money Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

Bank of Spirit

Where are you spending your money? What do you put your money towards? Most of us would answer that we put our money towards food, clothing, shelter, health, taxes, education, our families, pets, retirement savings, charity (in no particular order) and then if there is any money left over it goes to luxuries like outings, trips and trinkets. We’re all pretty cognizant about where we spend our money and what we want our money to do for us. Most of us already have answers about what we would plan to do with our money if we came into a big windfall such as winning the lottery.

I read an interesting perspective the other day that asked the question: why don’t we put that same kind of consideration that we do about where we are spending our money, into where we are spending our everyday personal emotional energy? If you pretended that every thought of yours was a dollar, are you spending your thoughts in the right places? Are you spending your thoughts and feelings on people/places/things that truly matter to you? Are you wasting your thoughts and feelings? Are you bleeding your thoughts/feelings? I replaced “thoughts and feelings” with where the word money is often used in these common platitudes:

+ Thoughts and feelings don’t grow on trees. (We all only have about 16-18 waking hours in the day when we can consciously notice and change our thoughts and our feelings. And none of us know just how many days we will actually get on this Earth to think and to feel and to experience our perspectives which we create about life.)

+ Time is thoughts and feelings. (We are in a constant stream of thoughts/feelings throughout our time in the day.)

+ Thoughts and feelings can’t buy happiness. (Happiness is usually a by-product of a state of gratefulness and positivity created by the thoughts and feelings we are having about various situations in our lives. Thoughts and feelings mired in negativity will not buy happiness.)

+ Make your thoughts and feelings work for you.

Money is just another form of energy. “One of the ways Webster’s Dictionary defines energy is “the physical or mental strength that allows you to do things.” Money, like gasoline for your vehicle, allows you the ability to do the things you want to do in life.” (oreilly.com) Money is the symbol of the energy it took to earn it, and we trade this energy for some other form of energy (the things and the experiences that we value and we buy).

We tend to put a lot of consideration into where we spend our money and if we don’t do this, we often end up “broke”, with nothing to show for it. Is this any different than our everyday thoughts and feelings? Are you wasting your thoughts and feelings on things that really don’t matter or that are out of your control? Are the places where you are spending the propensity of your thoughts and feelings giving you a good return? Are you getting a lot of bang for your buck?

Just for today, pretend that your thoughts and feelings are your financial allotment for the day. Invest your thoughts and feelings wisely. Spend your thoughts and feelings on things that really matter to you, and on matters that will really make a difference in your own life and in the lives of others. Spiritually wealthy people are conscious and careful with their thoughts and their feelings. They are generous where it pays off to be so, for themselves and for others. They know that their focus of energy (thoughts, feelings, actions) will pay dividends, so they are careful to place this energy where it is best grown. Be good with your “money” and it will be good to you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Bonus Blog Revisited

Friends, I wrote the blog post seen below about two years ago. I never mentioned the subject again. I never planned to repeat it again, but the truth is that my web hosting bills came due, and like all things these days, their charges went way up. Please read the following (please and thank you ahead of time). I appreciate your support in all the ways that you show it!!

A Bonus, I guess

Money Talks

“Money never made me, those broke days did.” – Tupac

I know that the recent stock market corrections and the crypto crashes and inflation has everyone feeling a little jittery. I understand. As I have stated before, my family and I were “the poster kids” for the last Great Recession. We checked every box – layoff, totally drained savings, high debt, overvalued house, etc. etc. It was one of the most scary, trying times of my life and yet it was also one of the most freeing, defining moments of my life, all at the same time. I would say, that the particular moments right around the time when I was about to turn 40, were the moments when I finally got really pure and clear and real and aware of myself, and my wants, my needs and what really mattered to me and to the future of our family. It was a time in my life when I noticed just how much I had lived my adult life with invisible chains of following other people’s expectations, without knowing too much about my own desires, and wants and needs. I know that it is a cliché, but I say this earnestly and honestly, those trying, painful moments ended up being some of the best, awakening moments to pivot our family’s life into what WE really wanted to experience going forward, in the shaping of our of family’s legacy. And this last decade of my life has been one of my absolute favorites of all of my 51 years (not always the easiest, but easily the most honest and fulfilling and interesting and exciting). My family has had so much quality time together, and amazing adventures, and a feeling of comfort and security and realness, like we never had before. We live uniquely and authentically and I pray that this trend continues. It is the only way to live fully and intentionally, in my humble opinion.

