In this week’s Ten Money Questions, we speak with Gena Haskett of Out on the Stoop. Gina had some extraordinarily thoughtful things to say about money. In her opinion, it all boils down to being alert and vigilant. Her theme below touts self-sufficiency and that makes for one powerful interview. Enjoy!

1. You wrote a post called Losing the Urge to Shop, where you discuss your shopping vice. You write, “Some women do shoes, I do electronics.” What opinions do you have about wants vs. needs when it comes to material things?
We all want a salve or bandage to cover our hurts. When I get stressed I want to cover the pain. A new camera, gadget or a book mainlines an immediate source of pleasure.

What I have come to understand is that I have to deal with the source of stress in a non-material way. I’m not perfect in this practice. I am helpless in a bookstore but instead of buying $50 worth of books I can switch to a photography magazine for $15.

2. What is your most significant memory about money?
I’ve got too many of them, many of them painful. If I pick one it would have to be being so broke I only had money for a cheap bag of frozen French fried potatoes or toilet paper. It was an echo of a similar event in my childhood.

When you get that broke you cross into humiliation that is stinging. You turn on the TV to numb out but every advertisement is about consumption. That can lead you to feel deprived and humiliated. Or in my case it produced an anger that provoke me into truly accepting I can’t depend on anyone to take care of me.

I can’t slack off of that job. I have to be alert and vigilant.

3. What is your worst habit around finances?
Fear as a habit of inaction. That fear can cause me not to make future plans. I have to automatically transfer money into my savings account. I will forget. I then spend time beating myself up that I didn't do what is right. That is wasteful energy so by putting it on automatic withdrawal I beat down that fear.

I feel safer with an emergency fund. I can have more than one bank account. This is my way to counter the implied message I got as a kid which was “Get it, spend it, be deprived, get it, spend it.”

I don’t underestimate the power of fear based inaction. But I am getting better at recognizing it when it pops up.

4. If you could buy one thing right now what would it be?
A Fuji S5200 or the next generation up or that new Sanyo Xacti HD Camcorder coming out in March 2007. For the record, I don’t need either one of those products.

I need a car. I’m spending money for driving lessons. But I don’t want a car the way I want cameras and camcorders. The whole car buying thing is scary. I don’t know about cars, buying them seems to be a racket and I don’t like monthly payments for anything.

I’m plowing through Edmunds.com and Consumer Reports. I have a book or two on how to buy a car and what not to do. For me it always comes back to knowledge as power.

5. You once left a comment on a BlogHer Personal Finance post that said, “Compound interest is your friend and lover - run to that relationship and embrace that sucker!” How does this principle impact your life?
Could we look at this as another expression of the Universal Laws of Attraction? That if I receive money and send it immediately out the door I am saying that I only have basic level needs and I don't want more than I am able to acquire in one month.

Do I welcome prosperity or chase it away?

But what if I make a different statement to myself and the Universe with the same amount of money that comes in a month? If I plan for my living expenses, make sure I have a fun factor built in and plan for my future goals by making a financial place for them then I am saying something quite different.

It is a shift in attitude. I am welcoming the money and ask a bit of it to stay around my account for a bit. The money gets to talking and tell a few friends to stop by and pretty soon there is a party at my savings account.

Compound interest, compound friendships, compound love. Maybe the internal question is “are you worthy of more and are you willing to accept that possibility?”

6. One of your pet peeves is that more women should be exposed to financial literacy. How did you learn the value of a dollar?
I was raised broke. I don’t use the word poor because that is a spiritual as well as financial condition. I was raised by a single mom who did her best to keep a roof over our heads and to feed us.

Sometimes there wasn’t enough to meet all of the household needs. So if you don’t have enough for basic survival needs you can’t educate your children about basic financial literacy. I was instructed in the “Rob Peter to Pay Paul” method of Financial Deprivation. Meaning whatever bill barked the loudest got paid. I learned how to dodge phone calls from collectors. How to wait until the last possible moment to pay before disconnection.

As an adult I knew nothing about basic money management. I knew I needed to learn but at the time many of the financial magazines and books were written for upper middle class people. I didn't have the vocabulary to understand what they were writing about or how to implement their suggestions.

My education started small in my 30s but my curiosity continued to grow until I said enough, let me deal with this. I've got a long way to go but now at least I know there are better choices to be made about money. Before then, I didn’t know I had a choices available that did not involve suffering.

The quality of the financial education writing is so much better. The Personal Finance bloggers are doing wonderful work.

But the people that need it still don't have access to the core basic information. There needs to be an infusion at community level. I hate to lay another burden on schools but next to true sex education this would be my second choice of a mandatory topic.

7. What are your plans for retirement?
I strongly believe in having multiple income streams. I get queasy if my support is only coming from one source.

I have a 401K from my day job. After getting the car I think I might start learning about stocks/mutual funds. I have a lot of income to generate in the next 20 years to make up for lost time.

I think retirement is a death sentence. I insist on have the freedom to do what I want and Social Security will hit the vapors before I get a tenth of my money back. So that motivates me to get busy and lay down the framework of my future.

8. What role has money played in your romantic relationships?
I dated a guy who made more money than I did at the time. I wanted to take him out to dinner a few times on my dime. This always invoked a discussion. He kept saying that my money shouldn't be used to take him out because I had less of it to spend.

I, however, wanted an equal relationship. I didn't want him to be able to say “He gave and I took.” I did not and still don’t want to be thought of as an “expense”. I want full person-hood in a relationship. I can’t be bought or rented. I’m not an appendage.

I listen to men talking and some of them are really confused. They think if they paid for it a date, a trip or whatever they have superior rights. I don’t go out with those kind of men.

But if you are financially insecure, if you aren’t rooted in truth or don’t know better then that old power game can and will work to a woman’s detriment.

It is that fear thing again - who has control? Money can affect a relationship dynamics. It is hard to continue to love someone if you see the other person as a “treat”. It is hard to disengage from another person if you are depended on their continued financial support.

9. Which is more important: how much money you make or how you spend it?
Can I say both? Maybe it is the balance of the two.

10. Does money buy happiness?
No, but it dang sure can help you find the way. That’s not an enlightened enough answer. How about true happiness has nothing to do with money.

If you have nothing you have nothing to lose so there would be an opportunity to experience and connect with the comic flow. That will last until about lunch time.

There are people who have 4x the money that they will ever need. They are miserable (however you want to apply that word).

The balance comes when you have your basic needs met, your spiritual or humanistic concerns are in check and you are acting in the interest of your authentic self. That could take a life time of work or a week or two. It isn’t the money. It is your relationship to money that will determine how happy you want to be.

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Read other interviews in Nina’s Ten Money Questions series at Queercents.