Let’s talk about how your thoughts, views and what you possibly heard when growing up is seeing you still miserable and poor!
Your attitude combined with who taught you about money – has shaped the way you live today whether you are experiencing financial stress or have money behind you and living a stress-free life.
I want you to answer this question?
Who was your role model, who did you learn your money management skills from while growing up?
Did your parents or grandparents ever talk to you about money?
Having conversations around the dinner table while growing up about money is equally as important as the “Birds n Bees” talk that most of us are given at a certain age – if you know what I mean.
They say talking about money is taboo but I disagree. If you don’t start talking about money how are you ever going to learn about managing it more effectively?
Whether you grew up talking about how to save and use money wisely or not has shaped your perception today on how you live your life and what kind of a lifestyle you have created for yourself.
You will either have money in the bank or spend every dollar you earn.
You see 80% of us are managing our money out of sheer habit with no real understanding why and this has adverse effects down the track if you haven’t got a grasp on how to work it well. As it can either make or break the quality of our life in years to come.
I was having this very conversation with my Mum a while back and she was commenting that money was never talked about. There was never the education around this subject like she said is starting to happen today.
“Mum went on to say that it’s not until you retire that you start to feel the pressure or relief of how you worked your money. She stressed that saving is not a thing for today’s generation and she wished they knew the real power of this as she said it’s going to make a huge difference to the quality of someone’s life at the end of their working life”.
We are sadly creatures of habit. We do the same things over and over again often expecting to get different results but of course, we’re going to get the same results if we don’t change our thinking or our habits.
If you have decided you want a better life, then you have to look at what your belief is around money.
What did you hear growing up about money?
I’m guessing a few of these saying probably popped up and has created in some part a belief system to which you manage your money today.
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
It takes money to make money.
Some people, without a doubt, have more dollars than sense
He who has the gold makes the rules
A good name is better than riches.
Health is better than wealth.
Money is the root of all evil
You can’t take it with you when you die – now that’s spoken like a true spender lol! and the last common saying you may have heard is …AND
Money isn’t everything
Another contributing factor to what you may have heard about money is through sources like:
TV and regular news bulletins – which the media is great at giving you the grim view about financial markets and money today. They thrive off the negative stories.
How many times do you hear positive news stories about everyday people making it big (yes we hear about the lotto win stories) but over time we know that if those winning the lotto haven’t got a handle on how to manage money then in a few short years they will be back to where they started before winning.
Another popular source for hearing about money is when catching up with friends, especially from those friends that consider themselves a wiz at investing.
Offering you their 2 cents worth of knowledge on how they made a fair bit of money on xyz stock or a particular investment, but never how much they lost during the process. I challenge you to ask them how much they have lost up to that point!
There are so many areas to hear and learn about financial education.
A word of caution though to check where you’re getting your information from to see if it’s from a reliable source.
AND always trust your gut instinct because if it looks too good to be true then it probably is.
The subconscious is such a powerful thing that what you think about all day long is what you attract and this applies especially to your lack or abundant thinking about money.
When we keep saying to ourself ….oh we have no money… we’re poor…. we’re never going to get ahead then that’s what you’re going to keep getting.
But when you say to yourself, ok I’ve got this I’m going to keep putting money away and not touch it. I’m going to use cash for a while to curb my spending. I’m going to get there and we’re going to be debt free in no time then you will.
Keeping a positive mindset is one thing but actually doing the thing that’s going to free you up financially is another and both go hand in hand.
So what could you do today to change the way you think about money?
Motivational sayings are especially good when you feel a negative or disbelieving thought come up.
Having a massive belief in yourself that you’re going to make it is another way to change things.
Watch how things start to improve when you combine a positive mindset with activity and action.
Three facts about money I’m going to leave with you are:
Having good money habits takes enormous pressure and stress off you worrying about how you can afford to live day to day.
