If you’ve ever done something or gone somewhere you didn’t want to, just because you paid for tickets and couldn’t get your money back, then you’ve been a slave to money.
What is your relationship with money? Is money your consolation, your god, your friend, your master, servant, lover?
In a sense, money ‘talks’.
In English, Japanese, Taiwanese or French, two simple words “How much?” and an open wallet can take you to most of the world. In a capitalist system we need money to function and a big part of you is how you drive, control, manage, lose, waste, invest, eat, burn, love, hate or care about money.
The things that money can buy have probably defined your experience of holidays, birthdays, Christmas; alongside which reside some of your deepest memories and values. For example, were you raised to ‘get your money’s worth’? What happens now when you can’t get value for money? Do you end up feeling cheated or ‘ripped off’?
Think about the things that money symbolizes for you. When you were a child, what were the conditions of pocket money? Did money bring you joy and happiness, love, entrapment, resentment or fear?
As an adult, what is your definition of waste or extravagance? I have friends at both ends of the scale when it comes to grocery shopping. You buy a lot of cheap sausages and minced meat and pride yourself on your economy; the other spares no expense and buys exotic fruits, fresh salmon and expensive, lean cuts of meat without exception. His argument is that you can buy a lot of quality food for the price of a triple heart bypass or a mobility scooter!
What does prosperity mean to you? Some financial advisors recommend that you save $3.50 a day (the cost of a cup of coffee) so you can reap the benefits of compound interest and retire moderately years later. I was inclined to agree with this advice until the day I realized that having the money available and the time to to enjoy a coffee bought a day I was prosperity. It was not a wasted opportunity to save, nor was it an extravagance.
Money means different things to different people and can buy us experiences that are unique to us.
A friend of mine told me that her dream was to buy a new Porsche. Bridget had calculated that she could afford it if she added the loan to her mortgage and she paid it off over 25 years. Being financially savvy, she knew the real cost of the car, but she said it was something she just wanted to do for her life to make it worth the expense. When I found out she hadn’t driven one yet, we arranged a test drive. We had only been driving for five minutes when I asked her if the car ‘did it for her’. It was worth it?’ She replied: ‘I don’t know, I think she could spend six months skiing in Aspen before.’
We discussed how it would feel to return to the workplace to be able to pay for it. He told me that he would have no problem having a better car than General Manager, but that it would be difficult for him to return to the boring job he had. For her, that car was a metaphor for the emotion that was otherwise missing from her life. Buying it would have provided the biggest adrenaline rush, after which she would have been downhill all the way. What she really wanted to do was break and test her self-confidence. Fortunately, she realized early on that a car payment plan wasn’t the answer.