by Renee leNobel | Mar 15, 2016 | Finances
I have a few friends that are in the dating stage of their lives right now. It is a fascinating topic of conversation. Of course, being me, I find the money part particularly interesting.
How come? Well, pretty much every girlfriend I have claims that it is the guy’s obligation to pay for dinner and drinks on a date. And one friend told me she was out recently where she tried to pay and the guy told her “come on, let me be a man” and insisted on paying. Another friend of a friend uses dating to fund her dinners out. Whenever she is low on funds, she goes online and finds some random guy to take her out for drinks or dinner. The guy always seems to pay.
This is interesting. I have asked if there is any discussion around this when it comes time to pay the bill but from my limited polling of friends they say there is not. The woman may make some half-hearted attempt to pay, but that is generally to be polite.
How is this still the norm? I should mention that my friends are all in their 40s and they are all at least as well off as the men they are dating.
What does this payment dynamic do?
Well, another friend went out on two dates with someone who paid for both and after the second one, she decided that they were just not suited to each other. He emailed to ask her out again and she spent two entire days agonizing over how to tell him this. She felt like she owed him something more for the $40 he had shelled out on her behalf instead of the standard “I don’t think we are on the same page – see you later,” email that she did eventually end up sending him. As we discussed this, she said it would have been way easier to break it off if she didn’t feel like she was in dinner debt!
A more extreme example of this involves a friend that went out with a guy some years ago. He took her out for a fancy dinner and when she did not “put out” at the end of the night, he made his displeasure known and never contacted her again. Good riddance in that case is all she could say. That said, it was an unpleasant experience. Fortunately, she is a strong and independent person and does not let people wield power over her, but not everyone is as strong as her.
So, my opinion on all of this? Guys get to buy power for the cost of a cheap dinner. Pretty good deal. Women are handing over their sovereignty for dinner and drinks. Am I being a bit extreme? Maybe. After all, some women are using it to fund their nights out as noted above and may know exactly what they are doing but they are helping perpetuate a system that does not serve anyone.
This dating and paying system is establishing a pattern where women are asking men to take care of them. This dating and money pattern potentially sets the precedent going forward if the relationship between these two people continues. When you are suddenly being supported and taken care of by someone else it changes the entire dynamic of the power in the relationship. Just ask my kids. I pay for them and I am the decision maker in the household.
Do women need to be taken care of? What do they really need out of a relationship? They need to be loved and respected and in my opinion, automatically assuming that a woman cannot pay and take care of herself is not showing respect.
I have met a number of widows in my capacity as a volunteer income tax preparer for seniors. These women outlived their husbands and in every case, they have were not the financial decision makers in their households. It is challenging to say the least to start learning how to deal with money as a senior citizen.
How do stop this pattern? Well, I believe it begins right at the beginning. Going on a coffee date? Pay for you own coffee.
by Renee leNobel | Mar 9, 2016 | Divorce
From my very unofficial polling of people that I come across in life, it seems that money and parenting issues are the major causes of divorce. I had a slightly funny and slightly tragic conversation with a friend the other day. We were commiserating on the fact that we both separated from our spouses because we could just not get along when it came to money or parenting. Then we both looked at each other and said – “yup, and we still have have to deal with our ex’s on those issues even though we are divorced.”
For all you newly separated people, I’m sorry to be the bearer of this bad news.
That’s the irony. Just because you get divorced does not mean you no longer have to discuss parenting and money with your ex. In actual fact, you end up having to do more communication around these two subjects. And it will require more effort because you live in separate dwellings. Not to mention the fact that you likely aren’t very motivated to talk to this person that causes you emotional angst. You will probably have to hire lawyers and counsellors too and spend lots of money to figure out how to communicate once you are in the divorce process. Then once you have a separation agreement you will have to spend a couple of years figuring out how to implement that separation agreement. Because you know what? Even when things seem clearly written down and understandable in an agreement, you and your ex will likely interpret it differently.
When we signed our separation agreement I was so relieved. I thought that finally things would be clear and we had a map to resolve all future parenting and money issues. I was so wrong. I was naive to think that we would interpret our agreement the same way when we could never do this before. We continued to fight and argue about what each sentence in our agreement meant. Our kids continued to be caught in the middle of our conflict.
Our agreement could not solve our problems. The only thing that could help us solve our issues was learning to effectively communicate with each other, a thought that I had resisted for a long time but came to adopt after spending a year of being continuously surprised by how my ex interpreted our agreement. I realized that figuring out a way to communicate with my ex was a better option than living on an emotional roller coaster.
