Beyond Appearances

I've just returned from a wonderful holiday in sunny Los Angeles, California. While there, I visited with family, met with old friends, created a few new friends, and took pictures by palm trees along the beach in Santa Monica as a reminder that winter in Boston won't last forever.

Although the year brought with it surprising health diagnoses, financial setbacks, and career maladies for both family and friends, I remain convinced that there's nothing quite like the holiday season to remind us just how blessed we have been all year long.

There's also nothing quite like the melting pot of Los Angeles (and all of the points of interest in between like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood) to remind me that appearances don't necessarily equate with abundance. I found at least one late model Mercedes, Jaguar, BMW, Escalade, or Hummer in every two-car driveway. On the highways, city streets, and in overcrowded parking lots, there were hundreds of these cars, in a rainbow of colors.

Lines formed in front of doors long before the opening hours, regardless if the business was a candy store, a hot dog stand, or department store. Parents walked out of stores with far more bags than hands to carry them. Trailing in their wake were children begging for more and dressed in brand-name clothes and sneakers that cost as much as a monthly car note for an economy car. Even more surprising, these displays of wealth were not limited to any one group or class of people. Like the cars, the people came in every size and hue imaginable.

I love Los Angeles, but it's far too easy to think that whatever it is you do for a living, however much you make every year, whatever you choose to drive, and where you've decided to live can never quite measure up. But there's the rub, because when you mistake appearances for abundance, you don't honestly know what it is you are trying to measure up to. There's a story behind every purchase and a reason for every appearance. Without fully understanding either of the two, you're wasting precious mental and emotional energy that you need to use toward creating your own abundance, on your own terms.

That's the reason I advocate for talking about money openly and regularly. Talking about money, like talking about sex, is one of the great taboos in our society. Most people believe it's not proper etiquette; I've been told quite frankly that it is down right rude. So what? If you don't ask a question and start a dialogue about money, how else are you going to know that the stylishly dressed woman driving the Jaguar has $50,000 in credit card debt or that model-gorgeous man living in the Spanish-style villa with the four-car garage has taken so much equity out of his house that he now owes more than the house is worth?

While I could not ask a stranger on the street how they were balancing the car note for their $100,000 car with the brand new 60" HDTV hanging out of their trunk, I can and do ask people often about their financial lives.

I once asked a generous co-worker if she had broken the $100,000 salary mark yet, and while she hesitated before answering, she said she was close and expected to exceed that mark within a few years. I also asked a single female friend (who's nearing 40) if she was contributing to her retirement plan at work and she blushed while telling me that she was contributing the maximun amount allowed ($15,500), and she had been for years. Most recently, while visiting my father-in-law in Los Angeles, I asked how his money was holding up in retirement. At seventy-eight, he didn't hesitate when he replied, "If we keep our expenses down, and don't make any big new purchases, we'll be just fine."

See, it isn't so hard. And once you get the ball rolling it becomes easier.

Getting beyond appearances by asking questions, whenever possible, is the best way to create financial abundance in your own life. Talking about money helps to alleviate feelings of inadequacy, and in many instances, envy. It's hard to feel envious of the person driving the shiny new car, dressed in the best clothes, or making the million dollar salary when you learn that they drink themselves to sleep at night because of their bills, starve themselves to fit into those pretty clothes, or despise the work they do to make those high salaries.

Without a doubt, there are people who can afford such luxuries without the negative associations, but you should never confuse appearances for abundance. Real abundance isn't just about material trappings, but about your life as a whole. And only you know the real story.

Mad About Money

This morning, while digging through my trunk to find the scraper to clear away the sheet of New England ice on my car, I was surprised to find an old friend instead: my Mad Money jar. In truth, the Mad Money jar was not my friend at all, but it did serve as a wonderful money lesson that I think many people can relate with today.

About 10 years ago when colorful clay jars with clever slogans became popular with retail establishments, and therefore consumers, I was eager to jump on the bandwagon. You might even see a few around today: Ashes of my Boss, Lottery Winnings, Bingo Money. I bought money jars as birthday presents, including a Blessings jar for my mother, a Guardian Angel jar for a friend, and a Mad Money jar for myself. At the time the economy was tanking thanks to tech stocks, and the average citizen seemed to feel safer with sticking their change in a jar. (In fact, that's still common advice on many money message boards today, not as a reason to stay out of stocks, but as a means to get people to save something, anything for a rainy day, even the nickels and dimes collecting dust beneath sofa seat cushions.)

