by Renee leNobel | Feb 16, 2016 | Finances
I am curious about the stories people tell themselves about money. I have been gaining self-awareness about how my stories have majorly impacted my life and so I was interested to learn if other’s stories have had the same impact on their own lives.
A friend kindly offered to share her story with me. She already knew she had “issues” around money and so was happy to explore this idea with me.
She recently came to understand that she has a deep seated belief that she does not deserve to have money. She joked around about it and said “as what we believe tends to come true, is it any wonder that I feel like I don’t have money and never will?” She has been pushing money away her entire life.
So how did she get to the point where she believes she does not deserve money?
Well, as in many of our lives, she inherited the seedling for her belief from her parents and her life experience further solidified it in her psyche.
She grew up in a small town with the following story:
As a girl she was told that she needed to find someone to take care of her, she was not allowed to be driven as that is not considered ladylike. Women that go after money are mean and hard and that is not the type of girl to be.
She was abused as a child and so therefore learned to try to make herself small so as not to be abused again. She learned to stay out of the way and keep quiet. The abuse led to other thoughts that she was a bad person and undeserving. In her words, she was dirty, unworthy, had no value and was stupid.
At the same time, she learned that it was important to put others first and to be grateful. Christian charity was drilled into her every week at church. You must feed and clothe others before yourself and simply be grateful for what you have as it is more than many others.
All this experience made her feel like she was at the bottom of the list of deserving people.
What did all these thoughts do to her spending habits and money patterns?
She believed money belonged to other people, but not her.
She believed that she was never good enough. There was always one more thing she needed to learn or become to command the salary or wages that she was entitled to.
This story she was telling herself created layer upon layer between herself and elusive money.
She learned to tell people – “you don’t need to pay me for that (I don’t deserve it) – I’ll do it for free.
At the same time, whenever she got into a relationship she gave up all control over the finances as that is what she had learned. She was to be taken care of. So any money that she had saved while she was single, she ended up spending once she was in a relationship. As she described it: it trickled through her fingers and disappeared.
So what happened to help her get out from under this heavy story?
In her words:
“Actually, what I did was was take a good look at the “story” and examined it and then rewrote the story for myself with help from a coach. We rarely if ever think about our thinking… the thoughts that were there whether loud and clear or a whisper. I removed them and replaced them and on a daily basis I work at keeping my thoughts right…”
I know this about her – she is battling her money story and she is winning.
by Renee leNobel | Feb 10, 2016 | Finances
The stories that play in our head are often put there by what is happening in the world around us as we grow up. We hear the stories from our parents, friends and society and depending on how loud and prevalent they are, we tend to adopt them as our world view.
When I was growing up, the story that was playing was that you have to be very careful with money and save for a rainy day that was surely coming. We could not continue to count on our good luck as someday it would change and we needed to prepare for that change.
There are many reasons why this story was prevalent in our household and in similar middle class households around us. Most of our parents were children of war and depression impacted parents and they had had this story drilled into them. Our parents simply passed along their beliefs.
Everyone interprets the stories they hear differently. One person might take the story that good luck can’t last and go out and spend their money so there is nothing to lose when that bad day comes. I chose to believe that I had to save every dollar that wasn’t going to a clearly defined necessity such as food or shelter. Every spending decision for me became a debate in my head: “do I really need this or would it be better to save my money for the day when I will not be able to make any money and will therefore otherwise be destitute?” The rainy day always won the debate in my head and I simply stopped spending money.
The only time I spent money on “fun” things was if I was with someone else who had a different story playing in their head. As a self-proclaimed people pleaser, I would tend to weigh other people’s arguments more heavily than my own. If they were telling me it was ok to spend my money on that item of clothing or fun night out, I would do it. And then I would feel horrible guilt and would spend time justifying my spending after the fact.
Sometime in my thirties, I began to recognize that I was a bit extreme in my spending habits and I modified my behaviour slightly. However I still strongly believed the story that I was going to be broke someday. Then I got married and had kids and my ability to save was severely impacted. I worried about money all the time. It was fairly exhausting.
Then I got divorced.
Well, this was all the proof I needed that I had been correct that someday things were all going to implode. My story had been confirmed.
Starting out again after a divorce is challenging. Starting out again after a divorce with the belief that the end of the world just happened and there is no way to ever get back to even a remote semblance of the financial stability one had before divorce is even more challenging.
That day that I had been planning for all my life had finally arrived. I would be financially unstable for the remainder of my life.
It is hard to move forward with that belief. For me, I tried to mitigate the damage by not taking any risks. I would horde my remaining savings and make them last until I was dead.
Then I started to notice that other people had different stories. One story that I was particularly fascinated by was the one where if you run out of money, you can simply go out and figure out a way to earn more. Really?
