Observations: Money Problems That Aren't

The holiday season is a time of friends, family… and worrying about finances.
 In this episode, I discuss why everything is NOT a money problem, even when it feels like it. 

In case you are dealing with money issues, here is some recommended reading:

• https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/
• https://www.yourmentalwealth.com/
• Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover”

#PovertyMindset, #Choices 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:10 Observation: Money Mindset
• 8:52 Time Choices
• 10:32 Commitment Choices
• 12:15 Duty
• 14:09 All Factor In

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Hello and welcome to the Thinking Ahead Podcast. My name is Ronaldo Stevens, and I'm your host and mentor on this journey to find out more about careers, college, and finance. Earlier this month, I flew up to see my dad and celebrate his retirement from his company that he's been working for for about Wow, 16 years. And it was a nice celebration, but it was a little bit last minute because being a military contractor, his company was furloughed during the government shutdown. It ended up putting a lot of uncertainty in the air, and we did not know if he would actually be able to retire on time, because he's a veteran, and so many of his benefits are through the military and therefore government services. But after the shutdown ended, they did end up going ahead and moving forward with it. And with that little notice, I had to start searching for a flight. So I do what I usually do when looking for a flight. I go to Mamundo.com, which is an aggregate site that lets you search for the cheapest flights from multiple carriers, and also lets you search for nearby airports. Early in my search, I saw that Fort Lauderdale actually had the cheapest flights, but that airport is actually twice as far as the West Palm Beach Airport, which is closest to me. However, at that point I had already decided to continue searching for the cheapest flight because I had a price point put into my mind. And that there set me up for failure. Not because I couldn't find a flight, I did, but because I wasted hours trying to find the cheapest flight with the best route. When the truth is, I would have saved myself some time and stress by just choosing my preferred airline that leaves from the closest airport and pricing out the direct flight first. I had preconceived notions, or preconceived thoughts that were already in my head, about the closest airport, Palm Beach Airport, which is usually overpriced and more expensive than other airports. So I eliminated some of my options before even getting started with my search. To make a long story short, I ended up buying tickets, not based on cost, but based on timing, because I had a commitment to work and I wanted to make it back in time. And I also had a commitment to my dad because he really wanted me to show up for his retirement gathering. So in the end I ended up paying some more, but the time and trouble it saved me, the time it saved my dad from having to go to another airport, and the time it saved my co-workers since I didn't have to take an extra day off of work, ended up being worth more than what I saved or would have saved monetarily. And as I thought about that situation, it kind of made me think about money and an observation that I had. And this observation that I came up with is that when you don't have enough money, or when it feels like you don't have enough money, every problem begins to look like a money problem. And that's what I want to talk about today. The money mindset, also known to some as the poverty mindset. Now, there are countless books that have been written about on how to think about money and where your money thoughts come from. A couple that come to mind are Mind Over Money by the father and son duo Brad and Ted Klauntz, My Personal Go-To, which is I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Setai, and then there's The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, who is very popular and has a popular radio show that goes over personal finances. These books go into depth on why you have the mindset you do about money and how to break the habits and strongholds over your mind and your life. In my case, I wasn't sure of myself with which flight to choose because I was obsessed over the cost. I thought the flying and the buying of the ticket was a money problem. I think it probably stems from my days as a college student when I had more time than money and even less responsibilities, so finding the cheapest flight to get back home or to go see family, and waiting around the airport or having to take public transportation that took a long time was all I could do. And even when I was living in Japan, I would try to travel by finding the cheapest flight, which at that point would often save me several hundred dollars. But since that time in my life, I've grown and I've made other commitments. Commitment to work, commitment to my family, duty to family, really, and I now realize that some decisions should be based on cost or can be based on cost, but I really have to start considering other factors in my decisions besides money. But all that still stems from the observation that when you don't have enough money, every problem does begin to look like a money problem. And the grand truth that will help you overcome your poverty, our money-focused mindset, is that all problems are not money problems. I'll say that again. All problems are not money problems. And I think the sooner you find out this truth and ingrain it into your life, the better off you will be. It's very hard at the beginning of your life or beginning of your adult life to make that shift. Some would even call it a leap of faith because in our society, money makes things happen. If you don't have enough money, it limits your buying choices. And some would say that that limits your life. And we are subconsciously taught that not making the choice that gives you maximum profit is making the wrong choice. Heck, a lot of you are listening to this podcast because you want to save money and choose the right career that will give you enough money. Even for me, the reason I started this podcast was because I felt I wasted a lot of money in my schooling going to college and paying those tuition and fees that I ended up not really needing to pay if I had just made better decisions. So, because of all these things, we try to save money or make money so that we supposedly have more choices in the future. But what if in the pennies we save we are actually limiting our options in other ways that aren't just about money? In the case of the plane ticket, if I had moved forward with the cheaper option, I would have held my family up by making them drive to a further airport. I would have inconvenienced my co-workers by coming in a day later. And if you're not working, you're not making money, so again, that would have become a loss to me as well. The poverty mindset thinks about money a lot, whether that's not having enough of it or what one can do to save it. And this mindset is not just about not having enough money. This mindset is if you prioritize money over any other thing or any other priority, you could be living with a poverty mindset. So this includes the millionaires that would rather complain about the insignificant infringement on their experience that they are paying the same amount for as other people. It includes companies that cut costs below while claiming they've increased revenue. And of course, it includes people that buy the same cheapest product every year instead of spending a little bit more to get one that lasts a lifetime. All of these suffer from a poverty, our money-first mindset. The question is, what should you prioritize instead of money? Or, a way I would phrase