan had zero interest on it fooled me into thinking that everything else was fine. The truth is, I was hasty and emotional for the biggest purchase of my life thus far and should have known better. And you know what? It was fine. Nothing truly bad happened. Yes, I paid too much for that car. But I also proved to myself that I can pay a $350 car payment if I want. I never missed a payment. I even loved the car. Granted, it wasn't worth what I was paying for it, but I loved it anyway. I've made other bad money decisions, too. I've jumped on the bandwagon of several multilevel marketing companies. I get drawn in by the high caliber of the products, and the people selling them, and before I know it I have bought way more health, beauty, or cleaning products than I ever need. I once had to take out a personal loan to pay off a credit card balance that was mostly products from one of these companies.

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