Another story I noticed was the gratitude story. Some friends were grateful for their good fortune of living in Canada and having jobs and felt like they were living in abundance. I noticed that they seemed to have more joy in life.
I also began to realize with time that in actual fact doomsday had not come for me. In reality, I had not become destitute. I just believed that I had. It was not true. I realized that my story was creating my not so fun reality.
What did my financial story do for me? Some people might argue that it helped me save and saving is a good thing right?
That story did help me save and I am grateful for the fact that I had some financial stability coming out of a divorce.
But did I need that story playing in my head while I saved? Did I need guilt and buyer’s remorse as my constant friends as I went through life? I would have to say I could have done without it.
I could have saved and set aside for a rainy day without all the extra baggage of guilt going around in my head. Really, it is quite easy to do. What is that saying? It is “pay yourself first.” I did that. When I got my paycheque every month I put a percentage aside as savings. That part was not hard. Why did I then have to continue to feel guilt about spending the money that was not designated savings? Because I truly believed a made-up story.
Do you have a story about money that is playing in your head? How does it affect your life and spending patterns?
Recognizing the stories we tell ourselves can illuminate how we are making decisions in life. Are you doing things based on a made up story or are you living your life according to your true values and beliefs?
Next week I will tackle a friend’s story. In her words: “my story is that it is ok for everyone else to have money – not me…at least not yet. I don’t know when it will be my turn”.
by Renee leNobel | Jan 27, 2016 | Finances
Do you have your own business? Are you contemplating starting your own business? I recommend you think about putting structures into place to maintain work-life balance.
Or not.
Yeah, I’m conflicted about this. I love my job. I love it so much that other things have basically flown out the window. Today someone asked me what my hobbies are. Hobbies? Uh…I guess work does not count? I was too embarrassed to admit that Netflix is a hobby. I felt bad all afternoon as I have no hobbies anymore!
When I couldn’t come up with hobbies, I started to beat myself up more. How did this happen? How did I become a workaholic when in my prior life I had the tag phrase: “Renee, the only thing she is passionate about is her leisure time?”
One of the main things that happened is that I started to practice gratitude. When I look at my life now, I look at everything that I am grateful for. When you spend your day thinking about how grateful you are to have the work that you are doing, it suddenly takes on a different hue. You want to be doing it.
I also feel like I have chosen all my work. No one is making me do it.
But there is something else. A sole proprietor who works from home has no clear divides between when the working day starts and when it ends. As soon as you get up and are awake, you are potentially at work.
A friend put it to me this way:
The difference between someone that works a nine to five job and a sole proprietor is that the person who works nine to five has clearly defined non working hours that they do not get paid for but the sole proprietor can work anytime and anywhere. As there are no clear “personal life hours” it is easy to slide into a pattern where you simply work if you have nothing else going on. Especially if you love it!
I have discovered that I do everything that I need to get done in my life (feed the kids, do laundry, shop) and the time that is not spent taking care of kids and household, I spend on work. If nothing is scheduled, I start working.
So as much as I like my work, I recognize that not having some other interests could potentially lead to burnout and general unhealthiness as I sit in front of my computer all day.
I’ve come to the conclusion that as a sole proprietor or entrepreneur, one has to schedule leisure time. Simply having free time does not work. It is like a vacuum into which work rushes in.
Time to book that weekly exercise class. To ensure I go, I’ll pay up front. Accountants hate wasting money!
I have decided. I need to start scheduling my time off. Just like you have to be sitting at your desk as an employee for certain hours, I will have to create a non-work schedule and punch the old in and out timecard to make sure I adhere to it.
by Renee leNobel | Dec 21, 2015 | Finances
I’ve been getting some very strong reminders lately about the importance of planning. Very strong.
The main reminder I have been getting is that if you don’t plan adequately for certain stuff in life, things can go very wrong, On the flip side, by doing just a little work upfront, life can go so much more smoothly.
One area where I don’t think enough planning is being done is when people decide to get married. Oh there is wedding planning happening, but it seems to me that there is not enough marriage planning happening.
What is the indication of this? Well, I think most people who have been through a divorce would agree with me. It is a walk in the park getting married compared to getting divorced. In fact divorce is so hard that some people simply stay in an unhappy marriage. These couples had no escape plan and so simply stay married.
A good analogy is comparing marriage and divorce to credit cards and credit card debt.
Credit cards are easy to get and can be very fun for people that haven’t thought about what happens when their credit card statement arrives in the mail. They get a card and they go shopping. Shopping is fun and exciting and it’s great for the first couple of months. Then reality sets in.
“What? I have to pay this money back? Plus 20%? And if I don’t pay it back, I’m going to owe for 35 years?”
