by Renee leNobel | Nov 24, 2016 | Divorce, Finances
What is your relationship with money? I thought I’d better ask you again because I have been assuming you have a similar relationship to money that I have.
Lately I’ve been realizing that my assumptions often get me into hot water.
So to figure out if you have similar money issues to me, I’d better tell you my money history (yes again).
I have always had the fear and thought that there is not enough money. I’m afraid it will run out or that something will happen to stop the flow of money into my life.
This is the thought I operate from: not enough money.
How does this thought manifest in my life?
Well, I am a bit obsessive about checking my current financial situation. Just checking, I think to myself. Just confirming that there is still enough today.
I’m also a bit obsessive about my frugality. I’m not known as the hand-me-down queen for no reason after all.
I also experience a tad (OK a lot) of pain when I spend money. It doesn’t matter if I’m spending it on something fun or on plumbing. It’s all painful.
Now this is kind of a funny aside – because I know people with the exact same fear: not enough money… that leads them to spend it as fast as they can before it does indeed run out. Same fear. Very different manifestation.
OK – back to me.
Imagine my horror when my fears around money came true! They came true to me when I separated from my husband. Suddenly it seemed like the day had come where money did indeed stop flowing into my life (after all, he was the one with the paycheque – not me). I also believed I no longer had any savings as they all went to the lawyer and him.
There is nothing like having your fears realized to make you really fearful.
My fear got so big it took over my life for a while.
Then I developed a new thought around money. That thought was that I needed to somehow figure out a way to jettison my thought of: “there is not enough” as that thought was causing me a lot of pain.
So I developed some strategies and I have been sharing those strategies with you.
One of those strategies is “stop obsessively checking your financial status – you’ll be OK.”
But what if you are that person that avoids checking your financial status…ever?
I also started spending money and finding ways to do so without pain. Maybe you’ve seen me spending that money. I’ve given myself permission to spend money on things like new clothes and going out to eat.
What if you are watching me and thinking: “well, if Renee is spending money, then it must be go time on spending?”
But I’m still not spending more than what I’m bringing in. I increased my money inflows and still make sure I’m not outspending those inflows.
But what if you never do that?
I’ve been assuming that you are like me.
But like I said earlier – sometimes my assumptions are wrong.
I will tell you something else I have come to realize about my history with money.
It was not all bad. In fact some of it was awesome.
My obsessiveness around checking my finances and cash flows have turned me into a person that has a very good understanding of how much money I need to live on.
My obsessiveness with building an emergency cushion meant I had options when my divorce did become a reality.
So now I have a different relationship with money. I think “there is enough.”
But I still keep track and I still pay attention to confirm that there is indeed enough. Sometimes I have to adjust things in my life to make sure there is enough.
Some months I have to cut back on my spending or look at new ways to bring in money.
But I need to keep paying attention to know this.
And I also have my emergency money cushion, because you know, the unexpected does happen (like plumbing emergencies – darn it – two this week – but hey I’m not even bummed because I had my emergency cushion).
I also know that my relationship with money is no longer a painful one.
So what are you thoughts around money and what kind of relationship do you have?
by Renee leNobel | Feb 24, 2016 | Finances
Retirement takes up a lot of space in society’s consciousness. It dominates the financial stories we hear about. Retirement is what we are all mainly saving for, right?
Retirement. Talking about it is particularly prevalent now as many struggle to make ends meet while working flat out!
How can we save for retirement when we can’t manage now?
I guess we should all give up. Maybe the world will end by then – who needs savings anyway?
Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Interestingly, many people are still saving – what stories are they telling themselves?
Perhaps the savers are noticing that there are a lot of impoverished and vulnerable seniors out there, and it is scary to think that you could end up a senior with no savings and no ability to earn more money. That’s a good reason to try to start saving.
Or perhaps they have hope for our world. Or maybe they are simply hedging their bets.
What stories are you telling yourself about saving? Because it’s the stories you are telling yourself right now that are impacting your ability to live and save.
I began noticing how our stories impact our day-to-day lives when volunteering with the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program. In one particular year, I helped prepare and file 44 personal tax returns for low-income seniors, and the highest earner in the bunch made $28,000.
During tax season, there is a line up out the door and around the corner at the Senior’s Centre. The criteria for having your taxes done for free is that you must earn less than $30,000 for the year, but again, this is high for most people in that line. The income for most seniors in the line comprises Old Age Security benefits ($9,341.40 per year in 2023) and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits, which were a maximum of $15,678.84 in 2023. If you worked all your life, contributed the maximum to CPP, and have no other savings, you will earn $25,000 per year. That’s a lot of low-income seniors,and they all have different stories.
One lady I help has lived in subsidized housing for 20 years. She moved in when her husband died suddenly of a heart attack, and she discovered he had gambled away all their savings. She was 65 at that point, had not worked her entire life and had nothing other than about $20,000 she had inherited from her mother. She has since lent that to one of her children, who no longer talks to her – a terrible situation and every time I see her (I have seen her three times now), she reminds me of it. It is the daily story that goes on in her head.
The other thing I notice about her is that she is very put together. She looks fantastic at 85 years old. She gets around quickly, seems in great shape, and has a lovely home in a great location. She has grandchildren and great-grandchildren who visit her, but she is not focusing on those things. She is focusing on her story, and I can see the worry and stress emanating from her face.
I helped another gentleman at the same housing complex. I don’t know what his story is. How did he end up as a senior living in subsidized housing? He offered me tea while I prepared his return, and we talked about the music we like and our hobbies. He had a dog that he tries to walk daily, though walking is getting hard for him. He seemed upbeat.
What is the financial difference between these two seniors? Nothing. They are both in similar financial situations, coping and living within fixed and minimal means.
Yet, they are living very different stories.
We all find a way of coping with what we are given. How we choose to manage and the stories we tell ourselves make a difference in how we perceive our lives and present moments, impacting our future.
Most of us will eventually retire. There will come a point where we just cannot earn money or work.
I do recommend planning for retirement. If you want to know where I stand when it comes to financial planning – it’s in the “I’m hedging my bets,” category. It is easier to remain positive and hopeful when you feel you have financial control over your life.
Next week’s topic? How do you start planning for your old age when you don’t think you have enough money to retire? It’s always possible to change and take control of your life.
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.
What is your relationship with money? I thought I’d better ask you again because I have been assuming you have a similar relationship to money that I have.