Money Musings 💭 a 🤯 reframe + lighthearted break 🐶
In honor of Thanksgiving next week, I want to talk about gratitude. 🙏 Gratitude is a powerful practice to cultivate abundance.
What is abundance? Abundance is having more than enough.
The opposite of abundance is scarcity or not enough.
Many of us operate in the space of “not enough” for most of the day. Ads try to cultivate scarcity so that we are more likely to buy 🛍 things. Because when we don’t have enough, we need more. 🎰
One of the most powerful mindset shifts I’ve had in my financial life is this:
It’s already more than enough. Or it’s never going to be enough.
Now I want to qualify this - this only applies to those of us who have our needs met. We have enough food to eat, we have a roof over our heads, we’re healthy and we are safe. If our needs aren’t met, this doesn’t work.
But if our needs are met, we get to make this choice.
The realization that it was never going to be enough was very depressing to me at first, but it’s worth going through the exercise. Think about it - how much money would be enough for you.
How much money would you have to have in order to not want for anything else? Take a few minutes and map it out.
And it’s not just about spending. When I go through this exercise, I’m making some major lifestyle upgrades (hello chef 👩🍳 and house manager 📆!) but I’m also starting foundations and businesses and my impact is correlated to how much money I have.
I watched a docu-series last year on Netflix called “Inside Bill’s Brain.” It’s about Bill Gates’ story and the amazing work the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing. But what stood out to me the most was that in one episode Bill has to ask his friend for money. He’s also stressed out about the budget on a project and struggles to make his dollars go farther.
He has over $100 BILLION dollars and he’s having these conversations about money.
It’s already more than enough. Or it’s never going to be enough.
Once we get over how depressing this is (and give yourself time!), this realization is actually hugely liberating. It’s a hack to let go of the rat race and escape acquisition culture. It’s permission to stop keeping up with the Joneses’.
It’s a way to tap into gratitude for what we have.
For those of you who know me, you know I’m ALL about us getting paid - earning more money and investing in the things that are important to us. We still want to go after it 👊 and 💯 we deserve it. It’s just not going to be the financial and life fix most of us think it will be.
I know this is a very different way of thinking, so I encourage you to reflect on it and share your thoughts! And I’d love to hear if it resonates with you.
PS: It’s about to be the season of sales. To protect yourself from impulse purchases you’ll later regret, we have a quiz for you. Should you buy it? Answer these five questions and we tell you.
MONEY MOVE OF THE WEEK
Let go of a non-serving money habit. We often think about habits in terms of new things we want to do or add to our lives, but letting go of a habit or NOT doing something actually can take a lot less effort and yield the same results. Think about your money day-to-day. Are you doing something on a regular basis that makes your money life (or life in general) more difficult?
It can be anything from a certain spending habit 💸 that takes away from other things you want more, the stress-inducing habit of checking your balances every day 📊 or punishing yourself for past money mistakes. What’s a non-serving money habit you can let go of? Track and celebrate your progress by marking down each day that you don’t engage in that habit. ✅
YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
A lighthearted break. 2020 has been a doozy and some days what I need most is to watch a cute and funny video (or 18). 😆 So I did what I often do and asked you about your go-to funny videos that make you feel better when you’re having one of those days. Needless to say, watching your recommendations was one of the most fun afternoons ever. Here were your favorites:
Highlights from The Office (10 min)
Uncommon animal friendships (8 min)
Highlights from Friends (15 min)
The talking dog who wants bacon (1 min)
Ice cream for me alone (20 seconds)
Dog obsessed with tennis balls (3 min)