Do you like money?
Before all the negative comments start to fly about money not being the be-all and end-all in life (which I happen to agree with by the way), there is a serious reason for me asking this question.
So, let's start again. Do you like money? It sounds strange at first, and depending on our upbringing, it could be thought of as a nonsense question, or a threatening question. It is, however, the initial step in cultivating a healthy relationship with money.
You need to genuinely enjoy it, as opposed to hating it, or finding it challenging. Think about it this way: building a relationship with money is very much like building a relationship with another person. It's tough to connect and develop a strong bond with someone you don't like, right? So why would it be any different when it comes to your finances?
Now, I'm not suggesting that you should ‘like’ money in the same way that Scrooge McDuck does - hoarding it in a vault, diving into it like a swimming pool, and keeping it locked away to count and recount without ever using it. That's not what we're aiming for. What I mean is developing a healthy respect for money, appreciating what it can do for you, and understanding how it can enhance your life in meaningful ways.
You might be thinking, "Well, of course I like money. Doesn't everyone?" Surprisingly, the answer is no. Not everyone has a positive attitude toward money, and this can hinder their financial success and stability in the long run.
Let's take a moment to reflect. Have you ever caught yourself thinking any of these thoughts?
1. Money is the root of all evil.
2. People will think I'm shallow and greedy if I desire money too much.
3. Money can't buy happiness.
4. It's better that I don't have much money - I'm not good at managing it anyway.
These are just a few examples of negative beliefs about money. There are plenty more out there. If you find that you have these kinds of thoughts, you might also notice that you struggle to hold onto money when you get it. You might never ask for a pay rise at work, or feel like you'll never be able to save enough for your future.
As with many beliefs we have, we often aren’t even aware that they are there. It’s only when we start to question our results and start to look back at what we have done to generate these results that beliefs start to raise their heads. Beliefs are the Why in our money stories.
Start at the end, look at your results, where are you now?
Here’s an example from a client I worked with. He was up to his eyeballs in debt. Then ask what did you do to get to this point? He had no plan, just spent whatever he wanted to, when he wanted to, whether he could afford it or not. The next question is to work out what the underlying beliefs are that led to this behaviour? There were several, but the key ones were, I can generate money easily. I deserve to have a good life. No-one is going to tell me what to do (this one applied to other areas of life as well).
There are steps you can take to shift your mindset and start developing a more positive relationship with money. The key is to challenge these beliefs. Ask yourself: Do you truly believe these things, or have these ideas been passed down from family or friends, and maybe they don't serve you anymore?
If you realise that some beliefs need to be updated or be more helpful to you, it's time to look for evidence that contradicts them. Think about people you know who are financially well-off and seem to have a good relationship with money. Are they happy? Do they take responsibility for their finances? Do they have plan?
Consider what it would feel like to be more financially secure than you are right now. Does the thought excite you or make you uneasy? Challenging your beliefs is the first step towards creating a change.
Understanding your relationship with money is crucial. You need to like money and develop healthy behaviours around it to achieve financial security and reach your full potential.
Ultimately, liking money isn't about greed or materialism but valuing yourself and your future. It's about recognising money's role in your life and how it can help you live the life you want. So, give yourself permission to like money - you might be surprised at the positive changes that follow.
Lynda Moore is a Money Mentalist coach and New Zealand’s only certified New Money Story® mentor. Lynda helps you understand why you do the things you do with your money, when we all know we should spend less than we earn. You can contact her here.
59 Comments
Thank you for the article.
Growing up, I always struggled with the 'money is the root of evil' thing, all the while watching the plate being passed around the church. I much later in life came to the realization of 3 things.
1. That I no longer wanted to attend church.
2. The correct passage was - Timothy 6:10 "for the LOVE of money is the root of all (kinds of) evil.
3. Money is just a tool. It will only put a hold over you if you allow it, it is the emotion we give it.
It's okay to be rich, make profits and live well, but in doing so be a good person, so much the better.
Indeed, I have long been an advocate for teaching basic budgeting and money management at school. I think it's a great way to level the paying field between kids from financially illiterate households with those who benefit from being taught good money management from their parents
Just as a comment on the collection plate. It's still used in the churches I frequent, though most parishoners make automatic payments to the parish bank account. Few people are dropping things in, which looks stingy and feels awkward, but the idea of gifting is partly a ceremonial act and so is retained. I only recently realised that my mum had actually been putting in empty envelopes into the collection basket, and simply making annual donations electronically. But she didn't want to be seen passing the basket without putting something in. There's something to be said for cash!
