Living Well With Wealth, Not Just For Millionaires

What happens when you get more money?

Peace, happiness, contentment...

Not always. Can you say decision overload syndrome. While we would all love to believe that having more money solves all problems, more often than not it does not. Believe it or not, having more money can mean more work.

As we have access to more money we have more decisions to make. Remember the good old days in college when you only had $100 in your bank account. What did you do for dinner? Probably the cheapest pizza you could find.

There are different ways in which people's wealth increases and depending on the path it can have a big impact on how they relate to wealth.

Here are four broad pathways that people enter into wealth
1. They earn it - in earning it this may happen over a life time of slow and steady saving, professional advancement, or successful business.

2. They marry into it - this does not mean they married for money, but perhaps they married someone one socio economic level up.

3. They inherit it - a family member leaves behind an unexpected lump sum of money.

4. They are born into it- the parents create wealth while raising their family and the children grow accustomed to a certain life style.

Along each pathway there are many different intersections, unique characteristics that come along with the wealth that an individual lives with. Yet each of the these paths is not equal in helping someone live well with wealth.

There is a real challenge to living well with wealth. The more money that you have, the more decisions that you are responsible for either directly or indirectly. By indirect decisions I mean that you hire other people to help you make financial decisions. Which is a big challenge. If you have ever had to hire someone for anything, then you can appreciate the difficulty in trying to hire the right person to help you with your wealth.

For those people who create wealth for themselves over a longer period of time they have a chance to learn many important lessons about managing and maintain financial resources. Compared to the person that comes into wealth, where they have had no chance to develop the necessary skills to manage wealth well.

Living well with wealth is a skill and one that is refined over time. Imagine being dropped in a new country that you have no knowledge of and you are told to live well there. What would you do? Which rules would you play by, chances are you do not know the rules. Is it going to take you some time to learn the rules of the land? Absolutely. This too is true of living with wealth.

As we think about the path to living well with wealth, it is one that takes time, maturity and relationships to master. Living well in life can not be done alone. Remaining open and willing to learn about what it means to live well with your level of wealth will depend on your perspective. Take time to slow down and think about where you need to grow in order to live well with your wealth.

What Do You Say About Money?

I know that I am not the only one walking around with voices in my head. No, I am not crazy, and neither are you. We all have these different voices playing back messages to us about who we are and how we should live our life. Many sound like the messages our parents told us. In psychological terms, these voices are called scripts. They are messages that replay over and over again in our head and guide the way that we make decisions and live our life. 

In Mind Over Money: Overcoming The Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health by Dr. Brad Klontz and Dr. Ted Klontz, the authors talk extensively about scripts and how they are formed and influence our financial decision-making. The book highlights nine common relational money scripts, several of which I recognized as my own, and others as ones I have heard from people with whom I work. 

Take a few minutes to review this list of common relational money scripts and see which ones resonate with you. Think about why that may be the case and where you learned them. 

- Take care of your children now and they’ll take care of you later.

- You can tell how much someone loves you by how much they spend on you.

- If you hold others financially responsible, they will reject you.

- Spending money on others gives my life meaning.

- One of the ways to keep friends and family close it to give them gifts and loan them money.

- There will always be someone I can turn to for money.

- I’m not competent enough to take care of myself financially.

- I don’t need to learn how to manage money.

- It’s my duty to take care of less fortunate family members.

Each of these scripts has elements of truth but often gets distorted and misguides the way that we make financial decisions. The challenge is that, when we live out these scripts, they usually end up having both practical and emotional consequences on the way that we view and use money. 

Let’s take one script for example: "Spending money on others gives my life meaning." While this is one of the greatest truths of our culture and spiritual lives and grows out of a teaching that is it is better to give than receive, when taken too far, we rob ourselves of financial security and deny the receiving party the opportunity to learn how to support themselves. When we give too much to one person or group of people, they become dependent upon us, and they lose the opportunity to learn how to support themselves. 

Continually taking time to evaluate your scripts for their truths and distortions can start to set you free in the way that you handle your finances. To start identifying other scripts you may replay in your head, ask this simple question: “What do I believe to be true about money and relationships?”

Feel free to give me a call to talk more at 980-275-1627.

