LOL - I remember attending the millionaire mind weekend with T. Harv Ecker. I had many wonderful moments there. One thing that drove me nuts, though, was his assertion that however much you have, you should be aiming for more! So if you’re a millionaire, why aren’t you a billionaire? Etc.

I took great exception to this, and on the whole, still do.
Many people whose lives were inifinitely worthwhile (hmm. are there any other kinds?) lived without financial acquisition being a focus. Jesus, Ghandi, Dorothy Day and monks in Tibet …

So far be it from me to take the T. Harv Ecker angle.

On the other hand … the fact remains we live in a created or evolved world lurid world in its extravagence: 300, three
hundred!.\, species of squid on the floor of the ocean. And recently, we’ve discovered there are more galaxies than a mathematician can put into any kind of equation.

So Madison avenue has its place.

So does contentment.

I’m not sure what to say about Don Cherry’s suits.

Following my last blog entry, Nancy challenged me in her “Chicken or the Egg” rebuttal. The exchange was based on a question on what would I like to have my money do for me. I offered up a couple of lame items including a new computer (which I don’t seem to be rushing out to buy) and a funded retirement. I only attempted to answer the question because I was asked.

In Nancy’s coaches corner remarks (and we all wonder if her outfits are as spectacular and as tasteful as Don Cherry’s) she wondered if I ever give myself permission to be extravagant in my hopes.

Good question, but thinking about that during the past week or two, I’ve concluded this is not the right time to answer that question.

For whatever reason, and this beyond me, I don’t feel the need to consume. To be perfectly honest, I don’t want anything. I’m not lusting after any toys, dreaming of escape to foreign climes or even wanting to dine out at a nice restaurant. Something must be wrong…or right for a change.

I am quite content to follow my financial plan and am happy to see my meagre savings grow at a glacial pace. In fact I am grateful for this break from the imagery created by Madison Avenue.

I’m guessing this attitude is coming from the fact my focus is on enjoying my day-to-day existence. Work, my son and other things going on in my life are occupying my attention. Money and the spending of it is in the background.

Perhaps I’m in the financial summer phase, where life is enjoyed while the seeds planted mature to harvest. I’m staying tuned to see what happens next.

OK, I hope the following doesn’t seem cruel!

Kat, as far as I can see there are 3 options for you:
1. Do whatever you need to do to increase your income. This is not an appealing option for you at the moment, and you also anticipate better things to come within a year or two, yes?
2. Hope that despite staying in the same income bracket, life gets financially easier for you. This, who can say? A windfall or pleasant surprise, may well come. Or not.
3. Really enter into the word Patience. Keep reading … in our culture, we tend to think of ‘patience’ as just an ability to wait (preferably comfortably) until something we hope for happens. As in, ‘be patient; supper’s almost ready.” Here’s a deeper meaning of patience: its etymology derives from the latin for ‘passion’ and not as in hot sex, as in the Passion of Christ. In other words, undergoing an extended period of suffering.

You, Kat are suffering. What you are living with - the day to day sense of discouragement, of not having PLENTY, of doing your very best to be wise and responsible, only to get kaibashed (sp?) through absolutely no fault of your own: that is suffering! And that is option #3 for you. Patience, Suffering: Not popular. Not wanted. Not valued in our society (unless you become rich and famous, and it’s all behind you).

What can a financial coach offer? To be honest, not a whole lot, except to say, I’ve been there. I remember what those days feel like! Kat, I believe in you. I also believe that life will offer you much more abundant days. You and I both know your plans, and they are sound, exciting and likely ultimately financially rewarding plans. Until then, I’m with you, keep being your increasingly wise, thoughtful self as you navigate your way through difficult times. And patience is a character trait worth having.

No doubt about it: life favours the organized types. I’m not one of them. But here’s one little trick I use that keeps me on top of my bill payments/auto-withdrawals from the bank. Every bill payment is in my Outlook calendar, and so are the pre-authorized payments (insurance, BCmed etc.) I’ve set it so a pop-up reminder appears a couple days in advance, and keeps popping up until it’s dealt with.

