Spending Plan -- A Spiritual Tool
by an anonymous member of Debtors Anonymous
This recovery story is made available by a member of DA under two conditions: (1) no name is attached, and (2) nobody makes any money off it. Feel free to read it for your own inspiration, and for that of your own local DA group.
I see the spending plan as a profound spiritual tool. Without the spiritual part, DA is another money management club. But with it I am able to align actions myself with God's will for me (which is ultimately my own desire for me.)
I realized that when I first understood that every cent that I spent was a statement of values. The amounts that I spent on things reflected their relative value. If I spent $100 on one item but $50 on some other item it meant that in a certain sense I valued the first item more. Hence it has been essential for me in my DA recovery to have my spending aligned with my spiritual values.
At the beginning of the month when I make a spending plan I am thus making a statement of my values. It is impossible to do this without working the 12 steps of DA. In particular, step four in which I examine myself, and step eleven in which I improve my conscious contact with God, are essential. To newcomers in DA who aren't there yet a pressure relief group can offer a partial answer as the pressure relief group members to a certain extent manifest the presence of a higher power.
At the end of the month, I examine my recordkeeping and compare with the spending plan developed at the beginning of the month. Slight differences are always present, but if there are large differences between the "plan" and the "actual", then one or more of three things has happened. The first possibility is that I lied about what I valued when I made up the spending plan. (This often happens to newcomers because working the steps is necessary to clarify ones' values.) The second possibility is that I changed my mind regarding what I valued. This is ok but we need to remember that we can only spend a single dollar once! As one becomes more in touch with ones higher power, this should happen less often -- we become less reactive to situations that cause us to want to "change our minds". The third possibility is that something is out of control. It may be compulsive spending, a legitimate urgent expense (car repairs, for example), a true emergency (a sudden illness), or something else. In DA we work with our pressure relief meeting to have sufficient prudent reserves to cover those urgencies -- and working the 12 steps removes the desire to compulsively spend.
(Name witheld in the interest of anonymity)