Stop Burying Your Head in the Sand About Your Finances

by Jill Cooper

Ignoring your money problems will only make them worse. If you’ve lost control of your finances, it’s time to face your financial fears and start taking steps to regain control.

I had a dog once who would run and hide under the bed when I would scold him. He knew he had done something wrong and thought that by hiding, he wouldn’t get into trouble as much. I think he figured if he couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see him and he wouldn’t get scolded.

There was just one slight problem. He couldn’t fit under the bed. Only his head and front paws were hidden, but his back half was in full view. He had put himself in the worst possible position, but since he had buried himself under the bed, he didn’t know that.

Are You Hiding From Your Financial Troubles?

It’s human (and critter) nature to think that if I don’t acknowledge something, it won’t come to pass, or it will go away, and I won’t have to deal with it. We are often like the two-year-old who thinks there’s a monster in his room. He will cover his head up with a pillow, thinking, “If I can’t see the monster, then the monster can’t see me, and it will go away.”

We, as adults, laugh and think how silly this is. We know that if there really was a monster, hiding our heads under a pillow would not help us. If anything, hiding our heads would make it worse because we can’t see what the monster is doing, so we cannot devise a plan of attack to protect ourselves. Meanwhile, the monster takes a bite out of our britches.

Even though we find the dog’s or the two-year-old’s actions foolish and amusing, many of us do the very same thing when we don’t deal with our financial situation and our debt. Have you ever decided not to open a bill or look at a credit card statement because you don’t want to know the balance? Clicking your heels and saying, “There’s no place like home,” is not going to help.

Related: What Does My Debt Cost Me?

Is a Lack of Knowledge Hurting Your Finances?

How about your bank statement? Do you balance it every month or just throw it in with the pile of unopened bills because you don’t want to know how much is in your account? I hear someone saying, “But I don’t know how to balance it.” Then learn. There isn’t a bank in the world that isn’t willing to show you how to balance a checkbook if you ask.

My grandson, in the third grade, has enough math skills to balance a checkbook, but I often hear from college graduates, full of pride in their degrees, that they can’t balance a bank statement. It is just another excuse that helps them keep their heads buried in the sand. Learning to balance your checking account is much easier, much less time-consuming, and much less stressful than hiding from the monster.

Do You Refuse To Use Cash To Help Control Your Spending?

Another excuse many people use is refusing to use cash.

Often, when helping people get their credit card debt under control, I suggest that they get rid of the credit cards and just carry a small amount of cash in their wallets. The first thing that I always hear (and I have honestly never had anyone say anything different) is, “I can’t carry cash because I will spend it.”

This statement makes no sense to me. What do they think they do when they pull out their credit cards to buy something? Lack of self-control is lack of self-control no matter how you package it. (See The Subtle Psychology of Credit Cards and Overspending.)

If you allow yourself $20 cash, don’t keep credit cards in your wallet and you are shopping, you may spend the full $20, but when it is gone, there just “ain’t no more” to spend.

On the other hand, when you use a credit card, once you spend $20, you can pull it out again and spend another $20 and another and then maybe even $100. You don’t even have to track how much you spend for the day. Just stuff the receipt away and put your head under the bed! (See Are You Losing Thousands $20 at a Time?)

If you have a credit card problem, you will likely spend two to four times as much with a credit card than if you just use cash. But this is why people in financial denial love credit cards. They don’t have to acknowledge or see how much they have spent. If I don’t see it, it won’t hurt me.

Start Managing Your Money Like an Adult

In 1 Corinthians 13:11, it says, “When I was a child I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.” We need to put away childish or foolish actions where our money is concerned and start using adult reasoning concerning it.

If this is you, stop burying your head in the sand! Stop being afraid and start taking an honest look at your finances. Open those bills, balance those bank statements and acknowledge how much you spend! Then, figure out how to get it under control.

• Have You Grown Up Financially?
• 6 Types of People Who Have Trouble With Money
• Get Your Personal Finances In Order One Day at a Time
• How The Things We Believe In Affect Our Finances
• What Motivates You To Care About Your Personal Finances?

Reviewed November 2023

About the Author

Jill Cooper is a frugal living expert and the co-editor of LivingOnADime.com. As a single mother of two, Jill Cooper started her own business without any capital and paid off $35,000 debt in 5 years on $1,000 a month income.