The Cure for Money Madness - Break Your Bad Money Habits, Live Without Financial Stress - and Make More Money! ~ eBook

Did you ever make an investment because you got a tip from a friend, or because a self-styled Wall Street pundit on cable TV came up with a hot pick?

Ever go in on a time-share or even a summer rental because everybody you knew was doing it, it seemed like a great deal, and you just got caught up in the excitement?

Ever plunk your credit card down on the store counter for something you couldn't really afford—maybe an elegant cashmere sweater or an antique porcelain bowl or a 42- inch high-definition TV—because you believed buying it would make you happy? And heaven knows you deserve such a jolt of happiness given the mood you're in or the day you've had or the fight with your spouse this morning.

Speaking of spouses, have you kept your income a secret from yours? Or what you paid for that jacket you're wearing? Do you have a separate, secret credit card or bank account you haven't bothered to talk about, much less share with your spouse?

You have money madness if you answered yes to any of these questions.

You know what money madness is, don't you? Of course. You recognize the term because you feel money madness in your own life.

Maybe it's when you look at the mail, see that your monthly bank statement has arrived, and feel a rising tide of anxiety because you really don't want to know what the report says, which is precisely why you feel there are no boundaries on your spending.

Or maybe you sense how money madness has you in its clutches when you pull up to the gas pump in that SUV that once made you feel so masterful, check out the rising price of gas, swallow hard at how you once scoffed at the car's low gas mileage, and experience the sinking sensation that you're a total chump.

Or maybe it's when you can't stop feeling that the size of your house measures the quality of your life—and therefore you're better than your next-door neighbor but way inferior to the guy across the street.

Don't worry. You're not alone. The condition I call money madness is nearly universal.

But here's the good news. Just by acknowledging you have it, you're on your way to the cure and all the rewards of being madness-free.

Those rewards are substantial. Money madness is at the core of all our distress and worries about money, and it keeps us from getting as much money as we can get, living as richly as we might live, and enjoying the wealth we have. Cure your money madness and your distress dissolves. Cure your money madness, and you'll get richer, feel richer, and enjoy the real wealth you have.

Financial how-to won't cure your money madness. There's plenty of financial how-tos around—24 hours a day, seven days a week, if we like—in books and magazines, on television and radio, and across the Internet. But money madness undermines our ability to do the how-to. It makes us deaf and blind to the information and advice delivered to us from all the media, on all those channels. The result is that money madness impairs our income. It undermines our net worth. It deprives us of joy—not just of joy in the wealth we have but in the life we're living.

So I use the word madness deliberately. Your money madness is not just an idiosyncratic quirk; it's unhealthy, and it's harmful. Remember the old saw about the stick-up man offering you the choice of your money or your life? Money madness diminishes both. That's why it's time for a cure.