By John Shumway
/ CBS Pittsburgh
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - What is your relationship with money?
Do you control it - or does it control you?
Money can be emotional and a healthy relationship is not letting it call the shots. An unhealthy relationship with money comes from giving it power.
"It's not just a tool for exchanging goods and services," said Rober Bertman, a certified financial planner with Family Budget Expert. "There's some other sort of overlay that is negatively impacting your ability to make choices with your money."
Bertman said that overlay comes from our past.
"People carry anxiety," he explained. "There could be something that happened when they were young or they saw their parents go through maybe an experience that they went through."
Some might ignore their balance until a crisis occurs and others try retail therapy.
"[That's] where you go and you buy things to try to make yourself feel better," Bertman said.
That feeling, however, is only temporary.
"Afterwards, we face the reality that maybe it put us into more credit card debt, or maybe we weren't using that money," he said. "We can put that money to better use."
Add in the social media component that makes everyone's life look better than yours.
"A lot of the people posting on social media about that great vacation or that great home improvement project doesn't mean that they might not have debt on the other side that's actually making their life more stressful," Bertman added.
It all can lead to an unhealthy relationship with money - because you want that thing or that experience.
"When it starts to drive your behavior and starts, you start cutting corners in order to get to that result, that's when it starts to become a little detrimental," he said.
Bertman said you just have to realize that money is just something you use.
"Money is not a measure of someone's self-worth, it's a measure of your net worth," he explained.
While money may give you more choices, it does not control your value as a friend, family member, or person. Bertman said once you get to understand that, money will be put in its place and you'll have a healthy relationship with it.
So, it comes down to where we started - who is in control - you or your money?
It doesn't control happiness and there are people who are happier who have a lot less and people with more who are miserable.