Unfortunately, many make real bad decisions when it comes to money, and nothing's ever going to change that.
Hire purchase, terrible investments, big spenders, birds, booze and bombs. I saw post a few weeks ago from a guy who's a lower order share milker who's having a real struggle. 22 years old, and 4 kids.
"I saw post a few weeks ago from a guy who's a lower order share milker who's having a real struggle. 22 years old, and 4 kids. "
Lack of financial literacy and lack of awareness of the importance of financial literacy.
Some people unknowingly make life more difficult by making life choices with huge financial consequences.
If he and his partner separate, then life becomes even more challenging raising 4 children.
Hard to like, or love, as Yvil puts it, a construct that has no physical value except "faith". If only the concept had a fixed value, at least then there would be something tangible to actually place a human emotional value on? I know most people like having the construct that is called money, but we are one major outage from a reset and digital money vapourising.
"How do you like something created out of nothing and once in existence continually eroded back nothingness?"
Does your quote not apply to life? To love? Of course it does. Yet I hope you like Life and Love. Palmtree, you might struggle to see that money can make life and love better, but I think you should follow Linda's advice and find out where your money beliefs come from, and please, dare question if they're really true.
Honestly, if I wasn't forced into a system that requires me to comply with other people's ideas of what defines "progress", I'd be happy with self sufficiency and barter, rather than a system of generating digits to finance ever increasing extractivism in our only viable biosphere.
How do you get a hold of land, shelter and livestock without spending many years entirely entrenched in the system?
Even once you've managed to raise the capital to establish yourself, you are still forced to engaged with a monetary system by the laws of the land. Council rates, vehicle regos and wofs if you ever need to leave you plot of land, building consents if you want to build on you own land.. etc.
we've turned life into a harsh and brutal sport where money is considered the scoring system by far, far too many people.
People can choose to play that game, and people can choose not to play that game.
Have seen many people choose to play that game hard then they get blindsided by risks and lose it all.
"we've turned life into a harsh and brutal sport where money is considered the scoring system"
Chris, can you see how you attach negative emotion to money by using words like "harsh and brutal". I could equally say: "we've turned life into a beautiful and passionate sport".
Money is not good or bad, it's simply a means of exchanging things. People are good or bad, and yes, there are plenty of examples of people doing great things with money like teaching, feeding the poor, healing, donating etc and there are equally many examples of people doing bad things with money such as scamming, extorting, war etc... But it's the people who are good or bad, not money.
Are you serious? Pete bakes bread, Jane makes clothes, Mike builds houses. Pete might exchange bread for a week for one of Jane's sweater, but soon Pete will have enough clothes whereas Jane will still need food. Mike has no food or clothes because he can't exchange a house for Jane's sweater and Pete's bread... They need some sort of common currency to exchange their goods, we call that currency "MONEY"
Hamish, I don't want to sound patronising, but it's tough living life with little or no money. A "hate of money" will ensure you never have much of it. Please try to work out where your "hate of money" comes from, allow yourself to think about money in a logical way without emotion, and try to see if, perhaps, some of your thoughts about money could be different. Good luck mate.
I didn't say I hate money, so not sure I need any help dealing with this made up issue I supposedly have. Thanks anyway.
And a tough life can be a very rewarding and satisfying life. Like I said, the best days of my life I had barely any money at all.
Regarding middle men, consider someone who saved what they could through their productive years, then get to a point where they can't work any more only to find their savings inflated rapidly away due to the middle men printing and dispersing to chosen institutions a pile of money that didn't exist before.
Or that the amount of money that a house used to cost (as a proxy for work, and what used to be x years average salary) is somehow, magically a whole lot more. Because the middle men can keep putting more money/debt into the hands of people wanting to buy a home to bid against each other and inflate the end cost. And now despite whatever advances have been made by humankind over the last so many decades, we now require 2 working adults to buy a home and barely keep their heads above water.
But I guess if they just 'worked harder' they'd have more money and life would be easier.
Or consider that 2 people who should be equal are not. Because one had the good fortune to inherit a load of money and the other didn't And money can buy and deny justice.
I have plenty of both thanks. It just interests me that there's a train of thought out there that you can't have either of both without money. If you need money for happiness and fulfillment, then how much money do you need? Will you ever have enough? Of course money makes things easier. But in my own life, the happiest and most fulfilling memories are ones where it was my own effort and motivation that got me there without any money required.
