Tag Archives: money

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The Crazy Stuff We Do With Money—Explained

I’ve got some good news. You’re not crazy. 

That’s the message of one of my favorite books of 2020, “The Psychology of Money,” written by Morgan Housel and inspired by a popular blog post he wrote in 2018. It’s a compelling read and the book offers many great lessons, but I thought this particular encouragement was worthy of the fresh slate afforded us all by the start of a new year:

“We all do crazy stuff with money, because we’re all relatively new to this game and what looks like crazy to you might make sense to me. But no one is crazy—we all make decisions based on our own unique experiences that seem to make sense to use in a given moment.”

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Author and financial planner Rick Kahler echoes this sentiment, suggesting that “every behavior around money, no matter how illogical it seems to you or others, makes perfect sense when we understand the underlying thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.”

What difference does it make if we just keep screwing up? Can we increase our accountability to ourselves? Here are four steps you can take to help you understand these insights—and screw up less:

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How Money Destroys Relationships

Originally in ForbesMoney destroys relationships because people can’t compete with money. Money, after all, doesn’t disappoint you, or express disappointment with you.

It’s not that money is inherently bad or evil, but it’s not inherently good or righteous either. Money is simply a neutral tool that can be used well or poorly. It only has the value—the personality and the relational standing—that we give it.

One of the few criticisms I have of the movement to explore the psychology of money is its use of the phrase “your relationship with money.” Unintentionally, this gives money entirely too much credit by implying personhood. Indeed, if you have a “relationship” with money, you’re likely elevating it unnecessarily, and maybe even subconsciously devaluing those in your life who actually have a heartbeat.

How did we get here, to the point where we’ve personified—and in some cases deified—the “almighty” dollar?

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Putting Money In Its Place

Originally in ForbesWhat we believe about money will impact how we use it. Unfortunately, a central belief most of us hold about money is fundamentally flawed. We believe that money is either good or bad when, in reality, it is neither.

A belief that money is bad certainly is the minority mindset. But it may be a more dangerous conviction than its inverse, if only because it appears virtuous. After all, how could using less water, less square footage, less medication, less natural resources — less money — be a bad thing? Perhaps because there’s a deceptively short distance between being pro less-[fill-in-the-blank] and becoming anti-[fill-in-the-blank]. And if we’re anti-money, we may also become anti-people-who-have-money, including ourselves if such a circumstance arose.

A friend of mine has a huge heart for people with less — I mean, really less. So much so that he dedicated his life and work to serving them. He regularly goes to the world’s most deprived places, using his powerful combo of empathy, education and experience to rally the necessary aid. Once, when he received a sudden sum of money, I asked him if he was capable of committing financial suicide — by which I meant divesting himself of all the extra decimal places in his bank account — simply because it wouldn’t feel right for him to have such a possession as one so wholly dedicated to the world’s underserved communities. He acknowledged it was possible.

The far more common belief is that money is inherently good. Although this belief appears innocuous at first blush, it’s important to consider its logical conclusion. If money is good, then more money is better. If so, we might be inclined to accept a common lament as true: “If I only had more money, I’d have a better life.” Inevitably, money becomes personified, and thus becomes an unconquerable competitor pitted against the actual people in our lives. In this reality, our friends and family simply can’t compete with money. People let us down, while money only promises to make our hopes and dreams come true.

We need to put money in its place. Specifically:

Money is a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill.

That’s it.

When we believe that money is bad, we typically handle it poorly and strain our relationships. When we believe that it’s good, we tend to put money in competition with people and strain our relationships.

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Business Travelers – Skip In-Flight Wi-Fi To Increase Productivity And Save Money

Originally in ForbesI travel a decent amount. I don’t mind flying, but I’ve always struggled with the loss of productivity. Hours waiting at the airport. Even more hours in flight. But with the advent of in-flight Wi-Fi, I thought my productivity problems were solved. I was wrong.

I’ve instead concluded that by nixing slow and unpredictable in-flight Wi-Fi altogether, we can save money and use flight time to more productive ends (like reading, writing and resting) better suited for that environment.

