“Money is a human creation, first and foremost.”
Before we can start looking into the individual lessons I have for you as your money mentor, you need to understand what money is and you need to understand your relationship with it and possibly acknowledge a few myths too. Money is a human creation, first and foremost. As such it is something society, over the years has developed in order to allow us to trade goods and services. So simply it’s a token you use to exchange for something you need or want. The token doesn’t feel, the token doesn’t discriminate, doesn’t think, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t possess any magical powers and most certainly doesn’t grow on trees.
“If you have no mates and buy a Jacuzzi; you still have no mates.”
Why am I starting with this. Well simply put it concerns me how many people I speak to about personal finances who directly corollate their personal finances with their happiness. Can a token make you happy? ‘it can get me things that will make me happy’ I hear you say. Trust me it can’t! if you have no mates and buy a jacuzzi, yes your in a jacuzzi, it feels awesome; but you still have no mates. The happy people pictured on the side of the box don’t come with it. What I aim to do with this is to give you the tools to fix your finances and stop them from causing you to worry or not sleep at night. I cant give you happiness, but I can help you better manage and understand your finances so it causes you less worry and removes an element of stress from your life so that you can really enjoy it.
“They are all personal choices and you can choose to not let them hold you back.”
Now we understand that money isn’t your golden ticket to happiness lets take a look at you. If I was a betting man, which I am not then I would bet you have or still hold a number of these myths about money: If you have lots of money you have no time. If you want to make money then you need to sacrifice your morals, become devious and sell your grandmother. Money will never come to me no matter how hard I work. I’m just one of those people whose bad with money and that wont change. I will never be able to understand how money work. Guess what, they are all wrong! Every single one of them. WRONG. Remember the first paragraph? The token part? How can something that doesn’t feel, discriminate, think, sleep, isn’t a wizard, and doesn’t grow on trees. Make any of the above myths above become true? It cant. They are all personal choices and you can choose to not let them hold you back.
“Don’t bury your head in the sand! You’re better than that!”
Now all of that’s out in the open lets start with an exercise. I call it the Personal/Household Audit. Lets figure out your net worth[1]. I want you to take stock of exactly how your finances look right now! This may be painful or shocking or even a pleasant surprise. The most important thing to do is be brutally honest. If you cant be brutally honest with yourself, then you are not ready to make things better so come back to this when you are. You need to understand your personal situation before any of the lessons within will help you. Don’t bury your head in the sand! You’er better than that! Fill out the table below things you owe money on in the – column and things you own in the + column. Don’t read on until you do!
| Personal Finance Audit | ||
| – | + | |
| Mortgage | ||
| Credit Cards/Store Cards | ||
| Loans | ||
| Savings | ||
| Investments | ||
| Debts | ||
| Assets (things you own outright) | ||
| Other | ||
| Total (this can be positive or negative) |
The number in the total box in the table above is your net worth (not self-worth). If that number is a negative don’t feel bad, especially if you have a mortgage. You probably wouldn’t be reading this is you had a mortgage and have a positive number. If you are then pay that mortgage off, the interest you will save alone is worth it!
“If you don’t like what you see, use it as motivation to get to where you want to be.”
Well
done! You now better understand your
personal or household financial situation better. If you don’t like what you see above, use it
as motivation to get it where you want it to be, if you focus you will get
there! If things aren’t as bad as you once thought use this as motivation to
get to where you want to be quicker. Don’t use it as an excuse to hold a huge
party and celebrate! It wont help long term.
Now that you have a net worth, we can create your magic number. Go to part 2.
[1] I want to make this very clear. This is how many tokens you actually have in theory and absolutely NOT your self-worth or value as a human being, there isn’t an amount of token on the planet that can equate to that!, if you don’t share that view then you should, you are the only version of you in existence. If that isn’t priceless then what is?
The Money Mentor 