How to Inaugurate Your New Administration of Money
Posted: Monday, January 19, 2009
by Chris Shelby
Wiki Web Coaching
This morning, racing from a cold bed to a warm fireplace, the first thoughts that settled into place were "money" and "new administration". I looked up the origin of "administration" on Google the trusty internet oracle spoke right up.
Turns out it comes from old French -- "ad" to give, as in give medicine to, "minister" as in a serving by managing, keeping track of things and giving them direction.
"It is the winter of 1993 in a small Vancouver BC hotel room. My mom and dad have come up for a visit and we are settling into a night of sleep.
This is a rare event as my parents, once extremely wealthy, are now almost completely broke. A series of greatly misguided - or rather "unguided" - moves combined with years of complete lack of awareness/respect about money has created a barren financial landscape that would have been unimaginable a short decade ago.
It is bedtime. My dad wishes me good night, turns off the light...and turns it right back on. I watch him get out of bed and walk over to his coat. He grabs a little notepad out of his pocket, scribbles a few lines, walks back to bed and turns off the light.
I am intrigued.
So I ask.
And that is when he tells me that for the last year, he has been recording nightly every penny spent during the day. And that is when he tells me, with tears in his voice that had he done this - or a version of this - all of his adult life, neither I, my brother, sister nor our children would ever have had to worry about money.
Wow.
Tonight, this memory is mine again. My dad has been gone for almost nine years now as I believe guilt and regret teamed up on him and eventually won."
It seems to me, that in a big way, as individuals and as a country, we're being asked to look right at our money.
Not looking at it, not paying attention, brings a thin layer of discomfort. It is a discomfort we can live with, for a long time. It brings a constant, low-level buzz of unease. A gnawing sensation that we aren't quite sure what will happen next month or next week.
And to ease that sensation, we might even seek shopping-therapy.
When I say "we," I'm not just talking about shoes. The entire mortgage and banking industry went into shopping therapy mode.
The biggest financial institutions in the country are made up of people, and those people had the discomforting sense that the housing bubble might burst. But it was far too painful for any of these companies to actually LOOK at where money was flowing.
That brought us to crisis.
Now that we're here, why not try something new? As individuals, we certainly can. Maybe you weren't paying attention before, and that is okay. Nobody was.
YOU are now the president of your own household.
So what to do, in this new administration?
Why not face your money, see exactly where it goes?
Be gentle with yourself. Don't "budget" in the way so many of us have been taught - don't punish yourself.
If you add up how much you spend on triple-caramel-vanilla- lattes in a month, and you make a sound like a cat with a stepped-on tail - pause.
Consider the fact that you wanted the coffee, and you want to make house payments, too. This just means finding a way to do both.
Look into the future, picture how your money will flow in and out. This can actually be a fun process, if you learn the tools.
In 2009, inaugurate yourself in a new position of power. Bring in a whole new form of management and oversight. Your vision, the new, green, budding seeds of change you have for yourself and your family, can flourish when you feed them with your attention.
Chris Shelby is a writer, life coach, and a big fan of all-you-can-eat buffets.
He is in love with Laura Lavigne, author of The Money Playground
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