Eventually Pete realises that if he bakes less bread and there isn't enough for everyone who wants it he can charge more for each loaf, enriching his own life at the expense of the rest of the village.
Jane realises at the same time that instead of using money as a means of exchange, she can use it as capital, she can pay someone else to make the clothes whilst keeping most of the income generated. She then notices that she has more income than she needs to spend on other goods/services, so she starts to take money out of circulation and store it in a chest under her house..
All these things have been created in the past without money.
Some might say a sharing economy existed before the creation of enslavement.
It could be suggested that our best solution for society, for "civilisation" is to evolve into a gift economy.
I dislike money with a passion.
Regardless of how people feel about money, most people need sufficient amounts for their life, unless they're planning to go totally off the grid and live off the land, and be a hunter gatherer for the rest of their life, or use barter for their transactions.
Most people want to avoid getting into this situation in their later years.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2023/04/cost-of-living-pensioners-…
People are free to choose, however people are not free to choose the consequences of their choice.
then you must be very happy.
Cos they are making more of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#/media…
"for the love of money is the root of all evil"
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
“Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God”
The original meanings have been lost in translation, and many have misconstrued them to justify certain behaviours, but the teachings still remain valid.
Money, wealth, riches are not inherently wrong. The lust, greed, actions taken to achieve them can be. The over attachment to these things for ones sense of worth and status creates imbalances and iniquities both within and without.
The worship and idolatry of money and material wealth creates a blindness of real wealth, of the inherent worth and value of every one and every thing.The love of money, the fixation and attachment to material wealth leads one to exploit people and planet. Leads one away from loving thy neighbour as thyself and valuing others inherent needs as equally important as ones own. It encourages fear based behaviours and leads one away from love.
It's pretty obvious by my many posts that this subject is close to my heart. David Chaston, I want to congratulate you for having Lynda as a contributor to Interest. Understanding where our beliefs about money come from and being able to challenge them, is paramount to our financial wellbeing. Lynda I love that you understand how crucial our beliefs about money are, thank you Lynda.
Personally, I grew up in a middle class family with mostly negative and limiting views about money. I didn't realise this of course, as I considered them to be normal and the truth. Only when I met my wife who came from a much more positive and libertarian view did I start to change. Actually at the beginning I resisted the change strongly, and it made me very uncomfortable to entertain a more positive view of money. But I have absolutely no doubt, that I would not be where I am today in life, if I didn't slowly, over time change my beliefs to be more open about money. I would go even further, this lead to a happier, fuller life, that I couldn't envisage with my earlier, limiting opinion of money.
"It's a testament to how a strong mindset can lead to success with money."
Strong mindset is insufficient. Avoiding financial landmines is essential.
This guy hit a financial landmine.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/301003929/from-wealth-of-4m-to-l…
A lifetime of good financial choices can be entirely undone by a single choice. The road to financial security is paved with potholes and landmines.
These investors also hit a financial landmine.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/nido-investors-tell-of-heartbreak-a…
Investors who poured millions of dollars into the failed Nido homeware share ownership scheme have told of the misery they are suffering.
One investor with $1 million-plus invested has complained to the Financial Markets Authority, another who put in $1m fears he will have to shoot rabbits and dig vegetables to eat, while a third is suffering insomnia and nightmares after putting in $250,000.
A retired farmer, aged 79, said: "I can shoot rabbits and I grow my own vegetables. If I have to, I'll carry on working. I was getting around $5000 per month interest."
Another shareholder in her early 70s is one of 229 shareholders in Central Park Property Investment, which owns the failed Nido West Auckland homeware store and site.
A Financial Markets Authority spokesman confirmed a complaint had been received over the Maat offer.
"We ordinarily do not confirm whether we have received complaints in relation to a specific issue, to protect the privacy of the complainant and subject of the complaint from undue prejudice.
"However, given this complainant has provided that information to the media, we can confirm we have received a complaint from a Central Park Property Investment shareholder regarding Maat Consulting, in relation to the Nido property syndicate.
"As with all complaints, we are assessing it through our normal processes. Complaints to the FMA are confidential so we will not comment further on whether or not we have received other complaints relating to this matter," the FMA spokesman said.
The retired woman in her early 70 said: "I put in some hundreds of thousands." She wants Maat to repay shareholders from other, more successful Maat funds.
The woman had a mortgage-free house and said she thought Nido was a good deal but said she had never visited the now-abandoned store, which shut two months ago.