Ed Coambs

Edited by Reena Arora of Arora Media, connect on Facebook

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Building Your City Sky Scrapers

How is a sky scraper built? If you have been in a major city during a project of this nature, you have probably walked by a huge hole in the ground. In order for a sky scraper to rise up, the builders must first start by going deep into the ground. Why is that? The depth they dig allows the builders to lay the strongest of foundations. Does it take time to dig deep? Yes. Does it cost lots of money? Yes. Would the builder rather see the finished product sooner than later? Yes. But the smart builder knows that they must take the discipline of digging deep with no noticeable gain before having a marvelous sky scraper.

The same is true of our lives; the deeper we dig in, the higher we can go. We do not have the luxury of starting with a fresh piece of ground to build from, but neither does the sky scraper developer. In a crowded major city, the builder often has to dismantle what was previously there before they can even start to dig. This, too, is true of ourselves. Often we have to clear some things out of the way before we are ready to dig deeper into our lives.

After the ground has been dug out and the foundation laid, the first elements of structural support are put into place. Slowly but surely, with a plan and constant attention, a structure begins to emerge from below the surface and rise high into the sky. Anyone who lives in a city and has watched sky scrapers be built knows that, once the ground has been dug out and the foundation has been set, the structure begins to rise quickly. In those beginning phases, has it reached it beauty yet? No. Is it building toward something to behold? Absolutely.

The beauty of the sky scraper begins to emerge a year, two years, and sometimes longer after the initial work is started. In the final phase, the sky scraper starts to receive its exterior, or what the world will see of it. That exterior cannot come before the interior of the building is developed and completed. It is after years of hard work, thought, planning, revision  and effort have been put into place that the passerby begins to take notice of the beautiful building. When it’s done, there is something to marvel at and acknowledge. Did we see beauty in the hole? Likely not. Did we see beauty in the foundation? Doubtful. Did we see beauty in the structure? Probably not. Did we finally recognize the beauty with the skin of the building placed upon it? Definitely.

Our life, marriage and finances are not just like the process of one sky scraper being built, but rather an entire metropolitan city that is under constant construction. Living and visiting big cities, we all know that development is never done. The timeline of projects ebbs and flows, but there is always at least one (if not many) projects in different phases of completion. This, too, is how our life operates. We have our own sky scrapers that are in different phases of development.

Take some time now to name the buildings that you are working on. What phase are they in? Clearing, digging, foundation, structure, finishing… What purpose will each building serve in your city of life? Recognize that many of your sky scrapers will come down one day, only to make space for a new one. 

Feel free to give me a call to talk more at 980-275-1627.
Ed Coambs

Edited by Reena Arora of Arora Media, connect on FacebookFor all your communication needs, she is all you need.

Living With Too Much Opportunity

The reason we struggle financially is that we have too much opportunity. That’s right – too much opportunity. How on Earth is that even possible?

You may feel like you need more money so that you can go on the vacation you have always dreamed of, start saving for retirement, buy a new car, redecorate the house and the list goes on. And that is my very point: because there are so many different ways to spend your money, having a myriad of choices can often feel overwhelming, and as if you do not have enough to make it all possible. 

So, how did we get here? Remember the good old days  back in college, when you had limited funds and were excited just to go out and get a few beers with friends? Now, you have moved on, had several pay raises and you are making more money. You went from only being able to afford the cheapest, most watered-down  beverage to becoming a beer connoisseur. There are more options out there than you ever imagined. Who would have thought? 

 Ok, so maybe beer isn't your thing; perhaps it is travel. In the cash-strapped days of college, you loved road trips with your friends. You would cram into the car, drive to the beach and find the cheapest hotel you could stand. But not now. These days, you take a road trip with your family, and you are looking for the Holiday Inn, or perhaps you skip driving to the local beach and instead head to a beautiful island destination. Again, you start to realize there are always "better" opportunities out there.

As we continue to make more money, we learn to see new opportunities that we never knew existed. But we don’t stop there -- we pursue them. Eventually, we’re introduced to even more opportunities. This is what makes life exciting, fun, and somehow totally overwhelming.

There is always more, but it comes at a cost when we don't add balance and satisfaction into our life. I know very happy and very disillusioned people who have plenty of money to pursue a wide range of opportunities, yet that’s not what makes them happy. Rather, it’s the way they have managed their expectations about what life is really all about.

Use these 5 questions to help you reflect on your feelings about opportunity.

1. What do you remember from the days when you had limited resources? 

2. What makes you feel like you will never have enough money?

3. Do you feel disappointed if you can't purse the newest opportunity?

4. When do you get overwhelmed by the number of directions in which you feel pulled in your life?

5. How satisfied are you immediately after pursuing a new opportunity? Rate this on a scal of 1 to 10 and then examine 5 different new opportunities. Is there a trend? If so this can be guidance for which opportunities to pursue. 

