How I'm Improving My Relationship With Money

Ah, money. Ye old faithful, and treacherous whore.

At least that's how I view it. Whenever I earned or received money in the past, I spent it immediately. The concept of saving was apparently foreign to me, and when I was a teenager, my financial status was dependent on my parents. Once I reached college, however, I needed to learn how to do the budgeting thing everyone else was doing. I made a rough estimate of my weekly spending on groceries and personal care products, then would ask my parents to send me a weekly 'allowance' of sorts. Then I was awarded work study, so I hurried around my campus looking for any openings; I was starting to feel guilty asking my parents for money all the time. I landed a position as student assistant in the religious studies department and earned just below minimum wage; it didn't matter that much to me though, I was making money!

Then applications to grad school began. I knew I would have to take out more loans, and since I was going to school in England, I had to pay higher fees as an international student (bastards). I spoke with a financial services rep at my university across the pond making sure I understood every detail; soon enough I emailed all the necessary forms asking for as much money as possible so I could afford tuition, food, and housing. Within a matter of weeks, everything went through, and I was given a sum of money meant to last me the whole year of my studies.

Now that I'm officially out of school, I'm in the lovely process of paying back my student loans. It pains me every month to watch my hard-earned money flee my bank account, leaving me feel like I'll never see it again. And since I'm working part-time at the moment, there's not a whole lot of money in my bank account to start with. But this is the problem, the fact that I think I don't have a lot of money and that it's difficult to earn.

After reading You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero, my whole outlook changed. If I truly want to make more money so I can be financially free and live my dream life, then I need to view money more positively. If I look at money like it's somehow evil, elusive, or only for the 'greedy', then I'll always lack it. But if I view money as a simple tool of exchange, something that provides value to my life by allowing me to live at ease, and something all of us need to live well—then it will come more easily.

Sincero details this way more effectively than I can in this single post, but basically she offers tips, journal exercises, and meditation techniques to help you uncover what limiting beliefs you have about money. It could be that you feel 'dirty' for wanting to be rich; you feel you don't deserve money because there are people who suffer more than you do; or that by being rich, you'll somehow become a greedy pig. She wants readers to see that money is simply a tool of exchange, and that there's nothing negative about wanting plenty of money to provide you with the life you want to live.

When I was doing these exercises, I discovered that I found money difficult to earn because I thought I would become an asshole if I had a lot of it. Like if I became rich, somehow I would become this greedy, snobby person who felt better than everyone else. But this is entirely my own anxiety taking over; me having money won't make me a bad person, that's my own irrationality taking over. If I had a lot of money, I could not only pay off my student loans—I could pay off my mom's, too. I could afford better health insurance; have my own place; a car; and give to my family. My dream is to buy my mom a house with everything she could ever need, along with a new car and a housekeeper who could come several times a week (my mom has Rheumatoid Arthritis, so the extra help around the house could allow my mom to avoid injury to her joints). There is so much positivity I could associate with money instead of focusing on the unfounded negativity.

I'm working on building a positive relationship with money constantly, but it's admittedly tough when I'm still not able to afford my own place, a car, or even have health insurance. I often feel discouraged, then have to snap myself out of it so I can remind myself that money is always available to me. It's not some elusive phantom that exists only in my imagination; it's a real, tangible tool that I can have as long as I keep not only working, but thinking positively about earning it. Every time I catch myself feeling nervous about not having enough money, I consciously shift to thoughts like, "All the money I could ever need is here for me", "Money flows easily to me constantly", and "Money allows me to live comfortably and peacefully." All of these 'replacement thoughts' are mentioned by Sincero, along with more concrete tips on how to change your negative associations with money and wealth, so I highly suggest you pick up a copy and see for yourself how you can improve your relationship with money.

While many of us have our own anxieties about money, many of us also don't recognize that these anxieties could be prohibiting us from earning more. I encourage you to really look at how you view money, what scares you about it, how money improves your life, and so on. We all deserve to live comfortably without fear of missing a bill or not being able to afford a doctor visit; it all starts with our motivation to change our negative thoughts so we can be in alignment with wealth.

In the meantime, I'll be going over my credit card statement and brainstorming money-making activities...and trying not to buy an overpriced steam mop.