What Is Money Clutter?
People have different tolerances for money clutter in their lives.
What is money clutter anyhow? If something about money feels unfinished, unresolved, messy and complicated, or it’s something you’ve been avoiding, you can bet it is money clutter.
It’s true that clutter is perceived very personally. Just as I have written about with our messy weekday schedules and the chaos in the house…(with thanks to Paul Simon) one’s man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.
For most people, clutter is something that “just happens” to them, and they wish they knew how to get out from under it.
Sometimes even those people who seem OK with clutter, both money clutter as well as the other types of chaos I have been writing about, get a wake up call when they are forced to come face to face with clutter of their own making.
For example, in taming the chaos in our house, we are now tearing out the old, nasty carpet that was laid down in 1972 and replacing it with wood floors. During the remodeling, first there will be chaos, and then things will fall into some new kind of order. Removing the carpets is the event that may take us into some serious clutter removal.
During the remodeling, everything in the rooms has to go somewhere else…all the old, crushed cartons hiding in the closets and the piles of who-knows-what that have taken up residence in Jeff’s home office need to go elsewhere for a while, and maybe even into the recycling bin. Jeff’s admitting there’s a lot of stuff sitting around that he didn’t remember was there. And most of it has no purpose and needs to go! (Yay!).
Money clutter is a little like having out-of-date unwanted magazines piled up in the back of the closet.
To me, clutter is another word for chaos. When you can’t find what you need, you can’t move on with your goals or projects (even if the goal is simply to get dressed in something clean, nice and attractive which you can’t find when half your closet is filled with clothes that don’t fit and you’ll never wear again).
There’s no breathing room and whenever there’s no room, nothing new can show up. We’ve all heard of the Law of Attraction, the spiritual law that says that you will create or manifest what you focus on. There’s another principle called the Vacuum Law of Prosperity. It states that you need to let go of the old to make room for the new. When you clear your money clutter, you clear the path for new sources of prosperity and abundance.
How To Clear Your Money Clutter
Here are some easy questions to help you clear your money clutter. *
- Does anyone owe you money?
- Write down every company or person who owes you money and the amount they owe. Contact each of those companies or people and find out where your money is.
- Do you pay bills late (and get late fees tacked on)? Do you ever totally miss a payment?
- Create a schedule (weekly is best) for paying bills and mark the day/time in your calendar. Keep this appointment as your “money date” each week.
- What’s in your wallet? Old receipts? Lint covered candy mints? Ticket stubs to a movie you saw last month? Stamps you’ll never find when you need them? Business cards from people you met at a networking even a few months ago?
- Take out your wallet and clear out the clutter. If your wallet is torn, worn or shabby replace it with one that is new and that makes you happy.
Clutter of any kind blocks your abundance, drains your energy and keeps you stuck. Are you ready to clear your money clutter?
Marsha Lichtenstein is a certified Money Breakthrough Method coach.
* Adapted from 2013 Kendall SummerHawk. All Rights Reserved.