Many years ago, when we were just starting out with our family, we had a babysitter who would watch our eldest son (our only child at the time) on occasions when we would go out, just as a couple. She was the only babysitter we employed at the time, being a lovely, sweet, reliable teenager from a working class family. During this time, her family ended up winning millions in the lottery. (She still babysat for us after that time, but she did order in a lot of good dinners while she would babysit.) I remember distinctly running into our babysitter’s father in the grocery store a few months after they had won the lottery, and I remember him saying that the best part of winning the money, wasn’t retiring early, or going on frequent trips to Disney World, or the new giant home that they now lived in, but more so, the best part of winning the lottery for him, was the feeling of security that he had, which he had never had experienced before in his lifetime. About a decade ago, our sweet little babysitter was now all grown up, and she befriended me on Facebook. She was married with kids and we filled each other in on the news of our families. Sadly, it turned out that her parents had ended up divorcing, and later, her father and her brother had been killed in a four-wheeling accident. Security, my friends, is a relative thing. If you can make peace with the fact that “total security” is pretty much an illusion, and you can move past the fears that this thought brings up for you, you can live in pure freedom and in awe-filled awareness of every single, precious, breathing moment left in your lifetime.

I’m going to end today’s blog post with some of the best money advice which I have ever heard. I’ve made my four children watch this particular scene, more than once. It is crass with a capital “C”, so if you can’t stand the F-word, don’t watch it (the f-bomb is used liberally in this scene). This is a scene from an otherwise mediocre film called The Gambler:

My Favorite Awesome Money Quotes - Corporate Monkey, CPA

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Lucky Pennies

A person on Twitter asked the question wondering if people pick up pennies and other random change they find on the ground. I was excited to see that there are a lot of people out there, just like me, who are thrilled to find lucky pennies. My husband and I have a lucky rabbit bank in our bedroom, full of change which we have found over the years.

Many people who answered her question subscribed to the belief that these are “pennies from Heaven” intentionally sent from loved ones who have passed on. Some people stuck by strict rules. They said you could only pick the penny up, if it was heads up, for good luck. Tails meant bad luck if you picked it up. Some people said that they purposely flipped the coin to heads, for the next person to pick it up. Other people said that they intentionally dropped pennies on the ground, knowing that it would make others feel happy and lucky to find them.

Some Canadians scoffed that we Americans still have pennies. Apparently Canada stopped minting pennies a few years ago, because it actually costs more than a penny to mint a penny. I’ve decided that this means if I find a Canadian penny (the pennies with the ever-present Maple leaf), these pennies are now extra lucky, because they are more rare, eh?

Some people answered that they picked up pennies and other change off of the ground, not for the luck factor, but because they respect the value of money. Some people intentionally kept tallies of the money they had found over the years and some of these figures were in the hundreds, and even a couple people claimed having found thousands of dollars, over the years. These responses reminded me of a time when I was trying to use up a bunch of heavy change, that I had in my purse, to pay for something. I was embarrassed by all of the change counting and I kept apologizing to the clerk. I don’t remember what I purchased, but I’ll never forget the man saying to me, “Never apologize for paying for something with your hard-earned money, no matter what form it comes in.”

Only a couple of people scoffed at picking up change off of the ground. I secretly felt sorry for them. These people are denying themselves some kind of intrinsic good feeling whether it be good luck, or reassurance, or nostalgic love, or security, or pride. They are essentially denying themselves whatever a unit of money could represent to them. Because as we all know, money itself is just some paper and some metal coins. Money itself is just a representation of a transfer of energy. Like so many things in life, money is just what you make it to be.

Quotes - Grant Cardone | Grant cardone quotes, Money quotes, Grant cardone

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

A Bonus, I guess

I’m writing a little “bonus blog post” about a touchy subject. This is the first time and the last time that you will ever experience me blogging about this subject because everyone knows that it is “gauche” to talk about money. It’s an uncomfortable and squirmy subject. Still, you may have noticed that I added a “Tip Jar” to my home page. One of you did ask me about it. Another one of you suggested that I add a virtual tip jar, a while ago. I hemmed and hawed about this idea, for a long time.

