Finding connections in a financial free-for-all.
It's Day 7 of YNAB's 34 Day Challenge and I love the theme as a writing prompt today. From YNAB's page;
Money surprisingly is still a taboo subject, definitely hard to connect over with partners and family (it took a counsellor to get my husband and I on the same page!), let alone friends and new people in your life! Yet we all need it (though I kinda wish economies of trade were the norm, I'd totally deal in marzipan and chickens). I am a member of the virtual communities YNAB is connected to, The Support Forum, The YNAB Fans on Facebook and on reddit but I am still community building and especially so in offline life. We all fall into holding our tongues when starting conversations about budgets, expenses, saving money, financial goals - we want help to be better with our money and make it work for us but can't bear the feeling of someone knowing and judging our circumstances. It's not wrong to feel this way, it just can make building that village require some interesting efforts and thought processes. How do you talk about money without talking about money???
The online communities are a great solution for this, you can dictate your level of anonymity and engagement but the cost is your connection on these places stops when you snap your laptop shut or click your apps closed. You aren't engaged with the people behind the words online, you can be inspired and motivated, find familiar ground, but the digital world holds us apart by it's very nature. I am watching for the day that social media evolves from being media to social.
I have a little story to share. Sometimes your day can contain a little extra - I reached out to someone for financial wisdom earlier this week. We have some confusion and uncertainty about retirement and would appreciate unfettered guidance, the financial advisors we have been with were less than helpful - serving their banks or products over our interests. When The Wealthy Barber called me back today for a brief chat (sadly he no longer offers services as a financial advisor) he confirmed what we found in our experiences with advisors and acknowledged the financial services are lacking for Canadians but he wished us all the luck as we plan our future and to stay the course. Keeping it simple and paying yourself first, the Barber's mantra - it's worked wonders for us so far. We'll cobble together our plan, we know ourselves best.
In my German lessons with DuoLingo today, I was working on "Du bist wichtig" - something to tell ourselves when we reach out to make connections and build community, also to tell our future selves.
Money surprisingly is still a taboo subject, definitely hard to connect over with partners and family (it took a counsellor to get my husband and I on the same page!), let alone friends and new people in your life! Yet we all need it (though I kinda wish economies of trade were the norm, I'd totally deal in marzipan and chickens). I am a member of the virtual communities YNAB is connected to, The Support Forum, The YNAB Fans on Facebook and on reddit but I am still community building and especially so in offline life. We all fall into holding our tongues when starting conversations about budgets, expenses, saving money, financial goals - we want help to be better with our money and make it work for us but can't bear the feeling of someone knowing and judging our circumstances. It's not wrong to feel this way, it just can make building that village require some interesting efforts and thought processes. How do you talk about money without talking about money???
The online communities are a great solution for this, you can dictate your level of anonymity and engagement but the cost is your connection on these places stops when you snap your laptop shut or click your apps closed. You aren't engaged with the people behind the words online, you can be inspired and motivated, find familiar ground, but the digital world holds us apart by it's very nature. I am watching for the day that social media evolves from being media to social.
I have a little story to share. Sometimes your day can contain a little extra - I reached out to someone for financial wisdom earlier this week. We have some confusion and uncertainty about retirement and would appreciate unfettered guidance, the financial advisors we have been with were less than helpful - serving their banks or products over our interests. When The Wealthy Barber called me back today for a brief chat (sadly he no longer offers services as a financial advisor) he confirmed what we found in our experiences with advisors and acknowledged the financial services are lacking for Canadians but he wished us all the luck as we plan our future and to stay the course. Keeping it simple and paying yourself first, the Barber's mantra - it's worked wonders for us so far. We'll cobble together our plan, we know ourselves best.
In my German lessons with DuoLingo today, I was working on "Du bist wichtig" - something to tell ourselves when we reach out to make connections and build community, also to tell our future selves.
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