What is your relationship with money?

Let's do this little exercise together, obviously, you will need to think about your own answers to these questions to see what is in your own way. All you need is a pen and a piece of paper, you could use your phone and type in your notes but its really important to think about it and diarise what is going on for you, helping you move forward to get the things you really want in your life.

What is the story you have about money?

I have a story called "Money, there is never enough".

What is the pay off of having this story?(Put another way, what do I get out of it, there is some kind of pay off I am getting for keeping this story alive)

I pretty much get to be a victim, right? I am at the affect of this story. I can't see money any other way when I have this filter, this view, these sunglasses on. And its such an ultimatum. Its final. Its finite.

ALWAYS and NEVER are finite

What is the impact on myself or others of having this story?

For starters, I know for a fact that I avoid opening envelopes knowing there is a bill inside. My mum used to do this and still does. She even shares that she intentionally does not pay her bills on time, because she is juggling the number of bills she has and also she uses the overdue notice as her actual bill notice.

There is no make wrong in this conversation by the way, we are in safe space, telling the truth, considering the what's so about our relationship with money. 

Next, I am imagining there is a certain way I talk about money with my husband and in front of my kids. I probably do something like this, "do we need that?" "is it a want or a need?" "put it on your birthday or christmas list" or I avoid the conversation all together, which means I am missing opportunities to teach my kids what they need to learn about money.

Third, I dig my head in the sand, so I don't even know the facts about our money situation. To the point where I still have not lodged our tax return from last year and this year's lodgement is upon us....

Fourth, I deprive myself of luxuries or enjoyment, putting others needs first before my own. During Covid-19 we probably all did a bit of this. I will give an example, I would do my nails for special occasions only, I used to get my hair done (this means cut and colour) but started to cut back to just a cut (during Covid-19 no haircut whatsoever, I bought a hair dying kit but still haven't used it yet). I used to go for remedial massages, now I have reverted to physio (not the same and it's probably moved from the luxury category to the essential category).

​Fifth, have a think of if like me, you put something in the luxury category but it actually sits in the essential category aka health and fitness.

Remember, if you have a budget, it means you record everything and you forward plan the likely spending both your essential spending (mortgage, utilities, phone. transportation) and your luxury spending (things that make you feel good, and have you living the life you want to live).

DID YOU KNOW THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HAVING AN ULTIMATE GOAL AROUND MONEY THAT SITS OUTSIDE OF YOUR EXISTING ESSENTIAL + LUXURY SPENDING? ITS CALLED MANIFESTING THE LIFE YOU WANT.

If it was represented as percentages of 100 being the manifestation of what you really want (this is just an example, for you, imagine there is no ceiling!). It would look maybe something like this:

50% of your current income - essential spend (what you already spend)
50% of your current income - luxury spend (what you already spend but if you are like me didn't even want to acknowledge it)
100% of your current income (i.e. double what you currently earn) - manifest spend (i.e. I have never had this income before, but I am creating what I want in life by actually visualising it in reality - how much would that new car I want cost? how much would that new phone I want cost? how much would that holiday I want cost? how much would that caravan I want cost? and breaking it down against your existing income and your existing expenses and creating a new column called manifesting the income to support the manifest spend. 

The funny thing is in one of my previous jobs I was a banker and I knew then there are two types of people in the world - the saver and the spender. Early on in our relationship I identified that we were both spenders so I reverted to being the saver otherwise known as the "bad guy" "the person who has to say no" "the depriver" etc insert relevant label for you. ​But perhaps it was just more evidence to support my story "Money, there is never enough".

Here is the homework, if you're really committed to creating the life you want.

Every single expense needs to be tracked, every fact about your income and your expense needs to be tracked.

Every new exciting manifestation or goal you want also needs to be tracked. 

Then you will be left with maybe three things:

1. The facts about how much you earn.

2. The facts about how much you spend.

3. The facts about the gap between what you currently earn and what you want to earn.

Whether that's through passive or active income. And if you're like me, I'm going to guess, you will want it to be passive income, not active income, because if you're like me, you're time poor.

How on earth am I going to create more income from where I am sitting right now?

Easy, you have to think outside the framework you are thinking from within at the moment. 

Then, like me, you'll have the facts and you'll have a vehicle to bring what you really want for your life to fruition.

Learn more about the platform I share, that gives you the opportunity to identify your hidden skills and talents, how to market and monetise those skills and talents, as well as the systems and tools to make it all come to life.