If any readers don’t use Outlook, the same could apply for your calendar or daytimer. And if even that’s a strech, consider taking my “Getting your financial house in order” e-mail program. It’s underway for this fall - next session starts in January, just in time to navigate through post-holiday bill season.

If you’ve been following earlier blogs, you may remember the discussion of being in “financial winter”. Well financial winter is now turning into actual winter as the seasons give way from summer to fall..and so on…. This is the time of year where because of the long nights and rainy weather I find myself generally more on top of my finances, less engaged in that breezy, laissez-faire, who-cares-about-money-its-summer attitude.

This year, owing to holidays, a recent health crisis and doing my best to squeeze as much as possible into the remaining last whispers of summer, somehow I seemed to miss two payments of my phone bill. I couldn’t even tell you that last time I actually *missed* a bill payment, even in summer when I’m less structured with my habits I don’t usually get that far off track. I’m convinced I didn’t receive my statements, but if I did, I certainly don’t remember dealing with them. I have a rather reliable system I use and I just can’t imagine having been so involved in other aspects of my life that I could have missed TWO months worth of payments! But it goes to show how simply touching base with my bank account online and reviewing my money regularly would’ve caught the oversight much sooner than having to come home to a recorded message from the credit department of the phone company! I reviewed my banking online, discovered what I’d done, called the company made an immediate electronic payment but it I still found the experience unnerving! I don’t like feeling so out of touch.

Additionally, the winter which looms ahead brings further schooling (read: tuition fees) and the desire to purchase a gym membership if I am to survive the winter with my sanity intact since without regular exercise I go quite stir crazy in the rain! I’m still feeling the impact of a week’s missed pay from earlier this summer when I took unpaid leave, in that it’s been too tight to continue my regular savings contributions. Add to that my recent health crisis which has me potentially faced with another week off work for recovery time in October. I currently have 3 days of paid leave left for the remainder of the calendar year which means more lost earnings and the ever-approaching deadline for tuition and gym membership. This is when I feel frustrated by the ongoing cycles that are created by no savings, no passive income and a full-time job which I love, but which has income limited by the nature of my contract. I’m not prepared to give up the work, so I’m still finding strategies to get through these times.

I hope there will be a day where I earn income not merely sufficient for my needs, but to actually exceed them considerably. I would like to have a feeling of “money in the bank” aka financial security - and not be biting nails in times of unexpected crisis. It’s important for me to strike a balance. I don’t want to give all hours in a day to working simply to earn money, because then there’s no time to enjoy the money. I know that if I had my druthers, I’d work 3 or 4 days a week and earn a very high income, live life well, have all my basics met and lots left over to travel and play.

The most recent blog entry written by someone who is emerging from debt for the first time since adolescence both encourages and discourages me: discouraged because I see my own circumstances reflected there and don’t want to have to leave the job I love so well, which nurtures my heart & soul, along with my professional and personal development, simply for high-paying employment. And yet, I’m also encouraged knowing that something unexpected suddenly shifted for him when all hope looked lost. So for now, I’m still planning ahead for my current reality and considering creative strategies to make “Shift Happen”!

Kat

Nancy asked me to share my story in hopes of providing inspiration to those who read YMBD.com and are struggling financially.

I’m a professional man in mid-life, and it has been only recently that I was able to stop my deathly financial spiral. I hit financial bottom in the summer of 2001 and the future looked pretty bleak. I was on welfare and the opportunities in my newly chosen field of work – IT- disappeared with the dotcom crash. Thanks to the IT course I had just completed, and those awful years I struggled since 1995, I was seriously in debt.

It turned out that networking, meeting the right people was my saving grace. For me the old, tired, hackneyed saying, “Its not what you know, but who you know that counts” could not have rung truer. However up until the summer of 2001 my “networking” hadn’t paid off one lousy dime. Apparently I didn’t know the “right people”!