Having an awesome mindset can move you from poor money habits to good money habits, and
Lastly, anyone can change their belief around money if you decide to choose to, regardless of how you grew up and where you came from.
If you’re looking for more help and guidance in managing your money and getting your money back into great financial shape – then check out my ONLINE PROGRAMS that I’ve created to teach people this very thing – how to move them into awesome financial health.
Also available is my monthly coaching program that helps you to stay on track while you achieve your financial goals.
Look forward to seeing you in one of my programs.
Until next time…….here’s to your financial health, wealth & happiness.
2 years ago my Grandmother passed away. She was one of the best money managers I’ve seen. She passed her skill down to my Mum who then passed this onto me as I was growing up.
Grandma was very careful with her money as she grew up during the era of the Great Depression. Grandma saw the suffering that went with it – no jobs, no food and barely enough of anything to get by on.
So, when she got married and had a family of her own she continued on with the scarcity mentality and saved any penny she got.
Gramps was the sole breadwinner in the family and back then didn’t earn a lot. Gramps would often say that Grandma was great with managing their money.
So on Thursday’s which happened to be Gramps’ payday – she would divide up the money 3 ways.
First, she would pull money for savings, then put aside money for bills and lastly give Gramps his allocated spending for the week. If she didn’t do this Gramps would have spent the lot – as he was a very generous person and loved to give to charities and those less fortunate.
Grandma use to tell him often that charity first begins at home! Wise lady and well before her time.
Grandma had several spots within the house that she used to stash the cash around. Let’s just say she had the most expensive potatoes I ever knew ☺
While she was careful with their money she also made sure they enjoyed it too. Taking trips that had been planned and saved up for.
They retired wealthy by today’s standards and lucky they did as they eventually had to move into age care, which costs a small fortune to get in.
The point of this story is that no matter what you earn you can retire wealthy if you learn how to save and use your money wisely.
But there’s got to be a balance in life.
Saving and hoarding away money is great – but you must enjoy it along the way.
Today we’re seeing more of the extreme with some of us having no savings and loads of spending going on.
I think we’ve gone too far from our grandparents’ age – to the new age of live for today and don’t worry about tomorrow.
The harsh reality is that tomorrow is just around the corner and creeps up on you before you realise.
While you may not think too much about the future, it will be here before you know it.
If you haven’t planned for it – life will get a little uncomfortable for you.
As you get older the things that your money is used for changes.
For eg; when you are in your 20’s you’re about having a good time, meeting someone special and travelling.
When you reach your 30’s it’s about settling down with that special person, buying a house and starting a family – for the majority of people.
Then you hit your 40’s and by then if you’ve had children they are well-entrenched into the school system and you have hopefully chunked off a sizeable amount of your mortgage, whilst watching your savings and investments grow.
Then years down the track you’re retired and money that you receive from the pension or your own retirement savings is used to pay medical costs and pharmaceuticals to keep away the aches and pains from a well-lived life.
Starting to get the picture?
Well, this scenario has now been completely turned on its arse because when you hit your 40’s there are no savings or very little for most.
You’re up to your eyeballs in mortgage payments and possibly other debt and family life may not have turned out as expected. As you’re either getting divorced or having some financial stress because of the state of your financial affairs.
It’s time to get the balance back people!
Here are Grandma’s Tips :
1. Firstly, stop spending everything you earn. Yes, it’s easier said than done I agree considering you’re in the habit of spend spend spend. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
2. Put away a small portion of what you earn away before you use it to spend and pay your bills. I recommend putting away a minimum of 10% into an account that you can’t touch. An account with no account keeping fees and one that 10% of your pay automatically goes into this account on payday. An account that is separate from your current banking. There are a few around so do your research, set up an automatic deposit and watch your savings grow.