Up to this point, we have just thought about your opportunities. Let's add in your spouse; how many different opportunities do they have? Managing them becomes one of the biggest challenges in marriage, as now there are your opportunities, your partner’s opportunities and opportunities together. Oh, wait, but there is more (sorry, just had to say it): you add kids into the mix, and the number of opportunities now looks like some sort of unsolvable calculus equation. 

Here are three steps intended to help you tame your family’s opportunities and gain a sense of peace again.* 

1. Write the name of each family member down

2. In a second column, have each family member write down all the different opportunities they want to pursue. 

3. Have each member prioritize their opportunities. Each person then picks two to work toward.

*This is not to say there won't be a time for other opportunities; it is just an exercise to set direction for the time being. 

Feel free to give me a call to talk more at 980-275-1627.

Ed Coambs

Edited by Reena Arora of Arora Media, connect on Facebook

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Creating Marital and Financial Security

We want what we want, and we want it now. It has been said time and again that patience is a virtue, but who has that virtue? In reality, many people do, but they are often living quiet and unassuming lives. They have not garnered great community awareness or media attention, yet they are still making a difference in the world in which they live.

Great patience and perseverance are often the keys to building a strong marriage and financial relationship. When couples allow one good gesture or decision to build onto another, it starts the compounding effect. A great example of this is setting money aside towards retirement. The early decision to do so will be challenging and feel like not much is happening, but it is over years and decades that you will recognize the difference the concerted effort is making.

So, what stops us from moving forward? Too often, I think it comes out of fear that there will not be enough resources at the next step or stage of life, that somehow love and money are zero-sum items, and that once you consume them, there will be no more. Yet, when we realize that both love and money are currencies that can be exchanged over and over again, our fear of running out can melt away. 

Moving from impulsivity to patience and perseverance creates opportunities for our decisions to become intentional and to build on each other. But when we jump from one method to another without giving things a chance to work, we miss the opportunities to witness growth[RA1] . This happens all the time while saving for retirement, we get distracted when we hear or read about a hot tip and we think we should follow it, but the reality is having a strong plan that you consistently stick with is going to be far more valuable than any one hot tip on saving for your retirement.  Sure, we would all love every decision to grow without setbacks, but this is not reality.

None of us is born with all the requirements to form a great marriage or achieve financial security. Fortunately, though, experience, learning, mentorship and a host of other factors are great opportunities for both of these experiences to happen.

So, what is the compounding effect? It is a realization that early, good decisions often do not show great results, but continued good decisions show tremendous results. 

Let’s take a look at an example of how a great marriage emerges. It starts long before two people ever meet; in reality, it begins at conception. During childhood, we are exposed to a wide variety of factors, many of which are the building blocks that form our future relationships. Once we reach dating age, we continue in our growth and learning about relationship dynamics. At some point, one of those dating relationships leads to marriage, and this is where things start to get really interesting. In a new marriage, couples start to form the shared understandings that will define their relationship, and those experiences in the first years set the course for what life will continue to look like. By ten years into marriage, the couple will certainly have had some challenges along the way, but if they have remained committed to growth and support, then their feelings of commitment and love can grow deeper than they ever imagined. As the years continue to progress, it is possible that the bond between the couple will continue to grow. After 40 to 50 years of marriage, the couple will have adult children, grandkids, and perhaps great grandkids who look at their marriage and are amazed by the love they have for each other. But to get to this place, it took the compounding effect: a “building-upon” of many experiences together, both good and bad.

The same is true for building financial security and abundance in your life. No one is born with all the knowledge they need to create financial security for themselves. They must remain on a continuous learning path to ensure that they can navigate each stage of life. The skills needed in your early twenties are not the same as those needed in your forties, and they are certainly not what are needed in your sixties and beyond. 

The challenge for both building a great marriage and creating financial security is a long-term perspective. It takes an ability to look out ahead 20, 30, and 40 years and have a vision for where you want  your life to end up. While no one can be a fortune teller and know the future, they can have a view of what they would like their life to look like.

No matter where you are in your journey of marriage and money management, there are abundant resources to help you grow. Here are two books I recommend to help you on your journey.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach

Feel free to give me a call to talk more at 980-275-1627.

Ed Coambs

Edited by Reena Arora of Arora Media, connect on Facebook

For all your communication needs, she is all you need.

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