I was so angry and frustrated. Why was I in this mess? I had done all the “right things” to have a successful career and to live comfortably. I had two professional degrees. I was a registered professional in two provinces. I was “out there”. I stayed constantly in touch with potential employers. I participated in various clubs and activities and attended various professional events. But it seemed that whenever some great opportunity flashed in front of me, some ugly karmic force vapourized it. Anybody who tried to cheer me up by offering me advice through some cheap old hackneyed cliché was reciprocated with a vacant stare.

But nevertheless, in spite of my “bad karma” I kept at it. I wanted to give up, but I had no choice - I have too large an ego to ever declare bankruptcy. So in the summer of 2001, I continued to do all the “right things” to find a job even though by this time it all seemed in vain.

But all of a sudden, a mysterious disturbance in the karmic field of the planet occurred and I got a break.

It happened on the dock of the sailing club to which I belonged (my club dues were still outstanding!). There I struck up a conversation with someone I never saw at the club before. Turned out he knew one of my professors from graduate school and he owned a consulting firm in Yaletown! He hired me right on the spot. Apparently I knew one right person. I almost fell off the dock!

Three years later, though my financial spiral had come to a halt, I still wasn’t able to make a progress on my debt because my salary was just too low. Also, the office environment had degenerated considerably. Seven people had come and gone since I had joined. But it was only a seven man office!

I was miserable, but I because of my overbearing debt, I just couldn’t quit. I was trapped. I was desparately searching for another situation. Then one day I received an email from one of my ex-coworkers asking if I would be interested in a contract from the new firm for which he worked. Another disturbance of the global kharmic field had just taken place! I jumped immediately.

Two years later, I am still on the same contract. I am making more than twice the salary. The new field of work I am in is bursting at the seams and shows no signs of slowing down. Yes, I know that any good cannot last forever, but by the time this industry slows down, I will be well out of debt – unsecured debt that is – and will have socked enough money away in various investments to see me through any lean times. I also have fit in a couple trips to Thailand!

In another four months I will be out of debt – the first time since adolescence. It has been a bit of balancing act of diverting money towards debt and to investments such as RRSP’s and flow-through investments which reduce my income tax. Through taking advantage of various low interest rate balance transfer offers from my credit cards, I have been able to cut the astronomical credit card rates I used pay to an overall average of below 8%. This has taken some careful planning on my part to avoid the traps within the fine print of these deals. The tax savings I have reaped through my investments have allowed me to keep the tax man at bay and at the same time allow me to increase my financial self worth. A friend of mine used to repeat to me that it is not how much you make, but how much you keep that counts.

In spite of my recent good fortune, I am still cynical. I still roll my eyes when I hear those old shallow cliches. “Its always darkest before the dawn!” Please don’t remind me! Its hard not to be cynical at the best of times. Its even harder when you are down financially and you cannot see your way out of it.

I remember the character Chauncey Gardiner played by Peter Sellers in the movie “Being There”. Inspite of starting out homeless in the movie and being somewhat dim, Chauncey ended up in pretty good shape. Chauncey made it big by repeating the only thing he learned in life to the right people. It went something like this:

If the roots are firmly planted, then the garden will survive the winter and grow again in the spring.

In spite of being an idiot, even Chauncey knew how to turn his karma around.

OK, Jack … back at ‘ya…

do you ever let your imagine go bigger? You’ve said ‘no’ to the great car, and ‘no’ to buying a house, presumably because you believe those are impossible for you to attain (and the car may not be a fit anyways… or is that sour grapes?). You’ve said ‘yes’ to a computer and to a funded retirement.

But do you ever give yourself permission to be a bit more extravagent in your hopes? If not, do you have a sense of what’s stopping you in that regard?

And I wonder which comes first: hoping great things? or experiencing great things, and discovering sometimes hopes can come true?

