Ramblings About Money

  Red berries on our tree. They are so beautiful right now! Eventually they fall and cover our driveway and vehicle and it is annoying but right now they look so bright and add more color to the front of our lot and I love it. The baby is sitting beside me clacking away on another set of keyboard keys and the two middle children are fighting up a storm. My oldest is helping at a kids camp. We have a pretty typical summer day in front of us except that this month it hasn't been very sunny and today is no exception. I dont mind. When it is really hot I have a problem with my leg and it hurts so much in the heat. So I have not been minding being pain free and the children can still play outside because it is not pouring rain. However the sun shine DOES help me feel more motivated and energetic so I am hoping it will peek out soon behind these dreary clouds. This morning I payed some bills and I realized I have not written about money on here yet which is surprising because money is often on my mind.

Money

  Honestly sometimes thinking about money consumes me. This is another area I have been working on ferociously but it seems to get the better of me pretty regularly. I was raised in a family that consistently struggled to make ends meet especially at different points in life. I don't necessarily have the healthiest view of money and my husband and I differ considerably in this area. We have come a long way though when I think back.  I think money is a number one marriage breaker upper and it has driven us to the brink of disaster many a time. I don't love money at all, not one little bit, other than the fact that I can give it away and that makes me happy.

  However my husband has helped me learn a lot about money and what it can do for you. It is not something that needs to control, drain and never be enough. In the world there is enough money, there is loads of it, so so so much money!!!! We just have to learn how to get some of for ourselves :) That takes learning and self discipline and a possible mind and heart change in how it is regarded.

Some important words he taught me were liability and asset.

Everything we buy is one or the other.

  If you buy a car it is immediately a liability because it is only going to drain you of money and not make you money (unless you figure out a way to make money off your vehicle). Buy a house and it can be the same OR it can be an asset in that it has a suite you can rent out and therefore a way to bring in money to you. We have a friend who has an incredible mind in that way. He has every nook and cranny of his house down to his driveway making him money and it is inspirational. We did not start thinking this way until just a couple years ago but the difference it has made in most of our financial decisions has been huge.

  My husband and I have rarely made over thirty thousand dollars a year in our marriage. Our biggest year was sixty thousand dollars. However through the years we have been gifted amounts of money in unexpected ways. It has been incredible. In that there were many choices we could have made but there were people in our lives that helped us use it wisely.

  Something we were advised to do was talk to a financial advisor and we did this about four years into our marriage. He asked us questions we had never ever though about before...like when did we want to retire? When we retired what did we want our lives to look like? What goals did we have financially at that time? Our minds were blown. We had no answers but it got us thinking. After we had our answers he gave us monthly goals to start working towards. He taught us a bit about investing in the stock market. Others taught us about investing in real estate and through trial and error we have learned a lot.

  So day to day I struggle with making ends meet. We are a one income house hold. We can pay our bills because of my husband's amazing work ethic and because of government supplementation. We don't go on vacations and our vehicle does not have a trunk, our children have mostly second hand things and all our furniture has been given to us. I am thankful for this. We have learned so much and not taken what has been gifted to us forgranted ~ the future is bright.

  I have been so anxious for YEARS about money. As long as I can remember I have worked and worked to make ends meet. There have been brief times when it wasn't such a struggle and the feeling of that lifted stress was amazing. I think that ever so slowly we are getting to a place where this might not be such a struggle anymore and in saying that I can't even really fathom what that will look like but I am sure excited about it.

  My grandparents in their later years were quite wealthy but did they go on holidays, buy new vehicles, build a dream house, new clothes even? NO they did not. Did they share their money and give to others? YES. It influenced me greatly and I hope as time goes on if my husband and I are ever in a place where we are not living pay check to pay check we can remember how they lived because we both really admired and appreciated that.

And that is my random, unorganized little blurb on money today.
Have a lovely day
xo