At this point the person in debt is having to do a lot of work to get out of the credit card debt predicament they find themselves in. It sure was easy getting that credit card and getting into debt. It’s not so easy to get out of it.
I find it’s the same with marriage. It sure is easy to get married. It costs $100 for a marriage license. Then all you have to do is find someone to act as a marriage commissioner (I think we paid ours $300) and say the magic words: you are now husband and wife, wife and wife, husband and husband (or whatever the magic words are in your situation).
And you are married.
I hope you did some planning together to figure out what your marriage would look like and even more planning to get back out of it if things start to go wrong.
Because it’s not so simple getting divorced.
Unfortunately you can’t just rip up that $100 marriage certificate.
You need a separation agreement and those can be hard to get. By the time you and your spouse have reached the stage where you have decided to get a divorce, there is a high probability that you are not getting along. It’s hard to come to agreement with someone you are not getting along with. So what to do? Well, you usually have to hire someone to help you such as a lawyer, mediator, counselor, financial planner, accountant, etc. These service providers generally charge considerably more than the marriage commissioner. They are more in the $300 – $500 an hour range and it can take considerable time for them to help you and your spouse come to an agreement.
You could also rely on the courts and simply file for divorce and let the cards fall where they may. You could represent yourself and leave it up to some judge that doesn’t know you decide your future. A risky proposition. Most people won’t chance it and again hire the lawyer to get them out of this predicament. A court divorce generally costs thousands more than a mediated divorce or collaborative divorce.
How do you avoid all this? You plan. You create a marriage agreement between you and your future spouse with the help of a qualified professional before you get married.
Yes, it will cost money and it is not very romantic planning what to do in case of a future divorce.
Look at this way. It will not take nearly as many billable hours to come to a marriage agreement because at this point you and your spouse will be on the same page. After all you are about to be married!
Not on the same page? Having a hard time making that agreement? Then I have to ask, why are you getting married?
by Renee leNobel | Dec 10, 2015 | Finances
Last’s week’s post is missing. Where did it go?
It got decimated by the negative internal chatter and negative future focus that was going on in my brain for the last two weeks. When I finally got out from it, this week’s blog post presented itself:
Your victimhood perspective is making you stuck.
You know the victimhood perspective right? It’s those thoughts that life is harder for you , your circumstances are too challenging, you can’t do it, life is unfair, etc. , etc., etc.
Those are the thoughts that lead you to make less than ideal choices or simply not make choices at all and avoid, avoid, avoid.
Instead of addressing the things you need to do with hope and optimism, you get dragged into doing things because things have gotten so bad, you are forced to do them kicking and screaming all the way.
I can think of one thing that I see people avoiding time and time again – taxes anyone?
Not doing taxes is not my issue; I like doing those. I have other things I avoid when I thinking these thoughts:
I’m too busy
My life is harder than everyone else’s
There’s a big conspiracy to stop me from doing “this” (“this” being whatever you are stuck on).
I can’t do it, I’m not capable.
This was me last week when I was feeling like I was being forced to do something I didn’t want to do.
I started off by trying not to let it affect me. My last post was all about waiting to see what would be revealed.
That didn’t work for me at all and it turns out I’m not very patient when there is uncertainty in my life. It felt like there was a ticking time bomb about to go off in my life which I had no control over.
Then I started talking to people about it despite my other self-imposed rule not to do this. I did this anyway because I was feeling sorry for myself and wanted sympathy.
I got sympathy. Did that make me feel better? Nope. I just thought “my life is so unfair.” even more.
Other people advised me that I needed to be an adult and deal with it.
I listened to the people telling me this and I chose to add it to the “more proof that my life is unfair” file I had set up in my brain.
“Why do I have to be the adult? That’s not fair. I’m always the adult.”
So then I sat around some more for a couple of days and felt worse and worse.
I hadn’t felt this low for a while.
So I hauled out my self-help tools and I started to trick my brain into feeling better.
I started writing. I wrote a lot of angry emails that I sent to myself. I started many (blamey and angry) blog posts.
I started practicing gratitude by writing down three things I was grateful for when I woke up every morning. I even got my kids to practice gratitude and that morning there was no yelling…coincidence? I journaled and generally pretended I was Pollyanna. Remember her? The irony that I have to try to be Pollyanna these days is kinda funny to me because when I was in my twenties, I was accused of being too much like Pollyanna by a friend of mine . It was considered a bad thing with certain people and frankly it got buried in me because I used to hang out with a bunch Eeyores.
I then started repeating this to myself:
“I’m choosing not to be a victim. After all I can deal with whatever is thrown my way. I always have, I always will. That is life. Everyone deals with whatever comes their way. We all do. Yes, some of it is really terrible and yes, it could possibly be very unfair but we all deal with it. I get to choose how to deal with it.”