OK: did you two read the National Post’s headline today, Tue Sept 5: Hard work not enough to rise above poverty line for many in Vancouver? Apparently 72,500 of Greater Vancouver residents work 910 hours/year, yet live below the poverty line. Does anyone know the definition of poverty line? (I don’t)

The Freedom 95 Plan

Nancy recently asked me what I want my money to do for me. We kicked a few ideas around such as a precision built overpowered German sports cars. As cool as that would be, I’m not sure it is me. Certainly not at this point in my life, as I spend my weekends with a 10 year old boy who travels with at least one and sometimes two hockey bags.

I did mention the new laptop I would like to pick up this fall. I’ve had the money for it saved since last spring. I’m just waiting for the new 64K Duo-Core chip to come out, which is rumored for sometime in September. Plus I thought it wise not to buy a new toy while the weather is nice.

However, I think Nancy was talking bigger than a piece of technology with an expected lifespan of three to four years. A house would be nice, but based on my current cash flow picture I could afford monthly pay mortgage payments of about $1,000. So, if I can scrape together a down-payment of anywhere between 300 and 800 thousand dollars, I’m set. I have some savings, but nothing approaching six digits.

The other thing on my wish list is a decent retirement. I’m on the cusp of turning 44 and should have another 21 years to put that in place. I am finally vested in my employers pension plan and most of my worldly net worth is tied up in my personal RRSP. I still try to contribute an average of a hundred dollars a month. It is a start and hopefully a good one.

And, against almost all odds, there is the $2 ticket of hope. Twice this past week I was in the City of Vancouver, a beautiful place where every parking spot is accompanied by a meter. Both times, I had no change and had to dash into a corner store to buy a lottery ticket to get the needed change. I could be in line for several million dollars, which would force me to reassess the above. A hardship I would undertake, so you could get a glimpse into the thought process. And if the tickets turn out to be losers, I can still feel like a winner because I avoided expensive parking tickets and the inevitable towing charges.

Cheers!

To pick up where I last left off, and in response to Coach’s Comments, the verdict on my “natural planning abilities” - at least as far as finances are concerned is a clear, unequivocal NO!. Generally I’m not a planner of most things in life, I’m definitely a more spontaneous, go-with-the-flow type, who’s learned through some difficult experiences the advantages to planning - despite my distaste for it. This is, at least in part I think, what stresses me out when my hard-won planning goes astray. Not a natural at the exercise I find myself struggling to shift gears quickly. In certain ways I’m remarkably adaptable and able to go with the flow. In others I definitely feel “below average” when I surmise how the rest of the world does it.

I’ve been contemplating what leads me to feel this way when the gear shift needs to happen and I’m tripping over myself to find my feet. I’ve come to the conclusion that where money is concerned, it’s about attachment. Attachment to a positive result, to the outcome I expected and planned for…attachment to money I don’t have to throw away on things I can’t afford!

As someone who mostly lives paycheque to paycheque, when carefully laid plans go awry, I worry that I won’t be able to recover without loads of extra expense or that the new solution will not be workable. With little financial cushion on which to rely, that’s a stress I can live without. I know if I had liquidity/plenty of money in the bank I wouldn’t have to worry where next month’s rent will come from or how I will eat, then if something went wrong - oh well, not ideal but it won’t break me. Living too close to that edge and feeling that there’s not safety net creates a scarcity mentality. Which certainly does nothing to further abundance.

I have at least one prime example in my life, a mentor of sorts, from whom I have gained infinite amounts of wisdom by simply observing the way he lives his life. He lives simply in a style that works well for him and has little attachment to money, among other things. From him I have learned this invaluable lesson: My purpose in life is to put forth my Self, my best effort with what I have available in any given situation - and then let go of attachment to the result. In so doing I know I have given my best and the chips will fall where they may. I may not always like the outcome, but who is successful 100% of the time?! We don’t always get what we want in life despite our best efforts.

So I am learning to make my efforts at financial planning and financial management and am developing strategies to let go of my attachment to the results. In this way I can see the outcomes more objectively, without taking every little thing personally. Jeez, if I keep this up, I might even get wise in my old age!