it, what kind of problems should you look at instead of money problems? I'm going to list off a few of my priorities, and you can feel free to write them down or even disagree. I'm going to use the word problem a lot, but really I'm talking about choices and the choices you make. First, one of the things that you should prioritize is time. Some of your problems may seem like money problems, but are in fact time problems. A lot of people feel that if they had more money, they could buy back their time. But is that really the case? Or are you prioritizing something else instead of time? In my case, I had the time problem of trying to get back for work. There were no red eye or late-night flights from my search, but I was able to catch an evening flight that gave me and my family a little bit of rest after the event, with my dad's retirement, before heading to the airport. Again, that wasn't the cheapest option, but it was the best option considering my time. If you have something on your calendar that you can't shake, that's a time problem. If you need to spend a certain amount of time doing something, that's a time problem. For the most part, work is a time and money type of problem. You go to work to earn money, but sometimes something will come up that will cost you time, and yet it will not make you money. Sometimes the time will be worth more than the money. In my case, getting a few extra hours with my dad without having to drive in the snow flurried late nights of Ohio, and then still me still getting back to work in time, that was a time problem that was worth more than the money problem. Another problem that you may have to consider is commitment. What have you dedicated yourself to? Is it possible that the commitment will pull you away from something or pull you towards something? Let me use this as an example. Let's say you have a friend that has a birthday party coming up on the weekend, and you've already said that you're going to go. I'll be there. But then shortly after you make that commitment, an old friend that is like your brother or sibling, calls you and says, Hey, I'm coming into town. Can we hang out this weekend? Just the two of us? Now you're in a tough spot. Are you more committed to the birthday party that you originally said you were going to? Or are you more committed to the friend that's like a sibling? In situations like this, you can try to get creative and find a solution that solves both commitments. Maybe you can merge the two, inviting that old time friend to come to the birthday party and checking with the birthday friend if that's okay. This is miles better than the Flintstone episode where they created clones to handle the housework while they went out with the buffaloes. Or the old sitcom go-to where you try to book two dates at the same restaurant, but in different rooms. So, who are you committed to? What are you committed to? If you know this ahead of time, your decision tree will be so much easier to follow and flow with. Moving on, what other problems or choices will you have? We've mentioned time, commitment. And that kind of brings me to the next one, the next level of commitment, really, and that is duty. D-U-T-Y, by the way. If you have a family, if you have a job, then you will have a duty. And when I say duty, some other people might say responsibility. The things that fall under your responsibility are usually those that if you don't take care of it, nobody else will. If you're a parent or a caretaker, if you have a family member that depends on you, or if you're in a specific position at your place of work and you are the only one that is responsible for something, that makes it your duty. Let's go back to our previous example and say that you did end up making that plan change and you were able to get your old time friend to come to that birthday party. But then, an hour before you're supposed to leave, your child, who's old enough to stay at home by themselves, gets sick. Like, really sick. Like, they ate gas station sushi and started throwing up or expelling from both ends sick. And you know that you can't just leave them at home, or you know, you you shouldn't. Most parents, at least the reasonable ones, would call or text their friends saying, hey, I can't make it, the party's off for me, I have to take care of my child. That's duty. In the case of work, it might be a project that you're getting ready to launch and somebody finds an issue the night before the launch, and it falls under your responsibility. You might have to cancel your evening plans to go out there and hash it out. Now, duty choices and commitment choices overlap. As do time choices, and that's kind of the point of this whole conversation. Our choices are dependent on a variety of factors. Time, commitment, duty, and yes, even money. Coming back to my story, my choice on travel wasn't about money. Or it shouldn't have been about money. It was about commitment and duty to my family. Of showing up when asked. Yes, I was trying to save money because we just took a trip in November and I didn't have a large window to choose a flight because of the government shutdown, but plans change. But even with plans changing, I have a commitment to my family. So, when my dad asked me to be there, and he did try to play it cool, and he was like, Oh, you know, if it's too rough or too tight, you don't have to come, you know. And I did say that I was a bit busy and that things were kind of tight, and he's like, you know, we can make things work, and if it costs a lot, I can help you out. And note to kids if a parent, especially a dad, is offering to pay for a trip, that means they want you to be there. Please write that down. And that also shows my father's choice. Commitment to family over the cost of a flight. Everything in life is a choice. We may not be able to choose what happens to us, but you can choose how to react to most things. And a lot of our choices are invisible. As in, we don't pay attention or even know that we're making the choice to do or not do something. I should have slowed down and considered from the very beginning what's more important to me. The cost of the ticket or the time with family that fits my schedule. You have to take the time to get clarity on the choices that you make. Not that you're making the most secure choice at that moment, because, you know, things change. New factors appear. New challengers approach. So you have to make the best choice after that moment of clarity. Consider what you value most. If it's going to a family event and family is your top priority, then whatever money it takes, or whatever time it takes, you have to try to make that work, with or without constraints. This all comes down to living the life that you have decided. And that's really what this podcast is about. When I went to college, I only knew a little of what I was doing. I ended up paying too much and leaning too much on the college to give me all the information. They didn't, by the way. And unfortunately, that was a choice. A subconscious choice. But it was a choice I made. And now I'm having to live with the consequences of that choice. But that also led me to deciding to do this podcast. I'm trying to empower others to get knowledge beforehand, to think about what it is they want to do, and to know a little bit more about themselves and their priorities. To know what lenses to look through to make choices, and of course, to plan and think ahead. That's all I have to share about my observations on choices in money today. As we head into the holidays, make sure that you guys are being safe out there, on the road and in the malls. We're going to have one more episode this month before we close things out for the year. But in the meantime, happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and joyful Kwanzaa. Take care of yourself, and of course, keep thinking ahead.