"Covid came along and I worried my superannuation money in a managed fund would have a balance going down and down and down. So I grabbed it all out and I talked to a person at church who sent me a newsletter earlier last year from Maat.
"I hadn't heard of them at the time but felt that they had belief in faith like I do. I was drawn to the 8.5 per cent return. I was looking for somewhere to invest my money. I read a newsletter from May 2020 which said that the Nido store scheme in west Auckland was projecting 11 per cent although it came back to 8.5 per cent."
So she met up with executives behind the fund.
"I'm not investment savvy, although I've had rental properties in the past. Maat had 12 funds they were managing and had a good track record. I felt they could be trusted."
She then attended a presentation and although Nido founder Vinod Kumar was absent, she said she felt even more comfortable about the scheme.
"They knew what they were doing. So I invested in stages and in hindsight it was far, far too much. It should have just been a small amount but I was attracted to the return. It was so much more than putting my money in the bank," she said.
Given the multi-cultural population of NZ, different cultures have different attitudes and beliefs with respect to money.
They may not have learned to adapt to the environment in NZ.
If you want to identify them, look at those demographic groups that are in the lower socio-economic class in NZ.
My parents were quite poor, but made something of themselves with a couple of businesses and lots of hard work. My father told me when I was probably about 12 years old that I had better save my money because being old with no money wasn't going to be much fun. Unfortunately my father died when he was 62, so he never really got to enjoy the fruits of his labours.
Just about every decision I've ever made since then relates to whether that decision would be a good one financially. It's certainly worked for me and my wife has a similar mindset. Very occasionally I tell my wife I'm going to buy something, and she'll say "Do you really need that, it's a waste of money"?
I didn't get married until I was 40 years old, financially secure and had made a lot renovating old houses in addition to my day job. I renovated a house I bought at a mortgagee auction, hard to believe people could live in such disgustingly, filthy manner. I had colossal amounts of mortgage debt but managed to discharge it all a few years before I retired by selling a factory I had owned for 40 years which needed extensive renovation, and the body corporate was causing me a few headaches.
I had a superannuation scheme when I was gainfully employed, and have built a couple of houses since I retired - with cash.
The end result has been a happy retirement with no worries about money.
"My father told me when I was probably about 12 years old that I had better save my money because being old with no money wasn't going to be much fun"
Lucky to be born into a family with a father that had the knowledge and wisdom to give that advice to you.
Many children born into lower socio-economic households, certain ethnic cultures or financially illiterate households don't get that advice. These children need to recognise that they need to learn essential money management skills to make more informed financial choices that lead to better life outcomes.
A family friend is a self made multi millionaire, yet his children have not been taught money management skills. The son has little fiscal self discipline and is still financially relying on his parents at the age of 28 and the parents continue to partially enable him and his fiscal habits. The adult children will likely be trust fund beneficiaries in future. The children are being set up to financially fail in the future.
Having said that, a lifetime of good financial choices can be entirely undone by a single choice. The road to financial security is paved with potholes and landmines.
Here is an example of one of those landmines.
There are many more landmines that most people are unaware of.
Indeed, that's why I'd likew to see teaching basic budgeting and money management at school. I think it's a great way to level the paying field between kids from financially illiterate households with those who benefit from being taught good money management from their parents
Here’s an example from a client I worked with. He was up to his eyeballs in debt. Then ask what did you do to get to this point? He had no plan, just spent whatever he wanted to, when he wanted to, whether he could afford it or not. The next question is to work out what the underlying beliefs are that led to this behaviour? There were several, but the key ones were, I can generate money easily. I deserve to have a good life. No-one is going to tell me what to do (this one applied to other areas of life as well).
A sense of entitlement, lack of fiscal self discipline, lack of awareness of money management skills and emotionally motivated spending will always be at the mercy of the most basic of money rules - spend less than you earn.
This recession is going to catch a lot of people who are highly indebted.
In my opinion, the value of money is not so much that it allows you to buy things, but rather that it can be used to facilitate things.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of capitalism (or more specifically a type of capitalism overridden by and amenable to rentiers) people are encouraged to take the essentially pointless route of using money to acquire things in an effort to obtain more money instead of using it to facilitate things (e.g. education, innovation, social cohesion, etc).
Edit to add:
Obviously in order to facilitate some things it is necessary to purchase the resources needed. Unfortunately, too many people purchase existing resources not because they have some plan to put them to use themselves, but because they know that others will want to and they can extract some of the value from the productive person's endeavour by collecting a 'tax'. Ironically many of these people are dead set against taxes.
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