First of all I LOVE to write on THIS “very special to me”, Adulting – Second Half blog, because, besides my four beautiful children, this blog is my most favorite creation. Writing this blog is right up there with breathing and sex for me. That is why I spend about 3-4 hours almost every single morning working on bringing this blog to fruition. (Truthfully, I rarely get out of my robe until noon because I am so entranced with my blog. Ask my grossed-out family. It’s the truth.) And then I spend at least 1-2 extra hours every day, reading and researching and daydreaming about my next blog post. And I absolutely appreciate that anyone takes any amount of time, during their day, to read my blog and to connect with me. Your time is valuable. I understand this, and I thank you for it, from the bottom of my heart. I write what I want to write about (not what about is marketable, nor trendy, nor sponsored) and you validate me. And I love you for that fact. Writing this blog is my favorite art form. I am not interested in writing books or fiction or how-to articles. Just like some artists prefer water colors, I choose blogging. I choose this particular blog. I choose me. I choose you.

Nonetheless, my hobby (and my passion) is an expensive hobby. I have to pay for annual subscriptions to WordPress and to Bluehost. I forgo the income that I used to make on various part-time jobs that I previously held during my morning hours, for many years, to help bring in some extra money, for my large brood’s “fun fund.” But more importantly, and I say this on behalf of all creatives (and I know that many of my readers are creatives, themselves), our creations are valuable. What creatives create, helps to sustain us all of us, helps to give us hope, helps to revive and inspire us and helps to remind us why we are captivated with living and fascinated with all of our living experiences. Museums are filled to the brim with what the creatives have left behind, and thankfully, their generous benefactors saw what we all desperately need, and all of that, is beautifully filled in the hallowed halls of the archives of history.

“I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” – John Adams

Thankfully, my family is blessed with a comfortable life. I am so grateful for that fact. But that does not mean that my creation (or yours) is without worth. Yes, I write this blog out of love and passion and gratitude and meaning and purpose, but that does not mean I should not get compensated for it. I am sure that Beyonce or Taylor Swift or Brad Pitt or Stephen King, does not need even one more penny in their bank accounts to keep them kept, handsomely, for the rest of their lives, but does that mean that they should not be rewarded for their creations which we all so dearly enjoy, even if they got great joy and satisfaction out of their own acts of creation??? Most successful business people enjoy running their businesses. Most surgeons get immense satisfaction out of saving lives. I think most sports professionals feel like they are living “the dream.” But what do many CEOs and medical professionals and NFL stars love to spend their well, hard-earned money on? They choose to spend it on the beautiful creations made by the people who describe life in emotion – emotion shown in paintings, and in photographs, in interior design, in exterior design, in music and in fashion, and in film, and in dance and in poetry.

Friends, I am writing this post as a reminder to me and to all of us, to never forget our own individual worth. The Universe/God/Creation/Mother Earth and Sky designed all of us, to work in unison, to make one beautiful tapestry. Some threads of this cloth mosaic, were meant to be scientists, and others, teachers. Some of us are natural nurturers and carers, and others are amazing visionaries. If we all see the value in our own purposes, and we realize that same value in other people’s purposes, then the weaving of this tapestry happens flawlessly, and the overall outcome can only be nothing short of breath-taking.

I choose not to charge a subscription for my writings because I want my writings to be available to all who enjoy them, and to those who get something from them. I choose not to get involved with advertisers, because I find advertisements annoying and distracting, and I want my blog to be a place of calm for you and for me. So, I put a donation button on my blog, for nothing more than a way to subsidize something that I think benefits us both. If you can afford a subscription, please consider a donation, and if not on my blog, please pay it forward by supporting local artists and crafters and other writers and musicians, etc. who have somehow touched your life and made it feel better and more vivid, to be alive. Thank you for stomaching through this post. I love you all.

Wandering and Pondering

It’s a deliciously cozy, rainy Saturday here. I love the all-over relaxed feel, in every part of my body. I love that my coffee tastes particularly warm and soothing. I love that the wind is just strong enough to lightly strum my wind chimes, so that their sound is pleasant and pacifying versus annoying and jarring. I think that I’ll light some candles and just breathe a while. Here are some tidbits of wisdom that I pulled off of Twitter this morning, a perfect morning to do so, to allow for some lazy mind wandering and pondering . . . .

Be someone who makes you happy. – FofF (Twitter)

Anyone can love a rose, but it takes a lot to love a leaf. It’s ordinary to love the beautiful, but it is beautiful to love the ordinary. – WISE WORDS (Twitter)

Life is worth savoring. Stop rushing through everything. If we are going to revel in the happy times we have to be able to exist peacefully in the bad times too. Stop to smell the roses. But also stop to feel the thorns. – 30 Second Therapy (Twitter)