I wish I had a dime for every time someone said something along the lines of
“I’m not good with money.”
“I don’t know anything about investing.”
“I have so much debt.”
“I’m making a lot of money, but I never know where it goes.”
I’d be wealthy by now. Or at least I’d have a lot of dimes.
You know what struggling with money makes you? Human. I even listed out some of my bigger financial mistakes for the world to see.
Most people seem to view financial management as some kind of competition: win – lose. Either you are a winner or you are a loser. And if you are winning, chances are someone else is losing, because your worldview is premised on a dichotomy. The problem is that it’s a false dichotomy. No one is winning, and no one is losing. Some people just happen to be more strategic about matching up what matters to them in everyday life with how they handle their finances.
Financial savvy does not mean someone is doing a great job with money. Plenty of people are smart investors, and squander their money, because they don’t take the time to figure out what truly matters to them. Acquiring money doesn’t mean you are in control of your finances. It just means you have a pile of money. Directing your money to the things that you find most important is the critical feature of strong financial management. That doesn’t mean you have to be completely altruistic. Some people want to own nice things, and have nice experiences. It’s OK to value possessions. It’s OK to value doing things that cost you money and time. Our focus is how we can continually improve in matching our values in everyday life with our financial behaviors.
Our values may change. Who you are at age 23 is not the same person in some ways as at 41. You might want to pay off the mortgage early at 41, or you may want to start a business. At 23, you might have been focused primarily on paying of student debt and getting a job. Or just getting a date. When we change, our values change, and that means how we manage our money might change. Being good with money when I was 23 entailed getting a job and putting a lot of money into some tax-advantaged retirement plans. I knew nothing about stocks, and just did the best I could. At 38, I spend extensive time considering tax implications of different choices. I was good with money at 23, because I put money toward the things that made sense at that time. I’m good at money at 38, because I am making the most of what I now have.
Money is an intrinsic part of life, in that it plays a part in furthering our goals, large and small. Yet money is not the main thing we want to get “good at.” We want to get good at life. We want to be better parents. We want to be better managers. We want to learn a new past time. We want to help in some way. We want a nicer house. We may want to simply get better at a computer game. And why not? Our world would be boring if we all had the same aspirations and interests.
Getting better at how we live our lives entails, in almost every instance, aligning our financial behaviors. Our goal to be “good with money” is really a goal to be “good with life.” Failing to recognize how closely our financial goals map to our personal goals sets us up for failure on both accounts. Many financial programs start out with a fairly straight-forward emphasis on getting out of debt, or setting up a budget. These are good places to start. But the desire to get out of debt or set up a budget is usually driven by something more. It comes from a desire to live life better.
Getting better with money is about getting better about living out our values. When we feel burdened by debt, or unsettled about our finances, it is nearly always related to a deficiency in how we are living out what matters to us. We don’t need to get better at how we spend our money, we need to get better at managing our desires. Many couples seek seek out marriage counseling, when they need a financial adviser or coach, and vice versa.
At issue is rarely money alone. It is who we are, and how we wish to live based upon our values. Getting better at life entails some honest goal prioritization and change in financial habits. Getting better at money always requires clarifying who you wish to be. How we manage our money is one of the principal ways we express our values in the world. Living out our values is something we can always get better at that.
Photo by Wayan Aditya on Unsplash