As The Saying Goes

I recently had a conversation about money with a friend … she was curious about what I was doing differently and looking for advice on how to better manage her receipts etc. for her business - I function on the belief that everything has a home and things get put where they belong while she’s more a put a thing down and forget it’s there personality. 

In the shared laundry room of life - I time my wash and move it to the dryer within minutes of a finished cycle and remove and fold my clothes in the laundry room just after the dryer cycle completes.  My friend is more the forgot her clothes are in the dryer and leaves them there for days at a time personality type.  

Once we navigated organizational options and patterns … It led to a conversation about money.  Detour … I like sayings - I often mess them up, but the gist of them stay with me … “a man without a passport is a man without a home” - I heard this one when I was young and I’ve never, and I do mean never, let my passport expire … Last summer I read that money is like any other relationship in your life.

Mind.  Blown.  

Also … f ck … if money were a boyfriend, it would have been a wildly unhealthy relationship.  With me playing the part of the arms length, emotionally distant and insanely demanding girlfriend who expects the boyfriend to show up and fulfill my every whim.  Wow … I was breadcrumbing that relationship to death. 

Everything one should aspire to be … 

Obviously. Not. 

So, I’ve been making more of an effort - to understand my options, determine what my priorities are, how they align with my values and how I want my money to show up for me, to work with me etc.  A lifetime of habits don’t change overnight, but - thankfully - not all of them were bad.  

Note, this would be the part where people in my life would laugh, or maybe cry, or maybe both.  Their relationship with money is very different from mine … they might argue theirs is healthier.  

I had the fundamentals … Some of which I followed rigidly, others, much less so.  

Money and I have a strange history.  I have moments when I panic, but those moments are often short-lived.  I’ve always prioritized paying my bills … Well, almost always, there was a painful lesson in my very early twenties, but I was smart enough to learn from it and not repeat it.  Otherwise, fairly responsible and not something I worried too much about.  When I needed it, it came, whether a friend suddenly returned money I’d loaned them, a bonus came through, I found it on the street … it came. 

There are certain things that matter to me, that I love doing.  Spoiling my bebes’, showing up for friends, travelling … These things bring me immense joy.  I love making things pretty - I recognize the subjectivity of that word, so I’ll modify that and say … I like my space to radiate warmth, depth, make the people I allow into my space feel at home, comfortable, I like layers and texture.  When I decide I want something, I’m impatient … I think you see where this is going.

So, in the spirit of my dinner conversation, what changed?  Well, nothing … and everything.  I figured out what was important.  I paid attention to where I was spending my money.  Did it match my priorities? Not always. So I started to make small shifts. 

If I were independently wealthy, I know what that would look like, where my money would go, what I would spend it on. In the meantime, I’m building the foundation, how I prioritize my spend. The patience, the instant gratification will be a work in progress - thankfully I have friends who like to thrift, I can share with them what I’m looking for and they can keep an eye out.  I have an interesting mix of new and used items in my space … Some of my favourite pieces are hand me downs.  

I may not be a financial expert or have any interest in becoming one, but I’m open to learning and when motivated devour information on subjects of interest.  I’m not interested in worrying about money, just better understanding it and continuously improving my relationship with it. I want good relationships - not just with people, not just with myself, but also with time, also with money.  

So ... as the saying goes, “winds in the east, mist coming in, like something is brewing and about to begin” ... change is coming ...