This is the first in a 5 part series on the steps necessary to get the ball rolling on solving your financial woes.  This first part focuses on identifying the ‘tell tale’ signs that you may be in financial peril.  Or maybe you just need to work on cleaning things up a bit.

1.  How to identify whether you have a financial crisis.

Before we can even get serious about saving money and repairing our financial situation we just have to accept the fact that there is a problem.  This goes much deeper than just saying to yourself ‘I’ll be a little short next week so I better spend a little less for now’.  

I’m going to list some of the symptoms that I experienced just before I realized that i’m in trouble.  I’ll expand on each and give an example so you can judge for yourself if this applies to you. 

See if you can relate to some of these scenarios..

1. Do you sometimes put off paying a bill until payday, even if that means your payment will be late?  Do you not care about the late penalties?  I’m guilty of this, sometimes I’ll check the calendar and see my car payment is due two days before I get paid.  Well, the payment goes out late because I just don’t have the money.
2. Do you sometimes buy something even though you will then not have enough to pay your bills?  Again, guilty as charged, I, of course take it up a level by mentally convincing myself that I MUST have said product or service, even though I could put it off a week or two.
3. Do you pay credit card bills with other credit cards?  Wow, I used to do this, take a cash advance on card A to pay card B, then do it again the other way.  How stupid is that?  Once again, I made it even stupider by buying gift cards with store credit cards, then buying a small item and getting the change back just to give myself some pocket money.
4. When faced with a purchase you want {or must} make do you immediately go online and start applying for more credit cards? Is saving not an option?  I did this just a few months ago, I wanted to get my brother a nice birthday present, since I had no available credit or savings I started applying for even more credit cards.  Luckily, I was refused for all of them.   
5. Do you buy things just to look cool or successful to your family, coworkers, romantic interests, etc…  and then resort to one of the above reasons to justify it?  Yep, for me it’s called a 2007 Dodge Nitro {fully loaded} of course.  My previous car didn’t even have 27k miles on it.  How stupid is that?? 
6. Do you sometimes call in sick to work because you don’t have enough money left for tolls, parking, gas, bus fare or whatever?  I can’t say I’ve done this, but I have come horribly close in the past year.  Trading sick days just to save 5 or 10 bucks, argh…
7. Do you not care if a credit card has a yearly membership fee or 20% interest rate?  Is the only number you see on the screen the 300 buck credit line??  Yeah, done this too, of course you say to yourself ‘I’ll just pay the whole thing off when the bill comes..’  
8. Do you just not pay a large bill so you can ‘catch up’ with several smaller ones?  Do you not care what happens to your credit rating?   I’ve done this in conjunction with #1.  The juggling game only leads to missed payments and loads of late fees.  I’ll never do this again.
9. Have you put off necessary medical or dental treatment because you just can’t afford it? yet still order lunch everyday at 10 bucks a pop?  I haven’t done this, but see the next one…
10. Have you not fed or taken care of your pet because you don’t have the money?  yet still go out partying every Friday night??  I feel horrible about this, but don’t worry, I take care of my poo’ now, she’s a happy puppy!  Never again will I jeopardize the health or happiness of my pup just so I can spend money on useless crap.  

One thing I noticed with the above list is the common theme of not caring about my credit rating, yet turning to credit whenever I needed money.  I guess this could be the root of all my problems.  You know  42 years learning how to be a spender, living the ‘i want it now’ kind of life can’t be unlearned in a few days. I know there are some stupid, embarrassing things here, but as I said on my ‘About’ page, this blog is a personal contract with myself and I need to document every little idiotic thing i’ve done so I never repeat it.  Take a look at the list above, are you guilty of any of this?  Do you have any crisis symptoms you’d like to share?  let me know and I’ll post it up {no names of course}  the more I list the less chance I do it.

Stay tuned for Part two.  Assessing your financial situation -  Getting a handle on your debt.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Confused? or just stupid – Getting a handle on your personal finances.
• Save some money on your Directv bill – You’ll need Tivo though
• How to save a few dollars when shopping at Amazon.com
• Mint.com – my review