I'm not one who believes in coincidences and so the fact that I chose the Mad Money jar as my storing place for my change is actually significant. Fortunately, I never collected much money in the jar. I'd throw in a few pennies and before I knew it, I was taking my proceeds to the CoinStar machine at the grocery store to use the $14.58 to buy groceries because I had come up short (yet) again to meet my living expenses. This lingered for months, years even. I tried silver change only. I tried gold dollar coins. I even tried saving all five dollar bills. Each time, I had high hopes that I'd see the jar filled to the brim and I'd have enough to treat myself to something special: a spa visit, a clothes shopping spree, a plane ride to visit an old friend. But high hopes don't make for conscious financial management and I found myself in a tug-of-war with that jar and with my money.

What I realized after years of failing to accumulate any significant amount of money in the jar was that the message on the jar itself was very telling: Mad Money. After some soul-searching, I had to admit that there was a very good reason why I had chosen that particular money jar. I was mad with my money because there never seemed to be enough to go around. I was mad with myself that I was in debt. I was mad with my employer that I worked as hard as I did, tried to save, and still never seemed to meet with much success.

It was when I made the effort to consciously and intentionally release my anger, regret, and shame about how I had mismanaged my financial life that I could see the Mad Money jar for the purpose it served: an opportunity to think outside the jar.

Within a few weeks of my revelation, something miraculous happened: I received an unexpected financial windfall and I received a job offer with a 20% increase in pay. Since I don't believe in coincidences, I had a choice to make. I could return to my old thinking about money and scarcity and try to hoard the money (and it did briefly cross my mind to cash in the money for thousands and thousands of quarters for my Mad Money jar) or I could recognize and accept that money is a lot like a butterfly in your hand. When you try to hold onto money too tightly out of fear, you choke off your supply. But when you remain open to money, in any form and amount, it miraculously appears when you least expect it.

The $1,000 Emergency Cash Stash

My best friend, Natasha, has seen me at my lowest valleys and my highest peaks, and no matter what I'm going through, I know I can count on her emotional and intellectual support. She was my hand-holder when I was so broke that I was eating corn right out of a can, and she was my cheerleader a few years ago when I scored a 20% increase in salary and did away with a 2 hour commute (one way!) to a job that I despised. That's why I consider her to be my best friend. And I do the same for her.


So when she mentioned a new documentary, MaxedOut, I was intrigued and impressed. Natasha knows my beliefs about money and abundance and I know she has had a rough few years financially. With a solid gig in the works for her, we both took sighs of relief that maybe the worst was behind her. The documentary was not only a source of education for her, advocating for people to create a $1,000 cash cushion, but it was a flashback to the past for me.


Dave Ramsey's book, Financial Peace, was the first personal finance book I ever read. That was over a decade ago. It was life-altering at the time as I was going through the thick of my financial woes. I remember checking it out of the library while I was still living in Baltimore, paying off a mound of credit card debt and an IRS tax bill, all while balancing a daily commute to northern Virginia. And yes, most nights, I was eating corn out of a can.

I revered Dave Ramsey. After reading his book, I created my personal financial plan. I worked two jobs. I managed to be debt free - no credit cards, no tax bill, no car note -- almost 24 months later. In that same time, I also managed to stash away a cool $1,000 in a savings account. That was such a joyous feeling. I felt victorious! I felt like there wasn't anything in the world that I couldn't accomplish.

But within a year of meeting my next partner, my savings had been depleted and I was back in debt again. There were three reasons why that happened: I fell in love with a person who had no respect at all for money; I wanted to please that same person and not rock the boat of our precarious relationship; and I convinced myself that I needed to go back to school full-time (and in effect, exchanged a $40K salary for a $400 monthly grad assistant stipend).

Those were all BAD choices on my part.

What I didn't understand then, that I do now, is that concrete financial action steps are important and can help people get on solid financial footing with a plan, some patience, and a lot of persistence. But if we never address the deep emotional work that drives our spending behaviors, and leads us to make bad financial choices (or life choices that impact our finances badly), we'll find ourselves needing a financial lifeboat again.

We need both to create real financial abundance. And ultimately, we all must begin to accept, and sincerely believe, that there is no such thing as a lack of money. There's more than enough money for each and every person on this planet to have all of their basic needs met, plus some. It is a such a fallacy that money is reserved for just a few.

Working as a fund raiser, and using as an example my own personal philanthropy, I see on a daily basis that all kinds of people have created financial abundance in their lives through work they love and conscious money management. Mind you, I didn't say they were cheap. Financially abundant people don't deprive themselves of things they need or enjoy, they simply make every dime and dollar count. They make sound financial choices, consistently.

That's the only difference between people who are financially abundant and people who spend their entire lives struggling to stay afloat financially. Go ahead, make a plan to get out of debt, but also choose to delve into what drives you emotionally, what feeds you spiritually, and what future you want financially. By starting at the roots of financial abundance, I know from personal experience, that success is inevitable. But it all begins first with a choice.

No Dollars and Cents? How About Common Sense.