So as I see it, eventually you are going to have to learn to communicate with your partner about the big issues like parenting and money. You get to decide, do you want to do it before things start to go horribly awry or do you want to be proactive and figure out if you can live with this person and start a life and family together before you actually do so?
How do you start? Here is one way.
by Renee leNobel | Mar 2, 2016 | Finances
I recently met someone who has the following strategy. He works on a contract basis for six months and makes good money. He pays off the debt he accumulated when he wasn’t working and then he quits and gradually builds up debt until it gets to be unsustainable and then he goes and works again.
His money strategy makes me a little nervous. Ok, it makes me a lot nervous He’s still fairly young, but I can’t help but wonder what will happen when he gets to a point where he doesn’t have the energy to do these intensive spurts of work. Not to mention, what if something happens to him and he can’t work or he can’t just pick up and find well paid work? Yes, I have a worry gene. This person does not appear to. I wonder if it will kick in for him and what age that will happen if it does?
He argues he likes to live life as it comes and he certainly is living in the “Now” which is a popular thing to try to do these days.
On the flip side, he clearly sees work as only a source of funds and does not appear to get any other value out of his contract jobs. He puts in his time to make money and then gets out as quick as he can. I wonder how he perceives those six months when he is working flat out. I bet it is a bit of a struggle for him and that those six months feel a bit like a jail sentence.
I am also curious as to what will happen as he get closer and closer to retirement age. Will he panic? Will he live in denial and just keep doing what he is doing?
Generally, as people get older they seem to get more anxious about retirement. I’ve noticed that most people tend to have a negative outlook towards retirement. Especially those that do not have any savings. I have not met too many people that imagine the wonderful life that they will be living when they retire. Instead they seem to think that they will not have enough money to maintain a comfortable standard of living.
And, instead of investigating what they need to do to maintain a comfortable standard of living in retirement, they worry. Worrying does not provide more clarity about retirement. Worrying may feel like you’re doing something, but you’re not really. You’re just sacrificing your current happiness to the worry about some uncertain future.
These fears of the future are powerful and can leave you feeling trapped. They can make your life take on a terrible hue. Instead of enjoying your present life, you are living somewhere in an unhappy future. They can also lead you to make decisions that are not the best for you.
For example, you may take on work that you are not suited for. This may be sustainable in the short term, but what if you have to keep working at this type of work after retirement age because you didn’t save quite enough money? This is what my client appears to be doing. He will continue to work these six month contracts for money and money only. What if he found something he enjoyed doing and decided he didn’t want to stop after six months? What if he enjoyed it so much, he wanted it in his life after he retires?
Here’s another decision people often make. They use their home as their retirement plan. They build a life and community in a neighbourhood and then completely change their lives when they sell their home and move somewhere cheaper. This may work for some, but as we get older, we lose some ability to make big changes. It is hard to pick up and start over completely somewhere new when you’ve already had one big change (retirement).
What if instead of procrastinating the planning or living in denial, you started thinking about your retirement right now and you thought about it with hope?
These are the steps I would take:
- I would assess what my financial standing is today.
- I would assess the amount of cash inflows I need as of today to cover my cash outflows as of today.
- Then I would look to what is missing in my life and what is going well in my life.
- I would think about what I still want in my future life and then I would project what my cash inflows and outflows will be when I am older and not able to work as much.
- I will project how much money I will have when that day comes and if it is not enough, I will try to find a source of extra funds or I will figure out what can go now and cut my spending.
- My new sources of cash inflows will tie into what I need in my life. I will try to find work that I enjoy and can sustain and I will get rid of spending that does not contribute to my well being.
I will start doing this self reflection at least once a year and try to bring sustainability to my life. I don’t want the type of retirement where I quit everything I have been building cold turkey. I am building a life that I want to enjoy while I’m living it. Why would I suddenly change everything when I retire? You may be surprised that there are certain parts of work that you actually need in your life: connection to others, contributing to society, personal growth and yes, of course money.
There are people out there that are already doing this. In fact, it seems many people do this. My grandparents continued to work into their 80s because they loved it. Aren’t those the people that you know that seem to live forever?
So what can you do if you are getting older and you are starting to worry about retirement?
Start looking at your life now. What can you start doing that has potential cash inflows for a long time? What can you get rid of that you don’t really need that is costing you money?
Then you can stop worrying about how horrible your life is going to be and you can start planning how you want your life to look.
It is never too late to do this.
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.
I have a few friends that are in the dating stage of their lives right now. It is a fascinating topic of conversation. Of course, being me, I find the money part particularly interesting.
