Your Money Story Part 2 – The Spender

Another Money Story:

Jessica Cannella: Welcome back. We’re continuing the discussion on our money stories and how vital that is to shaping our money mentality or our attitude towards money. As we become adults, because your money story generally happens when you’re the age of five to seven. Now, I mentioned in a previous video.

We talked a little bit about the saver, an example of a woman at one of my workshops. If you haven’t seen that video, check that one out. So I mentioned in that video that you could have more than one money story. Because life is dynamic, life is fluid, and we learn lessons about money along the way. It has been scientifically observed, That one’s personality is fully developed by the age of 25. And the good news is, your behaviors can be adjusted throughout life.

There are few other areas that are as beneficial than changing your behavior, especially if it’s negative around your finances. Because I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again and many times more, that money is, is freedom, money is so much more than a means to an end. Money is an energy. Money is important to have. It can be your protection. It can be the roof over your head. And – money matters. And so having a healthy money mentality, really helps to create that relationship with money. And that is lifelong. I’m going to share with you a story. About a client that I will call Cynthia.

Cynthia and Her Story:

Cynthia attended one of my workshops and she was very eager to schedule a visit with me. And we had had the money sorry conversation in the group forum at the workshop. And she was really eager to come in and share her money story with me. And so we scheduled a time, we got together, and when she came in she was just dressed to the nines. She was beautiful, and she had no idea about her financial picture. And I say that with no judgment, because it is not uncommon, especially for single women. And I don’t mean to overgeneralize here. This has just been my experience.

Cynthia was somebody’s 65 year old grandmother who married three times Never worked a day outside of the home, worked a ton in the home. She had four children, all very successful and Cynthia lost her last husband about six months, before she came in to see me. And so she’s still kind of gathering her bearings, if you will. And so the purpose for her visit, was to come in and tell me that she has this problem. And I ask what her problem is politely. And she told me, I have no idea what I’m doing with money. I know that I like to spend it.

My husband’s, I always, don’t know any cringe, but they always had allowances for her in other words, they put money from their joint account into a checking account, and that was her spending money. And now she’s having to look at all of these numbers. Couldn’t even locate half of it, which was a great plug for my survivorship series.

Please get ahead of that. It will change your life if your spouse is still living, especially giving you very pragmatic steps for what you need to do while you are both still alive to avoid a situation like Cynthia was experiencing, which is a lot of overwhelm. And she told me and confided in me, that her shopping habit had really escalated in the past six months since he was passing.

She kept telling me, you know, I am going through these money stories of myself and I’m trying to figure it out. And I really just wanted the session today to discuss where do you think this could be coming from? And so we talked through it. And her mom long story short, her mother was very frugal. Did not spend a lot of money. The dad was the complete opposite. He spent every single penny that they had lavish vacations. Gifts for the mother.

The mother didn’t have to spend money because she was on the allowance plan as well. And the dad was always buying beautiful gifts for her, trips. And Cynthia grew up observing her parents. Just spend the money that they had. And this has really, really affected her. We looked at several other anecdotes that she shared. And what we were able to really uncover was, that Cynthia was spending money as a means to escape her life. That she had not dealt with the passing of her previous two husbands, let alone her most recent husband of six months. When the kids would call her. And they just wanted to talk to their mom, you know.

She was showing up with extravagant gifts. And that was the way that she showed love. Or the way that she distracted herself from her every day. You know, the feelings that none of us want to feel but are important to feel. Like shame and guilt and loss and grief. And all of this. And it was destroying her financial picture. And so, how we were able to help Cynthia was just put all the cards on the table. And in her instance, she did need some parameters for spending. And we talked a lot about the go go years and what she wanted to be spending from the age of 65, through about 80 years old. And then what was the plan, that we were going to put in place for her slow go years. So that we could, it’s almost like reverse engineering.

It’s wanting to know how do we have what plan do we have, for when life slows down? And you absolutely need to take more income and things like inflation, cost of living, adjustment, health care costs rising. How do we get a plan in place there so that we can then say, OK, Cynthia, here are the parameters. I hate the word budget. Budget is too, authoritarian to me. Whether or not you agree or disagree that Cynthia worked Cynthia worked, she had three husbands.

That’s a lot. That’s a lot of work in and of itself and for kids. And she worked inside of the home. I’m a mother. That’s one of the hardest jobs out there is. I wanted her to be able to spend her money. Wisely and not be restricted to a budget, even though she was somewhat accustomed to that, when her husbands were putting into an account. So I knew that wouldn’t be a huge challenge, but I wanted to give her a healthy spending parameter.

Where she wasn’t going to find herself in dire straits and where she felt really fulfilled about her spending. And so we walked through her retirement vision, her money story, did some soul searching in that visit. And then it took, you know, maybe six to eight sessions with her to really start to fine tune a plan, get a hold of the much of that.

It usually doesn’t take that many visits at the forefront. But we wanted the relationship. And it’s ongoing. And in Cynthia’s particular situation. And we had a lot of things that we had to piece together because she wasn’t involved. And we were really able to put together a plan, that gave Cynthia a great peace of mind. She totally okayed me, to share this story with you.

I did change her name, but she felt that it would really help, especially other women, who might be in a similar circumstance to her. And so I like to call this money story, Cynthia’s Story, and the money mentality is – The Spender. In a nutshell, to summarize, when we are spending and it is without any rhyme or reason just for the joy and it’s a temporary joy, then it’s gone. And then we’ve got to spend more. And it’s for lifestyle that’s generally a much deeper issue, not so much a money issue, it can become a money, It will become a money issue. But it is a it’s a mentality. It’s a money story. It’s that that’s what Cynthia grew up seeing that was how her her daddy made everybody happy in his life. Including her. And she was an only child. And so it is just critically important to really start to understand your own beliefs around.

Conclusion:

Money in conjunction with working with professionals, who can help you get back on track. Everybody needs a little guidance here and there. And if you think that Cynthia’s story seems extreme, I have several others that I’ll be sharing with you throughout these series. Some of them are extreme and some of them are very common. And I promise you that there are undertones of Cynthia story that are very, very common.

I believe there’s a spectrum of spending. Cynthia was on the higher end of the spectrum with how much she was spending and how often and the total disconnect from her and her money. And that is really what a great financial advisor will provide to you, is connecting you with your money.

Money is energy. Money is a means of freedom. Money is your success. And success can be defined in many different ways, not just financially, but money makes it a lot easier to live your best retirement and being a good Steward of it and working with financial professionals and understand yourself will go the distance, as it relates to your money mentality.