3. Do a budget to work out where every dollar is going. This is going to be an eye-opener for a lot of you because half of you don’t even know where your money is going or what it’s being spent on. Start writing down or using an excel spreadsheet to record where you’re spending. Keep receipts, check your bank statements and record everything from the big stuff that you’re spending or paying out on the little things like a cup of coffee. Once it’s down on paper take a good look at what’s going out compared to what’s coming in.
4. Next start using cash. So when you head to the grocery store you’ll soon learn that there’s a lot of things being bought at the checkout that you could probably rein in more. When heading out for dinner take some cash to pay for your meal, if you don’t you’ll soon learn that your meal is costing you more than you realise. What you probably thought was a $50 dinner & drinks out ends up costing you closer to $100.
5. And the last thing is to save up for purchases. Don’t put stuff on your credit card that is going to be out of date before you’ve even paid them off. Save up for the non-essentials and go without for just a little longer until you have the cash to pay for it. My guess is that by the time you’ve saved up you’ve probably lost interest in the thing or gadget that was going to clutter up your house anyway.
The moral of the story is to…..work hard, save hard and learn more how to manage your money smarter. Invest some time and resources in getting some sound financial education that could see you, in the long run, retiring with money instead of being broke and living off social welfare benefits.
Don’t believe me then do the math and see how much you’re spending. Keep going the way you are – not changing your spending habits and you’re going to very unhappy, miserable and without a dollar to your name at the end of your working days.
Learn how to live a life without financial stress by obtaining awesome financial knowledge & education.
How To Keto Your Money is a program that was created with you and anyone in mind who longs to get back in the black and out of the red.
You can find out more by heading over to “How To Keto Your Money” I guarantee it will be the best few dollars you will ever spend!
Also available for additional support and coaching is joining my monthly coaching program for a fraction of the cost of normal coaching at $37 per month.
You can find out more on the monthly coaching HERE.
Until next time here’s to your financial health, wealth & happiness.
The words wealthy and rich are words that tend to make some of us cringe and bring up feelings that all wealthy people are “up” themselves and rotten sods, which is not always the case.
When people think about wealth it often triggers poverty thinking and brings up fears, conditioning and unhealthy thoughts.
It makes people so uncomfortable that what happens is their behaviour makes them look for ways to make themselves feel better, about being poor.
Here in Australia, we love pulling those down that do better than us. We get jealous and our personalities turn very quickly when we’re in the company of wealthy people.
The tall poppy syndrome sadly is still strong in Australia. For those that don’t know what the tall poppy syndrome is? Well, it describes aspects of a culture where people of “perceived” high status are resented, attacked, cut down or criticised because they have been classified as superior to their peers.
New research has found its keeping many Australians – especially women – from pursuing their dreams and holding people back from reaching their true potential.
Dr Fiona Wood AM asked kids (when visiting schools after she won Australian of the Year in 2004)….
“How often have you done less than your best so that others around you didn’t feel uncomfortable?”
She cringed and felt upset to hear that they all gave an example of this and some felt proud of it.
She went onto to say in an interview, that there’s absolutely no mileage in the world to be AVERAGE...no matter what job you do.
You’ve got to understand yourself, so you can match your work ethic with your full potential.
You need to make your own decisions, stand up and be proud of what you’re doing.
Negative energy is a black hole and if you want to go wasting your precious time here on earth being part of it – then go ahead and jump in the black hole.
The opinion from others of you is theirs – you don’t have to own it.
The key is to keep learning, refining and up-skilling so that each day whatever you want gets easier to achieve.
One day at a time and one foot in front of the other is all you can do somedays.
Working hard and keeping your eye on the prize or the goal and never giving up, is the way to winning and living your life full, happy and with loads of wealthy potential.
People who don’t make decisions are wasting their human potential to do, be and create something great in their life.
I believe we all have that something special in us and it’s time to knock the tall poppy syndrome on its feet, ignore it and don’t let this stop you.
We live in a world where anything we dream is possible.
Prove naysayers wrong and don’t engage in pointless negativity & criticism.
