When I was a teenager I had a problem with shoplifting. I wanted everything that I couldn’t have, and because of my impulsive behavior and lack of self-control I would often find myself in trouble. I grew up in a middle-class home and had everything I needed. Yet I still craved more.
One day when shopping with friends at the mall, I went into my favorite clothing store and spotted an adorable outfit, but my mom had only given me enough money to buy lunch. I was just fourteen, so I didn’t have a job yet. I remember thinking that maybe I could sneak some of that clothing out of the store without anyone knowing. I slipped on a pair of tight denim shorts, a white sparkly tank top, and a beautiful white-and-red-striped blouse. Then I put my regular clothing over them and walked out of the store. I couldn’t believe it—I was so excited about what I had done. My friends and I bragged about it to each other, and the adrenaline surge of my success was exhilarating. I loved the rush of it all, especially the lack of consequences.
I came home and slipped my brand-new clothes into my closet, stuffed inside a large clothing box left over from Christmas. I pushed the box all the way to the back of my closet so that my mom wouldn’t find it. I should have felt remorse, but I actually felt like I had just won the lottery! I started to do my homework, but I couldn’t contain the rush of adrenaline that was flowing through my body. I could see myself doing it again and started to dream of all the new items I could take.
The next evening while I was in my room doing my homework, I heard my mother yell from downstairs, “Lauren, get down here right this minute!” It was that mom voice that says, “You are in the biggest trouble of your life.”
I immediately wondered to myself, “How did she know?” Somewhere deep in my gut I knew that she had somehow found out about my trip to the store. I had no idea how, but she had. I came downstairs and one glance at her face told me I was in big trouble. She had her hands behind her back, which I thought was strange, but soon realized it was because she was holding the stolen clothing in clenched fists. She held up the clothes, tags dangling in the tense air. She had found them. And I was in deep trouble!
When writing this book, I realized I had never learned how she discovered the clothes, so I called her to ask. She said that she had been searching for something in my closet while I was at school and came across a strange box. She’d opened the box and knew instantly that I had stolen the clothes. I asked her how she knew they were stolen, and she said, “I knew they were stolen because many of your friends were stealing, you didn’t have any money to buy them, and I certainly didn’t buy them for you.”
This was not the first time I had stolen. When I was fourteen I had started smoking cigarettes along with my older brother, Rick. One afternoon when out walking downtown, I tried to steal a pack of cigarettes from a local convenience store and got caught. The manager sat me down and gave me a stern talking-to, then let me go on my way. This time, with the stolen clothing, I had been caught by my mom, which made it even worse.
I am not sure if I had ever seen my mom so mad at me. It was as if she was one of those animated cartoon characters with smoke coming out of her ears. I wanted to escape into a dark hole and cry, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to get myself out of trouble.
She asked me, “Lauren, did you steal from the mall yesterday?” Sweat started rolling down my brow. I lied and told her I had bought them for a friend, but she didn’t believe me. I was trying not to make eye contact with her because the shame was so strong. I am a people pleaser, so having someone angry with me is almost as bad as getting attacked by a swarm of angry hornets. I tried to lie to her, but she was not having it. I felt as if my life was over.
To make matters worse, my mom made me pack up the clothing in a brown bubble mailer. I then had to write a letter to the store manager apologizing for the theft and explain why I did it, then mail it back to the store.
Mortified and embarrassed, I was banned from the store, my mom would not allow me to return to the mall, and I was grounded for a month.
Had I learned my lesson in greed yet? I wish I could say I had—but that was only the beginning of my spending addiction. The desire to spend was there and I just couldn’t shake it.
Desire is such a powerful emotion that it makes you do unpredictable things. Have you heard of the folktale of how an Eskimo kills a wolf? He first coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. He repeats the process until the blade is completely covered in frozen blood. Then he fixes his knife in the ground with the blade sticking up.
The wolf smells something and, following his nose to the source of the scent, discovers the knife. He licks the blood-covered knife and is instantly pleased by the taste. He begins to lick faster and harder. Frantically, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade, until the blood is gone from the knife and he is licking a naked blade. He is so blinded by his desire for more blood that he does not notice as his tongue starts to bleed from being sliced by the blade. Because of his predatory appetite he desires more blood, not realizing that the blood he is craving is now his own. The Eskimo comes back in the morning and finds the wolf dead in the snow from his self-inflicted wound and the loss of blood.
