Money and me
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One of my favourite ABBA songs when I was growing up, was ‘Money Money Money’. I loved it because it was one of the few songs where my favourite member of ABBA, Frida, was the lead singer. I loved the depth of her voice. Her attitude. Her hair. I loved it when that song was next on the ABBA Arrival album. I would belt out those lyrics with her, every time, singing as loud as my little five-year-old lungs could manage.
I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay/ Ain't it sad//
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me/ That's too bad//
The song became somewhat of an anthem. And being prompted recently to think about my relationship with money, and where my attitudes and feelings toward money have come from, I realised this song had a lot to do with it.
I had never thought about my early feelings and impressions of money until I met Financial Wellbeing Coach, Melissa Forester. I had no idea financial wellbeing coaches existed and wondered how they were different to a financial adviser so I asked Melissa to explain to me her artistry. And this is what I learnt.
Financial advisers are focused on the end destination, whereas financial coaches are focused on the journey. It is self explanatory if you think about it as being all in their name. Financial advisers do exactly what their name says, they advise. They tell you what to do with your money. Making investment recommendations and managing those investment portfolios on your behalf. They do it for you, with the focus very much on the end result.
Financial coaches on the other hand, approach it differently. They will still help you achieve the end result, the desired financial goal, but they help you get there by coaching you, and in Melissa’s case, by focusing on financial wellbeing. A financial wellbeing coach works with your attitudes and feelings toward money. Their approach is based on the idea that transforming people’s financial lives starts with mindset. A financial wellbeing coach can still make investment recommendations, they can still manage your portfolios, but they help you to take responsibility for your own financial decisions, rather making them for you. With the view, that this empowers people to make healthy and appropriate financial decisions over the long term. That your financial freedom is only achieved when you are taking responsibility for your financial wellbeing.
In my dreams I have a plan/ If I got me a wealthy man//
I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball//
So thinking about ABBA’s song, films I watched growing up and books I read, I started to unpack why my relationship with money was broken, and why I have had an attitude that I am underserving of money. And have always thought of money as dirty, as a necessary evil. That decisions made only with money in mind, are not honourable. That ‘good’ people aren’t driven by money. That to make a lot of money, you have to do something bad.
The first image that comes to mind is Cruella de Vil. An evil woman who would kill and skin puppies to make and sell fur coats made from the fine soft fur of puppies. Clearly, this left a big impression on my younger self. To make a lot of money, you have to kill cute little puppy dogs.
Whoa! For a young child, that is going to go somewhere deep and stick. And it clearly did.
So I started thinking about other characters and stories, and realised in the shows I watched as a kid, there was often a bank robbery or similar. Like in the 1982 Herbie, The Love Bug TV series. Messages here for my child self: money is unattainable, money makes people do bad things like rob banks and risk going to jail.
Hmmm, perhaps not the healthiest starting point. Especially when these popular cultural influences on a young child are delivered alongside some key childhood experiences. Such as, overhearing my parents having a serious discussion about money, and my Dad having to travel from the country town we lived in to the city and live 200km away for three days of the week to keep doing what he loved and to keep a roof over our heads. Or the fact that my mum had to go back to work with a very young family and do night shift as a nurse. Trying to catch up on sleep when she could during the day, in between caring for young kids. Don’t get me wrong, we had a happy and privileged childhood. We were healthy, clean, clothed, fed and didn’t miss out on much. We had a pool. A great cubby house. A river to spend all day riding our bikes around and swimming in. But my view of life at that age was that money made things hard. Money meant people had to do difficult things. Money took the fun out of life.
Throw in trilogies like the Godfather, and my love of Agatha Christie crime novels and suddenly you have the idea planted into my young and impressionable mind, that people didn’t just kill puppies for money but people violently kill other people for money. No wonder money and I just didn’t stand a chance.
Money, money, money/ Must be funny/ In the rich man's world//
Money, money, money/ Always sunny/ In the rich man's world//
Let’s think a little about the lyrics of Money Money Money, one of ABBA’s top songs. A song centred around a woman whose situation was ‘sad’ and ‘bad’ because no matter how hard she was working, there wasn’t enough money for her after all bills were paid. Imprint one on an impressionable young child listening to her hero sing: fear of not having enough money, no matter how hard you work.
A song about a woman who dreams of marrying a ‘wealthy man’ to achieve freedom and happiness and ‘fool around and have a ball’. Imprint two on a young girl: to have financial security you have to marry a man and he has to be someone rich. Someone other than you provides financial freedom. And at that young age, I was already a hopeless romantic (fairytales have a lot to answer for) and somewhat fiercely independent, so I was never going to do that. I would never be rich.
Then, the song’s chorus goes on to say this woman could do so much with money, that anything was possible ‘all the things I could do’. But it was not attainable for her or me, as we were female and we were not rich. Money was ‘a rich man’s world’ and if I didn’t get that message loud an clear, the line was repeated for me, for reinforcement.