We have to start somewhere when it comes to managing our money better and that starts with building financial muscle. Once you have the foundations in place, it’s a lot easier and faster to build on your wealth.
My course “How To Keto Your Money” is the building block for building on your financial foundations. Once you’ve got the foundations set up, I will then show you how to start automatically building on your wealth, so you can retire wealthy and live a life with more freedom.
Find out more by clicking here…How To Keto Your Money and I’ll look forward to helping you achieve your full financial potential.
Changing a money habit is NOT merely a matter of saying… yep, I’m not going to spend everything I earn this payday or I’m not going to overspend on my credit card this month from impulse buying.
Poor money habits I believe come from a deeper concern than just spending on meaningless stuff. Stuff that half of the time we don’t need or even use.
So where do these money habits come from?
Well before I answer this. I want to remind you what an actual habit is.
A habit is a behaviour that is learned when we regularly keep doing the same thing over and over again without even thinking.
Money habits are no different than the habit of brushing your teeth when you first get up in the morning or after breakfast. It’s a behaviour that becomes ingrained in how we treat and respect our money. One that we are fully aware of the consequences that follow if our habits are from poor money decisions.
Is there a cure for our poor money habits?
Yes, I believe there is. However, it takes time, discipline, awareness and mental strength in order for anyone to break this habit.
How long can it take to change a habit?
According to psychologists, while it may take approximately 21 days of conscious and consistent effort to create a new habit, it takes far longer to break an existing habit.
From personal experience in working with clients who want to change their poor money habits – it takes a lot longer.
You see there are deeper issues at play why some of us have poor money habits that can at times border on addiction. Just like any addiction, it’s more often than not about something that’s happened in the past.
A habit is not necessarily an addiction, though the two are strongly linked. A habit is any conscious behaviour you do on a routine basis.
Addiction is more about the behaviour to an excessive degree whereby someone feels unable to stop or control it.
Our self worth is often tied to our poor money habits. Our poor money habits can come from the messages we heard growing up and from the examples, we saw when we were younger.
Some of us spend when we feel low or unhappy to give us the kick “or high” we hope to make us feel good about ourselves. The hope that is supposed to fill the void we’re so looking to fill.
When in fact it’s much like the high you get from either an alcohol or drug addiction. Feels good at the time but hell when coming down from the high.
What’s the price of not changing our money habits?
There’s a high price to pay and that comes in the form of massive debt, poverty, unhappiness, envy & jealousy and often health issues.
So how do you move from poor money habits?
What are some of the ways to transform a poor money situation?
3 ways you can change a money habit is to:
1. First, acknowledge that you have a problem. A problem that you’re spending more than you earn, A problem that sees you with credit card debt, personal debt and other debt that you have no hope in paying off anytime soon. Being aware that you’re deep up to your elbows in debt and it’s time to get out, this is the first step.
2. Get help. Get the support you need to help you move forward. Having someone who understands and willing to help you means you’re not alone. It also gives you someone you can be accountable to. Someone who has a vested interest in seeing you succeed and live a better life without financial worry or stress.
3. And lastly, find your purpose – YOUR why. The reason you want a better life and one that doesn’t include massive debt or poor money habits. Set some goals. Write down how you want your life to be. What you want for your life and keep this at the forefront of your mind.
Writing down your dreams, goals and desires keeps you focussed and helps you work towards the bigger picture and what you want in life.
Breaking a habit takes a lot of willpower and motivation.
Ending the cycle of poor money habits is generally easier when it’s something you want to do rather than something others say you should do.
For anyone looking for coaching, support, education and help in moving towards their goals, then check out my “no lock-in contract” monthly coaching program.
The MONTHLY COACHING PROGRAM provides you with the support you require throughout your financial journey for a fraction of the price for $37 per month.
I’ve just opened up this program, as I’m getting a lot of questions asking if I have a monthly coaching program for a small cost.
