MONEY matters

If you’re a fan of the New York Times bestselling book Your Money or Your Life - Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, it’s likely that 'achieving financial independence' (FI) part of the title that initially sparked your interest in deciding to read this seminal book on money.

But whatever the reason, as you find yourself dreaming and visualizing about financial independence you may also feel burdened and thrown off track by obstacles that are in the way of becoming FI. As you sit in yet another two hour commute to get to a job that drives you crazy, as you go through the third re-org in two years or get your fourth new direct report in two years or feel those crappy Sunday night blahs as you think about going to work Monday morning - as crazy as it sounds, these are all blessings in disguise.

This description is taken from Wikipedia:

Here in the wealthy enclave of the San Francisco Bay Area, it seems and feels like ground zero for the everlasting internal debate between quality of life vs. standard of living.

Investing, managing, saving, spending and earning money - these linear, left brain aspects of our money relationship offer plenty of potential for challenges. But it’s when we delve into the other dimension of our relationship with money, our feelings, that things get really tricky and mighty interesting.

Our feelings, that messy and confusing aspect of our relationship with money will often hold us hostage to our egos and prevent us from feeling the fulfillment and peace of mind we so desire. Way too many of us live our lives with feelings of scarcity and poverty consciousness. Instead of money being our servant, it becomes our master.

Imagine for a second you and your life mate are headed out on a 30+ year journey, one that you had been planning to take for as long as you both can remember. You’ve dreamed about all the places you’re going to visit and the people and friends you’re going to meet along the way.

You know given your age, this will likely be the last, yet greatest adventure of your life with memories and experiences you’ll cherish forever.  And vital to the success of this journey will be the confidence and knowing that the hard earned money you saved your entire working life will last the duration of your great adventure called retirement. You also know that once you set sail for the great unknown, there will be no chance for a do-over 10-15 years from now if you failed to properly plan.

 As a fee-only financial planner, I receive weekly industry publications which for years now, have been coaching us ‘financial types’ on how to really talk and connect with our clients.  These publications continue to warn us that the ‘trend’ is going toward a more personable client/financial planner relationship. It worries me to think that someone has to be trained to care about the people they are working with. Like doctors, we are not all cold and numbers obsessed, many of us have a great bedside manner – and for some, it comes naturally.

The public has received a hard earned education when it comes to finance and investing. The upside to the Bernie Madoff’s of the world is that consumers are now becoming savvy and more informed about how they manage their hard earned money – and who they trust when investing it. I'd like to offer a little more education when it comes to choosing an investment advisor.

For years, great thinkers and spiritual leaders, past and present, have written about money and spirituality. Often illustrated are step-by-step instructions on how to tap into and access your spiritual power to manifest abundance into your life.

Books such as Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra, The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer and Living in the Light by Shakti Gawain are just a few examples that open your mind to a new way of manifesting abundance into your life.

Yesterday, a slew of articles appeared in the news proclaiming Married Couples at a Record Low. I’m aware of the trend that younger people are delaying or reevaluating whether they want to make the plunge, and with over 50% of marriages still ending in divorce, I can understand the hesitancy.

So as we prepare to bid farewell to 2011 and ring in 2012, I find myself wondering, will money continue to be one of the major causes of couple’s calling it quits?