Aha aha/ All the things I could do
If I had a little money/ It's a rich man's world/ It’s a rich man’s world//
Just incase I turn my back on my romantic ideals and decide to search the world to find a rich man, the song goes on to tell me he is unattainable ‘hard to find’ and ‘he wouldn’t fancy me’ anyway. So I might as well throw that idea out the door. The only way to get money is to gamble. Something I knew from other movies was a bad thing to do, and led to the destruction of self. Imprint four from this song on my young self just reinforced everything all the other movies, TV shows and books had already programmed my young brain to believe.
A man like that is hard to find but I can't get him off my mind/ Ain't it sad//
And if he happens to be free I bet he wouldn't fancy me/ That's too bad//
So I must leave, I'll have to go/ To Las Vegas or Monaco//
And win a fortune in a game, my life will never be the same//
My first job was in a bookstore at 14 years of age. I was seeking some of the fun and sun of a rich man’s world. Money gave me the freedom to buy the things I wanted, and in buying them I wasn’t holding onto that ‘dirty thing’ called money, which made people do bad things. The clothes, books, make-up that I threw my money away on, were not bad. But money was. So I got rid of it quickly. Quite quickly and never saved a cent.
Money, money, money/ Must be funny/ In the rich man's world//
Money, money, money/ Always sunny/ In the rich man's world//
My parents worked hard to be able to send me to university. To pay for my board and food. My books and any essentials. But there was never enough money. I always needed more. Even though they paid for most of my expenses and gave me an allowance, which I topped up with a part time job, there was never enough money for me. I am ashamed to admit, I went back to my parents often, asking for more. Loans and shallow promises to pay them back. I abused their generosity. Their generosity abused me. If I needed more, I just had to ask for it. Financial independence alluded my young adult self
One day I woke up, grown up. And changed my ways. I stopped borrowing money from my parents. Started saving for the things I wanted. Started using the budget spreadsheets, which I created and used at work for publications and projects I managed, for my own life. Started counting pennies. Stopped buying my lunch. Stopped catching public transport to work, in order to add to my savings. Started to find ways to pay my parents back. I became more respectful of money, and money became a little more respectful toward me. We worked together, rather than against each other. I didn’t just happen magically overnight. There were a few key things, which happened and contributed to me waking up. Firstly, in my early twenties there was a time when I worked for someone who made lots of money but seemed to always spend more money than he made. It took some time for this to create some big issues for the business, but when it did, I found one of the many roles in my job was to work on payment plans. I took phone calls every day listening to people asking for the money they were owed. I had to explain if and why the payment plan couldn’t be met. Even when I had put everything in place to ensure it could. Somethings were not in my control. Secondly, after leaving this job a couple of years later and working in an advertising agency, I was responsible for the budget of big projects. And there was no excuse for those projects to go over budget. Ever. I had some senior staff who gave me some great advice and a good spreadsheet template. And I practised managing money, with money that wasn’t mine. Without any emotional connection.
I also met and started dating someone who had a completely different relationship with money compared to me. He had a very relaxed and easy interactions with money. A no fuss attitude, but a respectful attitude. He was also a gentle guide. Using questions to teach. He wasn’t wealthy. He didn’t live in a rich man’s world. But he did the things he loved in life, and his relationship with money was part of this. As the richness of our love grew, we moved in together, spent every moment we could together, we married, eventually brought a house, had gorgeous kids and all in all we have lived (and are living) a loving, blessed and comfortable life together. It has been fun and there has been lots of sun in our world.
Aha aha/ All the things I could do/ If I had a little money/ It's a rich man's world//
Money, money, money/ Must be funny/ In the rich man's world//
Money, money, money/ Always sunny/ In the rich man's world//
Aha aha/ All the things I could do/ If I had a little money/
Despite this, my relationship with money isn’t as healthy as it could be. I still carry deep inside me some of those first impressions of money from my childhood. Almost like a weight. Money has always been somewhat stressful. Or hard work. I still view it as a little dirty. I still see money as something that controls me. And as something a little elusive.
It's a rich man's world/
It's a rich man's world//
So having reflected on my early feelings around money and contemplating where my initial attitudes have come from, I have realised that financial freedom for me starts with freeing myself of these feelings and attitudes. My financial wellbeing begins with a different mindset to money. Of having a different relationship with money. I know when you work with money, together, collaboratively you can do some great things. Good things. Money can afford me the opportunity to help others, in the way I want to help people, by doing the things I dream of doing.
I have realised I want money and me to be friends. And in order to do that, I thought the first step would be me forgiving money for skinning puppies, robbing banks, being in a rich man’s world, gambling lives away and killing people. But then I realised, money has never done these things. People have. Money doesn’t control people. People make choices. Money is paper, metal and invisible transactions. It is without intellect. It is a thing.
Might be time for me to listen to J.Lo’s ‘Jenny from the Block’. Or start signing my own song.
I am so grateful to Financial Wellbeing Coach, Melissa Forester, for prompting me to think about where my early attitudes and feelings toward money had come from. I had no idea I was burdened by the weight of such negative associations with money. If this is what I unpack after one question, I can only imagine where a session with her might take me. What a great financial wellbeing coach she must be!