Then I sat down and became the adult.
I addressed the issue that was making me feel like a victim.
I addressed it the way I know best.
And you know what? I got to get on with my life again and I got to head in the direction that I wanted. Suddenly I became productive and unstuck again. I contacted people I had been avoiding, I got on with my work backlog and I felt good.
So if you are feeling stuck and unhappy, check in with your perspective. Are you feeling like life is unfair?
If yes, you need to do some work.
by Renee leNobel | Nov 12, 2015 | Divorce, Finances
I recently did a set of spending plans for a separated couple. They are trying to sort out how they will share parenting arrangements in the future. Their individual financial situations depend on what they decide. Are they going to share parenting, or will one parent be designated the Primary Caregiver?
In an ideal world, this couple would decide what is best for the children without thinking about how it will affect them financially, but often, people let their financial situation drive their decisions rather than vice versa.
How do different parenting arrangements affect the individual parent’s financial situation?
These are the basic rules:
Primary Caregiver Situation
The primary caregiver, the person who parents the children more than 60% of the time, receives child support from the other parent. The primary caregiver also gets all the tax credits and benefits related to the children.
Example 1:
Parent A is the primary caregiver of a two- and four-year-old child and earns $40,000 per year, while Parent B earns $60,000 annually. Parent B pays Parent A $900 a month in child support.
How does this look after taxes are considered?
Parent A pays about $6,000 in taxes (including EI and CPP).
Parent A is therefore left with $40,000 less $6,000 in taxes plus $10,800 (child support – non-taxable to Parent A) plus $4,000 (Canada Child Benefit) for a grand total of $48,800 (after tax) per year.
Parent B pays about $14,000 in taxes (including EI and CPP – Parent B does not get any credits related to the children).
Parent B is therefore left with $60,000 less $14,000 less $10,800 (child support) for a grand total of $35,200 after tax. That differs from Parent A, who started out with less.
As stated, Parent A is the primary caregiver of the children and so will, therefore, have much greater costs. That said, in the above situation, Parent B will also be on the hook for a greater percentage of child-related expenses, such as work-related child care. In this case, if Parent A earns $40,000 yearly with a two and four-year-old, there will likely be child care. Parent B will pay 60% of the childcare costs, and Parent A will pay 40%. Parent A gets to claim the childcare expense and Parent B does not.
Will Parent B understand that and give up almost $20,000 per year, or will Parent B decide equal parenting would be better?
Shared Parenting Situation
If the parents share parenting, they each must pay child support to the other parent. Essentially, it works like this:
Example 2:
Parent A earns $50,000, and Parent B earns $50,000.
Parent A has to pay $760 to Parent B for child support, and Parent B has to pay $760 to Parent A for child support. These two amounts offset each other.
Example 3:
Parent A earns $40,000, and Parent B earns $60,000 (as above in example 1)
This time, Parent A pays a monthly amount of child support to Parent B, $600, and Parent B pays $900 to Parent A. These amounts are calculated based on the Federal Child Support Guidelines. Here is a handy calculator.
The child support guidelines are meant to equalize the children’s standard of living in the two different households (where they spend equal time). The calculation considers taxes as the recipient of the $300 receives the money tax-free, and the payer does not get a deduction. Now, their respective incomes look like this:
Parent A – $40,000 less taxes of $6,000 or 14.7% plus $3,600 in child support plus $2,000 (Canada Child Benefit; it is shared) for a grand total of $38,000 (after tax) per year.
Parent B – $60,000 less taxes of $11,500 or 19.15% (this is lower than in example 1 as this time parent B gets to claim one child as a dependent) less $3,600 in child support plus $2,000 Canada Child Benefit for a grand total of $46,900 (after tax) per year.
Parent A and B’s incomes are not completely equalized, but Parent B will end up paying more for things like medical and dental for the children as well as for extracurricular activities and other special expenses for the children. Parent B pays 60% of these expenses, and Parent A pays 40%.
If I were Parent B and were only concerned with money, I would choose example 3.
Do you see what the child support guidelines did?
The guidelines encouraged both parents to step up and be equal caregivers to their children—money talks.
In an ideal world, both parents would also step up and share parenting responsibilities, not just the money.
Parents starting out on the shared parenting path will struggle at first. One parent was likely the primary caregiver when the couple was married. That is usually the way it works. They will have to learn strategies for sharing parenting duties in the future.
I am curious about the stories people tell themselves about money. I have been gaining self-awareness about how my stories have majorly impacted my life and so I was interested to learn if other’s stories have had the same impact on their own lives.