My initial plan was to use in-flight Wi-Fi to slay the email dragon. That way, I could land knowing that nothing had slipped through the cracks and that there were no surprises waiting. I might even allow non-urgent emails to pile up for a couple days if I knew I had an upcoming flight. Unfortunately, the strategy was a miserable failure.

 

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A 4-Step Process to Integrating Money and Life

Originally in ForbesOnce you’ve abandoned the pursuit of balancing money and life in favor of integrating the two, the question still remains: Now what? How the heck do I better integrate money and life? Like most personal finance dilemmas, the answer is simple, but not easy.

It’s simple because it doesn’t require many steps. What’s more, it’s advice you’ve likely heard before, perhaps multiple times. But it’s challenging because you have to do some work—interior work. And then you have to make some difficult decisions.

Before I share the process, it’s imperative that we recognize a fundamental financial truth, often shrouded in a sea of marketing, misinformation and self-help rubbish that’s more sales than psychology.

RULE: Money is a means, not an end. Money is a tool—a neutral tool that is neither good nor evil. It may, however, be used in pursuit of either good or evil, and everything in between. Money can be well-utilized in the pursuit of goals, but it makes a very poor, lonely goal in and of itself.

Understanding—and believing and applying—this rule is the aim of the following systematic four-step approach to better integrating life and money:

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Don’t Balance Money And Life, Integrate Them

Originally in ForbesWe got the subtitle of my last book wrong. It reads, “Balancing Money and Life.” And while the book is still substantively solid and its aging content remains mostly relevant, the subtitle, I now believe, is a misnomer. It may actually contradict the book’s fundamental message.

Whether we’re talking about money and life, work and life—whatever and life—the temptation is to see the “whatever” as a force standing in opposition to life. An alternative to life.

And, unfortunately, this isn’t merely a rhetorical conundrum. As it often does, life follows language. Indeed, the phrase “work-life balance” has become so common that most of us now consider it an either-or proposition. We picture a scale, balancing work on one side and life on the other, as though it’s a zero-sum game. Work or life.

And so it has become with money. We can choose to expend life in pursuit of money or deplete our financial resources in pursuit of life.

Perhaps there’s a third option—the integration of money and life. Consider these seven ways we might view life and money differently if our approach to them was less mutually exclusive:

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New Report on the Cost of Kids: Reading Between the Lines

Originally in ForbesThe U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released its annual “Cost of Raising a Child” report. The news from it is really no news at all to us parents—kids are stinking expensive and growing even more so. However, if you read between the lines, there are three extremely important points that don’t show up in the executive summary:

1)   Parents still have a choice. The USDA estimates that households with less than $61,530 in income will spend a total of $176,550 per child. Meanwhile, “middle-income parents” making between $61,530 and $106,540 each year can anticipate spending $245,340 per kid. Those blessed with household income over $106,540 should expect to spend $407,820.  

Here’s how I read these numbers: It likely costs approximately $175,000 to care for a child’s needs in today’s dollars. Beyond that, it’s our choice as parents if and how we spend additional money on our progeny. When your household income jumps from $106,000 to $107,000, the USDA isn’t holding a gun to your head and demanding that you spend an additional $162,480 per child.

It’s completely up to you, and you may choose to spend more or less than some of the USDA estimates. For example, you may choose (wisely) to spend more on one child than another for various, justifiable reasons, including each individual child’s own gifts and weaknesses. If you choose to put even one child through private school, from kindergarten through a graduate degree, you could easily spend a million bucks just for education—and college isn’t even included in the USDA’s numbers. 

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Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems: ESPN Goes “Broke”

This week, in their “30 For 30” special, “Broke,” ESPN expounded on the Sports Illustrated article alerting the nation to the systemic financial problems within the community of elite professional athletes.  Among other frightening observations, Sports Illustrated found (and ESPN corroborated) that “By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress” and “60% of former NBA players have gone broke within five years of retirement.”