Why share this story with you? We Spenders are like the wolf, and money is our knife. As a Spender, I would spend money and it would feel so good! It would give me a rush of adrenaline. I would then feel so guilty that I would get depressed. That depression led me to go shopping again. It was a vicious cycle that wouldn’t end until I stopped doing it. The wolf wouldn’t have died if it had stopped licking the knife and desiring more blood. The Spender will continue to inflict wounds on herself emotionally and financially until she learns how to manage her money and starts to take action to avoid the dangers that lie ahead.
I was used to making stupid financial decisions, but things got worse when the bad financial habits started to rub off on my husband. It’s as if I was a wolf sharing that knife with her partner. I was helping him commit a slow suicide as well.
Just six months before I won my car that fateful night, my husband, Mark, was scouring Autotrader listings and the classifieds. He spent time at car dealerships, just checking things out. At that time we had two old and junky cars, but no car payments. Mark’s car was a green 1994 Saturn. It was a standard transmission with no CD player and no air-conditioning, and he had to turn a crank to open the windows. It was so uncomfortable and embarrassing to drive. And it certainly wasn’t the Lamborghini I had dreamt about as a child. He commuted to work forty-five minutes each way with his best friend, and whenever it was his turn to drive, his friend made it known how much he disapproved of Mark’s car. After a while, it started to bother us both.
If Mark’s car sounds bad, what I had to drive to my sales meetings was even worse—a 1998 red Ford Windstar with a huge dent and scrape on the back from when I had backed into a snowbank a few years earlier. I was embarrassed going to every meeting and sales event driving what we called “Big Red.” I felt my peers would not respect me if I drove that hideous thing. I was humiliated and thought people were laughing behind my back. How was I to appear as a successful businesswoman who makes a lot of money if I drove this big red van to sales meetings? I thought my reputation was on the line, and I needed to protect that.
We didn’t have any car loans and never had. We never once stopped to think about the fact that if we purchased a new car, we would have to get a loan for the first time. I thought that was what you had to do to get nice things. Everyone else did it, so it couldn’t be a big deal. We had to have something nicer to drive. So that’s when Mark began car hunting. It had to be a luxury-type vehicle that said, “This family is doing pretty well.”
When Mark and I first started dating, he told me that his dream car was an Audi. When we started looking for a new car this time, I wanted my husband to have his dream. An Audi it was! It was January, and we had just been approved for a loan for $18,000 to buy a vehicle. We were both working full-time and had only one child. It was easy for us to find the extra $230 per month for that car payment. We found the car we wanted; it was about an hour and a half away in the city of Rochester, New York. I remember the drive well—we were so excited! Our first nice car. We deserved this—we had worked so hard! Mark had a great job as an actuary and I was working full-time with my MLM home-based business and was a stay-at-home mom to our son, Andrew.
With Mark’s parents watching our six-month-old son, we got in our red Ford Windstar and drove to pick up the car. When we got to the car dealership, we saw the car and it looked just as gleaming and beautiful as it had in the photos.
The sales guy asked us if we wanted to take it for a test drive, and we agreed, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? But truth be told, we were already sold. As long as it started and moved forward when I stepped on the gas, we were buying this vehicle with wood-trimmed dashboard, heated leather seats, and six-disc CD player. I sheepishly asked the guy if he would take less; he said he couldn’t. He knew we were buying it; he could see it in our eyes and hear it in our voices—he had us. So we paid full price.
I remember how I felt driving it home—in a word, successful.
Looking back, I can see how I convinced myself that I needed this car, and how if I didn’t get it I wouldn’t be a success. Mark got his dream car and I got the car I needed in order to appear like a winner. My way of thinking changed drastically after this purchase, and not for the better. I drove around town in our hot car a little more proud, with my chin held a little higher. After all, I had a rear-windshield sunshade, so that our sleeping toddler would never get sun in his eyes. I drove a car all the moms wanted (or so I thought). That pride led to other bad financial decisions: buying things I couldn’t afford and convincing myself that I would pay for them later. But later never came.
Fast-forward six months and we had just “won” the brand-new company car. I say “won” because technically it is a company lease and if you don’t make a certain amount of sales in your team you have to pay them a co-pay to drive it. That co-pay can be up to $900 per month, something I wasn’t aware of when I earned that dream car. The embarrassing Saturn and red minivan we had in our driveway were now replaced with an Audi and a luxury vehicle from my company. The total worth of our cars was now equal to the market price of our $65,000 home.
Had my values changed? If you asked me then, I would have said no. We went to the same church, lived good lives, and were great parents to our son. Those were the things that I valued in life. I was not a materialistic person. Or was I?