Improving Your Relationship with Money

How Can You Improve the Way You Relate with Money? 

Most people have a love-hate relationship with money. This unhealthy relationship with money is largely caused by our past experiences about money when we were young and growing up that formed our financial beliefs.  Our beliefs in turn created our thoughts which ultimately influence our actions and behaviour patterns. 

For instance,  if you were told "Money is scarce and evil", you grew up believing "Money is not enough and is a bad thing". This in turn will influence your thinking, "I cannot make more money." Eventually, you will end up spending recklessly without a budget, buying liabilities and being heavily trapped in a vicious of bad debts. 

Three critical question to reflect on:

1. If money were to describe you, what will it say about how you handle it?

2. Is your relationship with money healthy or unhealthy?

3. How can you improve the way in which you relate with money?

If money were asked to describe your spending patterns, unless you have been prudent on how to deal with it,  it will have unkind words. For example,  if you have a healthy relationship with money,  it may describe you as being disciplined,  prudent, caring, frugal and investment-conscious. If you've an unhealthy relationship with it,  money will describe you as fleeting,  spendthrift, uncaring and indisciplined complainer who blames others for your financial problems. 

It is against the above backdrop that this article sheds light on how you can improve the way in which you relate with money.

Seven ways of Improving Your Relationship with Money

1. Understanding the facts and myths about money

This will help you master your money. It is important to know that money is a good faithful servant but a bad master. It is a good servant that helps you pay bills,  buy valuables,  pay fees and buy assets depending on your plans, choices,  and habits. As a bad master,  you let it control you,  get trapped in debt and report to or do a job you don't like because you fear to quit.  In essence, you should put money in its rightful pace and take control of it. 

2. Taking personal responsibility

Take the bull by the horns,  stop the blame game and take action towards improving how you relate with money. Accept you financial mistakes,  adjust by taking proactive measures and advance without any iota of shame or self-denial. This may necessitate distancing yourself from the cycle of friends, colleagues and relatives whose disempowering beliefs and talks about money are contagious. Learn to take personal responsibility and master your money. 

3. Knowing your true value and definite purpose

Money should neither define nor direct you on what to do. Endeavour to live your life meaningfully and purposefully in order to live behind a lasting legacy. 

4. Having a meeting with yourself

Summon yourself to a daily,  weekly and monthly meeting between you and yourself. Do a SWOT analysis of your strengths, weaknesses,  opportunities, threats and strengths with regard to your financial plans,  actions and results.  

5. Understanding the difference between a consumer and investment mindset

You ought to learn that money is a golden treasure and a seed to be planted. When you receive money from any source,  you should not consider it as a fruit to be eaten fully but as a seed to be planted, nurtured,  invested and well protected. This is encapsulated in the concept of paying yourself first through saving 10-30% of your total earnings. 

6. Commitment

 Just like we are advised to be committed to our loving partners and improve our relationship with God,  money too requires utmost commitment and dedication. To master you money,  you need spend in line with a budget,  track your money,  and review your SMART goals. Unlearn,  learn and relearn the facts and principles that govern money and wealth creation. 

7. Gratitude

You need to be grateful and celebrate important milestones made in your journey to mastering your money and attaining financial freedom.  You ought to go on a holiday,  give yourself a wonderful treat and do not forget to give back to God and the society. Identify a noble course you can support and contribute to. 

In sum,  you can apply the following simple formula in order to improve your relationship with money which is acronymised as AUDRY: Awareness, Understanding, Distancing,  Reconditioning and Yearning for personal development. For more information, my ground-breaking book,  "Mastering Your Money" is coming out soon. Stay in touch for  more updates. 

#ImproveYourMoneyRelationship 

#Chachanomics101 

#PersonalDevelopment

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Importance of Writing a Will

Why Should I Write a Will? Writing a will is a very sensitive, emotive and controversial subject especially in the African context. People view discussions about writing a will or death as a bad omen similar to inviting death into our lives.  Many people ask certain fundamental questions such as: 1. Is it necessary to write a will?  2. How will my family benefit from my will in case I write one?  3. What is required for one to write a will?  These and many other confounding questions reveal that many people don't know what a will is all about. You have heard or witnessed numerous cases of children, siblings or wives fighting over the property of the deceased.  This article will focus on the meaning of a will,  myths and facts about writing a will,  and what is required to write a will.  1. What is a will? A will is a legal document with a set of instructions that specify who should inherit what asset in the event of your demise.  2. What makes people not to write a will? i. It is c
Read more

Chachanomics' Advice Published in Saturday Nation on 17th Dec. 2022

Should I use Sh1.25 million to build my house or start a business? My name is Kennedy. I am married with two children. My wife is a trained P1 teacher working at a private primary school. We live in Nyandarua. I am employed on a permanent & pensionable terms with a net salary is Sh36,000 and my expenses are as follows: school fees 6,500, wife 2000, househelp 4000,, shopping 6500, food 3000. I don't pay rent as  I have set up temporary house on my plot. I also have savings of 240k at a Sacco. I want to take a loan of Sh1.25 million and the following projects are running through my mind: 1). Build a 3 bedroomed house worth Sh2.5 million that I have bought materials of approximately Sh370,000 for I sourced thses funds through my monthly salary for the past two years. These materials are at my plot where I live and intend to build a permanent house. I'm dead set against building the house through loans and as such, I was thinking of building the said house using my monthly sala
Read more

Financial Tips: What Are Mutual Funds?

One of the dependable ways of creating passive income is through building a sustainable portfolio income of paper assets – investments literally on pieces of paper that define ownership of assets such as shares, mutual funds, stocks and government securities. This article examines mutual funds as part of the paper assets. Mutual funds comprise a pool of funds collected from investors for the purpose of investing in securities like stocks, bonds, money market instruments etc. Also called unit trusts because one buys a fraction or unit costing kshs. 100 or multiple units. They are operated by professional fund managers who invest the funds’ capital to produce capital gains based on market trends.   Mutual fund providers in Kenya include Britam, Old Mutual, Zimele, CIC, UAP, Amana etc. Interests per annum varies according to market forces – for instance 5 - 12%. They are run professionally by experts who give small investors access to diversified portfolio. They are open-ended and affo
Read more