The hypothesized causes of these frightening statistics are compelling:

  • Stratospheric salaries create the mistaken impression that the money could never be outlived.  When most pro sports originated, the players didn’t even make enough money to quit their day jobs.  And while pro football, basketball, baseball and hockey players have been making a fine living for a few decades now, the economic boom of the 90s and the corresponding leap in team valuations for owners has led to unimaginable salaries for the top players.
  • But keeping up with the Joneses is an even more gripping problem in the uber-competitive world of pro sports than it is at the country club.  Not everybody is making A-rod’s $32 mil in 2011, but everyone wants to look, eat and drive like they are.  As Jamal Mashburn observed, “The show wasn’t as much on the court as it was in the parking lot.”  Yes, the disease of more is alive and well in pro sports.
  • And unfortunately, even though many of these guys are becoming instant millionaires upon getting signed, they don’t know any more about the complexities of personal finance than any other kid in their late teens or upper 20s.  They may even carry less financial wisdom into their careers, as many young pro athletes hail from broken homes in disadvantaged communities.
  • Because so many athletes have risen out of poverty to their new fame and fortune, this also makes them a target within their communities.  Bart Scott of the New York Jets (but who spent his better years in black and purple) calls it winning the “Ghetto Lottery.”  At its peak, Andre Rison had an entourage of over 40 and Bernie Kosar had over 50 families relying on him financially.  50!
  • But it’s not just known friends and family that hound these instant millionaires—it’s also young ladies with an eye for upward mobility.  One restaurant owner in the nation’s capital confessed that she had 7,000 women who would receive an automatic text message every time Michael Jordan walked into the joint during his stretch as a Wizard.  Typically, over 2,000 women would heed the call.  Of course, these rich, young “ballers” aren’t exactly turning the ladies away either.  Travis Henry boasts nine kids, with nine different moms and $17,000 per month in child support.
  • And for those players who do settle into marriage, striking numbers of them have their assets cut in half shortly after retirement; fully 60% of NFL players find themselves divorced within three years after leaving the game.  This often doubles their expenses and halves their assets without diminishing their lifestyle.
  • Those athletes who do seek financial advice often find it through unscrupulous and opportunistic advisors, accountants, lawyers and agents who insist on taking a cut of everything.  They are often over-exposed in private equity, real estate and alternative investments—including hair-brained business “opportunities” with a 90% failure rate.  These competitive ball field warriors are especially prone to sales pitches with more allure than a bank CD or balanced portfolio.
  • All this happens typically before these men reach the age of 30.  Five years of income needs to last 50 years.

The temptation is to watch “Broke” or read about this and come to one of two conclusions:

  1. These poor athletes!  They’re used and abused to line the pockets of wealthy owners, only to be left with broken bodies and bank accounts.
  2. These stupid athletes!  They’re handed the world on a silver platter and all they do is wreak a path of destruction with their lives and let down the fans and families who support them.

Yes, it was stupid of Evander Holyfield to build a 52,000 square foot house with not one, but two, bowling alleys, not knowing whether he’d ever win another fight.  It is nearly unfathomable how John Daly gambled away $50 million and how Mike Tyson blew through $400 million.  And yes, it is heartbreaking to hear of Keith McCants’s story of being arrested penniless with two prostitutes, high on drugs that were first recommended by doctors to keep him in the game.  Leagues and owners are complicit, but so are universities cashing in on prime-time athletes and sending them away without any personal financial education whatsoever.

The temptation is to think that we’re bystanders or third-party participants, that we’re inherently different.  But we’re not.  What we see in the financial mismanagement of athletes is merely a magnification of the worst that lies in all of us regarding money.  I, for one, can certify that if I had that kind of money in my late-teens and early-twenties, I’d likely have done the same damn thing.  And I didn’t grow up without the benefit of loving parents and wise instruction.  Go ahead, think about the dumbest thing you’ve ever done; and then think about having a seemingly unlimited amount of money with which to do it AND the paparazzi drooling, waiting for you to screw up.

Money is a tool that can be used to great effect to magnify the impact of our foolishness, and also our wisdom and discernment.  But when money becomes an adornment, when richness becomes a personality trait, and when wealth becomes an advertisement or proposition, we very well may end up agreeing with McCants’s final conclusion: “’The love of money is the root of all evil.’ It destroyed everything around me.”

