I'm sorry

Dear Credit Card

I am sorry!

I have realised, that I have been dumping all over you for years, and because you never complain, in fact you reward my behaviour with beautiful frequent flyer points, I have actually felt it was ok to treat you this way. However, now I realise this is not ok. Because I have come to rely on you, Credit Card. You have made it so easy for me to use you, that I have taken advantage of you, and I have passed on my responsibility to you.

Not only do I expect you to cover my payments every month, some of which it turns out I don’t actually need, but I have also been expecting you to cope with all my impulsive whimsical spending. I can now see all of this has been building over the years, masked behind a feeling of we have such a great relationship that I never want this feeling to end.

But end it must.

Last week Credit Card, I started to easy your burden a little – can you feel the difference?

I have not quite finished the process, but I started to declutter our relationship and started with the easy stuff, our shared regular payments. Now I don’t want you to hate me, but I have moved the regular payments you were covering for me across to my friend Expenses Bank Account.

Please don’t be upset about this new relationship, as my new friend Expenses has got a lot of work cut out for them, as you have big shoes to fill. This is going to be a good relationship for me to have Credit Card, as I am going to have greater awareness of my expenses and I now know exactly how much money Expenses and I need to cover those regular payments you were carrying for me. In fact, the total amount I owe each month from the regular payments is now going to be my new minimum in my bank account. Aren’t you proud of me, Credit Card. I am stepping up and taking some of the burden and responsibility off you, so I can learn to do this on my own.

Developing a new relationship with Expenses was my first step, Credit Card, now I have to tackle our biggest co-dependency issue. This week, I am going to declutter some more and start to understand my ad hoc, impulsive, whimsical spending desires / habits, that you have helped me cultivate and some might say Master over the years. When I was separating out regular and ad hoc spending last week I can say that the regular payments pile was pretty small compared to my ad hoc spending pile... Oops!

So, this week I am going to look back over the last couple of months of spending and see what we have purchased together. I am also going to establish the reason for using you, Credit Card instead of Cash. Was it because I didn’t have enough Cash or money in my account at the time? Was it an impulse buy? Was it just because I wanted it? Was I thinking of the beautiful frequent flyer points? What was the reason we decided to buy what we bought at the time? This will support me Credit Card to start to understand my spending habits and how they might be different when I have you by my side and when I don’t.

So, my goals for this week are to:

1.     Finalise the transfer of regular payments to my new friend Expense Account

2.    Calculate the minimum monthly amount required in our Expense Account

3.    For each ad hoc purchase write down the reason I used my Credit Card to make the purchase.

4.    Generate some extra cash to support transition from Credit Card to Expense Account.

Let’s get to it!

Tina Stewart

Professional Life Coach

If Tina’s co-dependent relationship with her Credit Card is resonating with you, feel free to work through the activities with Tina.

If you would like additional support, Tina and Paul are here to help. Contact us on support@compassioncoaching.com.au

In addition, if you like a copy of Credit Card Makeover Workbook please send us an email – support@compassioncoaching.com.au for your copy.