Rejection and Money

I’ve had several hard conversations this week.

Hard meaning there were misplaced expectations that lead to disappointment.

And in some cases, resolve was quickly there and in other cases, it wasn’t.

I am sure you had one or two of these too.

I have read, at this point, thousands of articles about money.

The gist of many of these articles are the same.

Most people are behind and a few are doing great.

But here’s my experience, all those people, including you are me, are walking with some form of rejection.

And that rejection many times has a direct effect on financial lives.

Something happens.

You feel rejected.

It manifests into some form of financial drag.

If you think about this, you can probably think through the times when this happened.

For me, in my twenties, my wife, Camila, and I spent too much money eating out at restaurants.

Cooking was a point of contention; we were trying to find out how we should split household duties.

We both worked, though I logged more hours.

I wanted her to help more in this area, she didn’t.

We ended up getting hurt/frustrated.

Our solution, hit the easy button and pick up to go food.

Sound familiar? Spending too much on something that doesn’t matter.

I haven’t done the math but I would imagine we could have sent one of our kids through college had we invested a portion of that for 25 years in a 529 plan.

This is a rather trivial example, but I hope it sheds light on how life, schedules, rejection, hurt, expectations and money swirl around together.

And what you spend is something you can’t get back.

The reason I am sharing this is it’s something that I regret.

We both knew it wasn’t right for us to eat unhealthy food, hit the easy button, and spend too much at restaurants.

Though we could “afford” it, it wasn’t wise.

We were at a standstill that ultimately caused our financial life to take a hit.

I am convinced every person you will see today is going through something like Camila and I went through.

What I want for each of you this week is to be healthy and know that when life gets tough, the financial playbook almost always goes out the window.

Always.

Marriage turned sour? Weekly marriage counseling at best, divorce at worst, both not free.

Kids crash their new-to-them car? You’ll be the one to buy a new one.

Sick, out of state, elderly parents? You’re going to hop on the plane 3x a year.

Layoff? You’ll spend a year’s worth of savings in two months once you deplete your severance.

Depressed? Hard to do anything productive financially.

The solution to this dilemma is pretty straight forward in my eyes after having worked with hundreds of families.

Get a support team.

Find somebody you trust to help you not screw up your money when you screw up life or somebody else does for you.

It’s almost a guarantee this will happen.

When somebody, or a group of people, are looking out for your best interest financially, what do you think happens?

They look out for you.

Protect you, make great decisions when your mind is elsewhere, help you progress when you need to go back to clean up a mess.

One of the reasons married people are the most successful financially, with single women being the least, is that couples are a team.

They divided and conquered.

Teams win. They take pressure off when times are hard and help you go the extra mile.

With that, if this is you, hit the reply, we’ll point you in the right direction.

Thanks for your time this wonderful Saturday morning.

It’s much appreciated.