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Your Personal Money Story

This is the first exercise in a series designed to walk you through an entire financial plan.  The spreadsheet is embedded in an Excel spreadsheet you can download and save for personal use.  You can get the background for this exercise in my Forbes post HERE or just jump right in with the instructions given below:

Write your own Personal Money Story.  What is the earliest memory you have about money, and how old were you?  For many, it will involve some combination of a piggy bank and an allowance or birthday gift somewhere between ages 3 and 6.  Then, rate this experience numerically between +10 for a great experience and –10 for a scarring memory.  Continue this pattern, marking all of the notable experiences you had with money—good and bad—throughout the course of your life.  As you fill in the columns in chronological order, you’ll see the graph begin to populate.

As you reflect on the completed exercise, what story does it tell?  Is it notably fortunate, happy, tragic or sad?  Is it relatively level or particularly volatile?  The answers to these questions might just explain the health of your 401k or your burdensome credit card balance.

As you develop your own realizations about your money beliefs, consider sharing your story with a select family member or friend, especially a spouse or loved one upon whom your Personal Money Story might have a meaningful impact…and suggest they do the same.

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The Real Point Of Financial Planning

Whether you’re a do-it-yourself-er or working with a professional financial planner, the real point of financial planning is often obscured in a process so deep and wide that it’s easy to get lost.  The most prominent mistake in financial planning is to allow the process to be reduced to an exercise in which success is solely derived from a single number—your net worth, today and projected into the future.  In truth, the real point of good financial planning isn’t to have more money, but a better life.

One may argue this point suggesting that more money is simply more…better, that few financial plans have suffered from a surplus of financial resources.  This is true at a moment in time, but the problem with making “the number” the ultimate goal of a financial plan is that it steers behavior to get there.  But that is the point, many of my esteemed colleagues may insist, that we subordinate our todays to our tomorrows in hopes of securing comfort and prosperity in both.  Then I ask you this:

Is comfort and prosperity the chief end of life?

I’m privileged to teach the Fundamentals of Financial Planning at my alma mater, Towson University, and every semester I pepper the class on the first day with a barrage of questions, among them, “How many of you are HERE because you WANT to be here?”  The average positive response is 10% of the class.  Most of them are accounting majors, so I engage them in discussion to determine WHY they chose that course of study.  The primary reason given is to secure comfort and financial prosperity in life.

“So you’ve chosen,” I ask, “to dedicate four-to-six years of your life becoming educated sufficiently to spend the bulk of your waking adult hours thereafter in a job you don’t particularly love to hopefully secure financial prosperity?”

Unfortunately, too many financial planning processes look just like this.  They begin with numbers and back into the actions—and life—necessary to achieve those numbers.  Planners may justify this by disclaiming that the client dictated the data (in the questionnaire designed to force the client into a box that can be managed by the planning software du jour).  The recommendation is simply the output.  But that’s because the process is backward.

It should start, instead, with three simple questions:

  1. WHO are you?
  2. WHAT do you want to be about?
  3. And, WHY?

Then and only then should the numbers come into play.  And the numbers shouldn’t exist to extinguish the who, what and why, but to support them.  If I’m really a good teacher, I may have to recommend you consider an alternative educational or vocational path.  If I’m really a good planner, I may have to recommend a course of action that could have a negative impact on your bottom line—today and in the future—but which leads to a better, more fulfilling life.

At best, the benefit of financial planning is minimized when reduced solely to a process intended to give you more money, today and in the future.  At the very worst, such a process could temporarily or permanently derail your entire plan for life.

Your financial plan must submit to your plan for life.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to take you on a blog journey through an entire financial plan, including an examination of topics you’d expect—like how to judge your investments and determine how much life insurance you should have—as well as many you might not anticipate—like how to create your own Personal Money Story and articulate your Personal Principles.  We’ll discuss everything from homeowner’s and disability income insurance to navigating death and taxes.

Each week’s blog post will be on a different topic, building on the last, and will include online exercises you can download (at no cost) for your own personal use in developing your financial plan.  It’s not designed to supplant the intangible benefits of a personal financial planner, but to be a starting point, a supplement and/or a second opinion.  And throughout, we’ll work to maintain the real point of financial planning—a better life.