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Not Enough

What’s your relationship with money? I ask because I’ve assumed for a while now that yours looks something like mine. Lately I’ve noticed my assumptions tend to get me into trouble.

Here’s my money history, in case it helps you check.

I’ve always operated from one core fear: there isn’t enough, and it might run out. That thought shows up everywhere. I check my finances compulsively to confirm there’s still enough today. I’m frugal to a fault, hand-me-down queen, proudly. And spending money hurts, whether it’s on something fun or a plumbing bill. All of it stings equally.

Funny enough, I know people with the same fear, not enough money, who respond by spending as fast as they can before it disappears: same fear, opposite behaviour.

My fear came true when I separated from my husband. He’d been the one with the paycheque, and suddenly the money I’d been afraid would stop flowing actually stopped. I believed my savings were gone too, most of it eaten by the lawyer and the split. Nothing is more terrifying than watching your worst fear materialize. It took over my life for a while.

Eventually I had to find a way to let go of “there’s not enough,” because that thought was the thing actually causing the pain, more than the situation itself.

I started permitting myself to spend on things like clothes or eating out, without the usual sting attached. I also started increasing what came in, while still making sure I never spent more than that. Not more spending for its own sake, just less fear attached to the spending I was already doing.

Looking back, my money history wasn’t all bad. My obsessive tracking gave me an unusually precise understanding of exactly what I need to live on. My obsession with an emergency cushion meant I actually had options when the divorce hit. Both of those habits, born from fear, ended up serving me well.

Now my relationship with money is different. My baseline thought is: there’s enough. I still pay attention. Some months I still have to cut back or find new ways to bring money in. I still keep an emergency cushion because the unexpected still happens, two plumbing emergencies in one week recently, and for once I wasn’t even bummed, because the cushion was there.

My relationship with money isn’t a painful one anymore.

So, what’s yours?

Renée

Renée

My days these days are mostly advocacy, with my kids always first, and hiking, biking, and cold plunging worked in whenever I can. Winter cold plunges aren’t for everyone, but there’s a strange kind of beauty and calm in it that I’ve come to need.

Separation was a journey. It took time, and it taught me most of what I know now.

I write about what I learned along the way, and about the family justice system I ended up spending years inside of.