Thoughts About [Money]

[tcepsa]

Money is something that I have almost always had a hard time talking about. I think my parents were probably more open with me about sex than they were about money management. For example, my dad tried to teach me how to use Quicken and balance my checkbook and create a budget, but I don't remember us ever sitting down and having "The Talk" about finances (whereas I can remember that we did have "The Talk" about sex). So I had some of the technical knowledge of how to balance a checkbook and keep track of money, and I understood that I wanted to keep it out of the red, but beyond that I didn't have much. And I didn't really have any classes on the subject, either, that I can remember. We might have touched on it a little bit back in Family and Consumer Sciences (about 10 or 11 years ago), and I had one Econ class in college that was just painful for me, and that's about it. To me, investing and things like that were something that I would learn about doing "once I grew up."

It's slowly dawning on me that it is time for me to grow up about money. It's time for me to get my head out of the sand and take a more active look at--and role in--my finances. Up until this point I've basically been focusing on staying out of the red. I think I've pretty much got that down now, and I'm looking to learn more about how I can put my hard-earned cash to work for me. I'm currently working my way through some of the Rich Dad books, which seem to be a very good starting place. Right now I'm focusing on absorbing as much of the material as possible, but soon, in a month or two, I will want to start actually doing things as well. For example, a message I'm seeing pretty consistently is "find a competent financial advisor." How does one do that?

I would be surprised if there aren't at least a few LJ communities out there that talk about money management, and I intend to search for them. And if there aren't, or if I don't find one, then I'll probably try to create one. I'm interested in joining, or opening, a dialogue about money. Getting it out of the closet and taking a good look at it. Dusting it off, oiling it up, tinkering with it, seeing whether I can get it to work for me instead of sitting in a bank working for someone else. I know that seems a little bit against the American way, where people talk about money in hushed tones, with shyness, embarassment, fear, or anger (either because they don't have as much as they want, or they have more than their neighbors, or--as I suspect is often the case--both). But I also know that some of the people reading this don't care as much about what other people think, and are more interested in taking beliefs (both their own and others') out and giving them a thorough examination, holding them up against as objective a perspective as they can get. That's all I'm really suggesting here, but instead of beliefs about God and the Universe, I'm going to start looking at beliefs about Money and the Economy. Just as I think it is important for me to have many perspectives when I am pondering the spiritual, I think it is also important for me to have many perspectives when I am pondering the financial.

To that end, I'd like to invite you to comment (anonymous is fine if you're more comfortable with that) on this and subsequent [Money] posts.

Comments

[tcepsa.livejournal.com]

*nod* Some of the stuff I've read starts out with "Say you have $25,000 to invest..." and goes from there to give an example of a way they could turn that into $500,000. I'm sure that's good information, and I'll file it away for future use, but right now it's more like, "Say I have $1,000 to invest. How do I turn that into $25,000 so that I can use that wicked cool strategy for getting to $500,000?"

I think a lot of the reason why people don't like to talk about money is because it's so closely tied to status. I'm still trying to develop really solid basic habits myself in some areas, and I'm not entirely comfortable saying what those areas are because I'm afraid people will judge me poorly because of it. But I'm going to say the biggest one for me, anyway, because then I have to take it out and look at it. And maybe people will look down on me because of it. Oh well. If I am successful at changing that habit, then maybe there will be other people who will also be able to benefit by seeing how I changed it.

So here goes. My worst financial habit is being late paying bills that have to be mailed. Why? Lots of little reasons. Not having stamps is one. Misplacing the statement is another. Thinking that I can do it by computer, and then not following up is another. It's all kind of underscored by the fact that, hey, I don't want to let this money go. I'm like a raccoon with something shiny. So I need to stop seeing that money as mine, because it's not, really. It belongs to whomever I owe it, and the sooner I get it to them, the better. It doesn't matter if it is making the number in my checking account bigger; in fact, if it is, then it is probably making things worse by making me feel like I have more money than I really do, since not all of the money that is there is really mine. And that's the attitude that I am going to try to have towards mailing in bills from now on. Not to think about how much I want to keep the money. Not to try to wish that it would just go away and take care of itself. To face it head on and take care of it.

It's not that I don't have the money, it's just that I'm scared to let it go. It's a lot like playing with fire, but the only thing I've learned how to do so far is to hoard it like some kind of hellish squirrel. I do that, and then I get burned because I held onto it for too long. So I need to make it more like water, help it flow better, and keep things a little cooler for me :)

[blushing-grace.livejournal.com]

Me too. Just the mailing thing though. It's not even particularly difficult, I pass a post office (that's closed when I go by) where I can get stamps from their machine daily, and there's a drop box by my mailbox and outside at work, but I don't. I never have. I used to write letters, address them, stamp them, and then leave them on my desk. I don't spend outside my means, I just don't mail the stuff. If it's online, I'm good about paying. I've tried to set up most my stuff to do things that way.

[tcepsa.livejournal.com]

*nod* It's looking like the online, automated payment strategy is probably the way to go on this. I think part of the reason I've resisted it so far is because it feels like I should be able to do it manually before I allow myself the luxury of automating it. I'm realizing, however, that's just something I made up in my own head, and I should drop it in favor of something that works better for me personally.

My new mantra: there's no shame in online bill pay...