While surfing through the channels of bad reality television recently,
I stopped long enough to watch a commercial on the ABC Family
Channel.

Yes, a commercial.

Watching television is a true indulgence that I don’t often allow myself
often and pausing long enough to watch a commercial is even more
unlikely. Still, there was something striking about this particular Visa
commercial. 

Scenes of a sunny day in New York City filled my screen. New Yorkers
bustled about their rush hour morning duties buying daily newspapers,
coffee, and donuts. Each customer either swiped a Visa card or waved
it over a credit card machine.  

Although I don’t live in New York, I could have easily been in that
commercial.  I use my Visa check card for nearly every purchase,
even the random .95 cents pack of gum.  

This is, on my part, not a matter of laziness.  I intentionally choose
to use the card because I track all of my purchases electronically
through my bank’s website.  I have personally withdrawn $200 on
a Friday and promised myself it would last two weeks only to find
Monday morning I have a few singles and a piece of lent left
in my wallet. Not even enough left to make a visit to Starbucks.  

I know all too well that one of the fastest and easiest ways to go
down in flames financially is to withdraw money from the ATM
machine.

The second, of course, is to depend too much on your credit card.

And then the commercial took a turn for the worst.  Everything came
to a screeching halt when one burly customer, a long line snaked behind
him, offered cash to pay for his morning java.  The clerk sneered at the
man.   Other customers in line rolled their eyes, sighed out loud, and
looked at their watches. 

Long after the commercial had evaporated from the screen, I sat in
stunned silence.  And then I turned off my television, my brief indulgence
ruined.

That Visa produced a commercial with the obvious message being
credit is easier, faster, and BETTER than cash, was not the true
horror. What did frighten me, however, was knowing thousands,
maybe even millions, of viewers who are already buried in credit
card debt just received positive reinforcement and for the ludicrous
reason of not inconveniencing someone who didn't have the
foresight to add an extra five minutes into their morning commute.   

Abundance Isn't Just About Money

I've just returned from an amazing trip to one of my favorite cities in the whole world: New Orleans. Despite the fact that I said years ago I would never visit NOLA during the heat of the summer, my timing this past weekend could not have been better. While visiting with my family-in-law for a reunion, I lucked upon two rare finds: Tab Benoit (www.tabbenoit.com) and the Voice of the Wetlands (www.voiceofthewetlands.com).

I first learned of Tab Benoit, a blues musician, in a traveling IMAX film called Hurricane on the Bayou. The film touched such a chord in me that I saw it six times! And I told everyone I knew to see it too. Although Tab nor the film crossed my mind before boarding the plane, once I was there and aggravated by the heat and humidity, I sought relief in the air conditioning of the hotel business center. It was then that the question came to me. I wondered, might Tab be in town, and if I was really lucky, playing somewhere in the French Quarter? I always say I have impeccable timing and that's no lie.

Not only was Tab in town, he was doing a FREE concert at a local blues venue uptown. I hailed myself a cab, parked myself in the first row, and waited for the blues music to begin. But that wasn't the best part. Not only was Tab a very talented blues musician on stage (he played for almost three hours), off-stage he was funny, he was personable, and I would learn during the wee hours of the morning, he was as also incredibly passionate about rebuilding the place he called home.

I stayed after the concert hoping I'd have a few moments to share with him how touched I was by the Hurricane on the Bayou film. My brief "hello" turned into a two hour conversation as he educated me about the needs of New Orleans and Louisiana post-Katrina. He founded the non-profit organization, Voice of the Wetlands, years before Hurricane Katrina hit and now the need was even greater to save the South Louisiana wetlands from further destruction to minimize the impacts of all hurricanes on the region each and every year.

Within twenty-four hours of arriving to NOLA, I had managed to see a free concert, meet a wonderfully talented and genuine musician, and learn more about a cause that deserves the nation's attention. I was reminded, as I so often am, that abundance doesn't always come in the form of dollars and cents. It can also come in the form of something unexpectedly free, a heart-to-heart conversation with a stranger, or knowledge about a worthy cause. Abundance is all around us, wherever we look. We only need to ask the question and wait for it to reveal itself in amazing, unexpected ways.

We're All Beyond$Limitation

Welcome!

For anyone who knows me, even moderately well, you know there's one subject I LOVE to talk about more than anything else: MONEY. I am not a financial advisor, a stock broker, or a business journalist (although I do have a degree in journalism). I'm a financial educator, a money motivator, and the founder of Beyond$Limitation (visit me online at (http://www.beyond-limitation.com/), a source of financial education and inspiration for women and couples. I'll post often about tools and suggestions for managing money, provide comments on financial articles of interest in the media, and offer my own personal experiences with money. I do believe there is only one limitation standing in the way of our financial independence, and ultimately, financial abundance. And that limitation begins and ends with us.