Money may seem inert, but it has the power to cripple or heal, to depress or inspire. Dr. Laurence Barton, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the American College, observed, “Money is tangible, but it is also emotional in nature. It is necessary for the exchange of goods and services, but is also what divides spouses and families and is often the source of permanent scars among loved ones. . . .
Interestingly enough, many individuals spend more time analyzing the sports scores or their horoscope in the daily newspaper than they invest in monitoring their daily financial health.” *[From the Foreword of What Matters Most by Jim Munchbach (Baxter Press, Friendswood, Texas, 2004), p. 9.]
A recent study concluded that most decisions about money are emotional, not rational, decisions. We are inundated by countless messages that we simply have to have this product or that service to make us happy, successful, and accepted, but we don’t hear many messages about the benefits of saving and investing. So we buy . . . hoping that this time our purchase will make us feel really good, but with a nagging sense of guilt and anxiety that we’ll have to pay for it in another month. In a think tank sponsored by the National Endowment for Financial Education, a participant noted that most Americans now own things that only the wealthy would have enjoyed a few decades ago. But we’re not paying for these things with cash—we’re a credit society. He observed, “I think a lot of middle-income Americans are living their dreams. They’re driving vehicles they can’t afford and they’re living in houses they can’t afford. They have all the trappings. They’re focused on what makes them happy today.” *[“Motivating Americans to Develop Constructive Financial Behaviors,” by the National Endowment for Financial Education, 2004, p. 6.]
