I found myself telling my son that money didn’t grow on trees, and I was unconsciously communicating to him that we live in lack!
That was not the message I wanted him to learn, but I found my old preconceptions about money automatically coming out of my mouth!
Your parents’ beliefs about money, the money beliefs of your culture and society, and even the beliefs about money from your religion seep into you like osmosis.
Early programming dramatically affects us, and we need to confront our financial beliefs and make a shift if we are to stop the automatic download of fear, lack, and scarcity, to our kids!
Annie Eklöv
I grew up on the poorer end of ‘The Middle-Class America Spectrum.’ I absorbed ideas about money from my home, neighborhood, culture, etc., and I didn’t realize how these unconscious beliefs waffectedmy life until recently.
The faulty money ideas from my past that I needed to overcome are…
- Money doesn’t grow on trees
- We don’t have enough money
- We can’t buy this or that
- Money is evil
- We must buy everything on sale
- We should keep things just-in-case
- Our house is a storage room
- We can’t afford to throw anything away even if the item has seen better days
- Stock pile food because we may run out of money and we don’t want to starve
- Worry about money
- We don’t deserve money
- Money isn’t something to be desired
- Money is hard to come by
- We needed coupons to buy food
- At the end of the month money runs out
- Rich people are stingy, mean, and obnoxious
- The economy would collaspe without poor people and middle class people. There isn’t enough wealth to go around
- There isn’t enough money for kids in our family to have a reasonable allowance
The good things I learned about money growing up are as follows…
- Give money to causes you believe in
- Don’t borrow money to buy small unecessary stuff
- Save money
Money myths I found myself living by.
- I can’t let people borrow things because they don’t always bring them back and I don’t have money to replace lost or broken items.
- I don’t have enough money to visit my family often and take my family on fun vacations.
- Rich people are greedy, manipulitave or stingy, and they aren’t fun to be with so I don’t want to be rich because no one will want to be my friend. (I learned this from stories my extended family told me and from TV shows that were popular when I was a kid. I didn’t realize I thought that way till recently.)
- I need to buy everything on sale
- I need to keep things just-in-case
- I need to take just-in-case items on vacation because I can’t afford to buy an item if we forget it.
- I don’t have enough money to do fun recreational things with the kids
- If I start making more money I am going to have a headache with international taxes. In other words having money is a headache.
- Money doesn’t grow on trees.
If I look at these beliefs closely they simply aren’t true. The problem is I was living as if they were true which means I’m teaching these beliefs to my kids even though I don’t want to do that!!!
The Truth About My Money and Prosperity!
1. Honestly, most of my stuff worth borrowing can be replaced, and it really isn’t a big deal if it doesn’t come back.
I am the one making a mountain out of a molehill because a few times, an item didn’t come back, and I had to be responsible for the economic consequences.
Yes, it is irresponsible of those who borrowed things from me, but I need to forgive and forget. I can afford to be generous! I can replace items that don’t come back, and I can do it all with a good attitude!
I want my kids to share. What am I teaching them if I never share?
2. I’ve often worried, since moving to Sweden, about not having enough money to visit my family. We moved to Sweden 17 years ago, and my family still lives in the USA.
We do visit my family reasonably often. For the last few years, we’ve been home because of coronavirus, but we have a trip booked to visit this summer. We do have money to plan trips.
When my kids have ideas about fun trips we can take or fun things we can do either as a family or on a trip with my extended family, I’ve discouraged their dreams over the years!
I didn’t realize I was doing this till recently. Sometimes I shake my head and wonder what I was thinking. If my kids want to see Washington DC, spend time in Florida, or see Mexico, why not? Just because we planned a fun trip coming up in a few months doesn’t mean I should tell them we may or may not be able to afford a trip to _________ in the far distant future!
I should encourage my kids to dream big! It doesn’t matter if I can or can’t book the trip today. It shouldn’t be a big deal if I don’t know where the money to take such a trip will come from. I should encourage my kids to dream, not discourage them!
To encourage dreams, we made a trip journal. It’s just a notebook anyone in the family can write down their wish to visit whatever place they dream of!
3. Where do we get the idea that rich people are greedy, manipulative, stingy, and not fun to be with? It isn’t true.
I know wealthy people who are generous, nice, regularly treat friends and family to dinner and coffee, and who are fun to be with. So, why would I believe that wealthy people are snobs?
This problem can be traced back to listening to stories and watching TV as kids! Even TV shows that seem innocent and safe are teaching some lessons that aren’t idyll.
Take Gilligans Island, Little House on the Prarie, and Duck Tales, for instance. The rich people on these shows are not people you want to be! They are either snobs, ridiculous, greedy, stingy, manipulative, or don’t get along with others.
No one wants to be that rich person, and the underlying lesson kids learn is that they don’t want to be rich because rich people cheat others and don’t have any friends!
I heard extended family members tell a story several times when I grew up. The grown-ups probably thought we weren’t listening, but when you think kids aren’t listening, that’s when they’re listening the most!
The story went like this…
Once upon a time, in 1955, there was a fifty-year-old man named Bert. He always wore grubby overalls, counted pennies, and deliberated before every purchase.
His wife came to him one evening and said, ”Bert doing the wash each for you, and the family takes so much time and energy each week when I need to drive to the laundromat that I don’t have time to help The ladies’ foreign aid society raise money for Africa. Can we buy a washing machine so I can do some laundry every day and save time driving to town?”
(In the 1950s, gas was so cheap people didn’t need to consider driving costs like we do today.)
He thought about his wife’s request. He counted the cost of a washing machine vs. the cost of driving to town and decided it was much cheaper to send his wife to a laundromat. He told her his decision at supper, ”Darla, dear, it’s much too expensive to buy a washing machine. I’m afraid you’ll have to drive to the laundromat.”
Disappointed, she accepted his decision. She chatted with friends as she did laundry and expressed her sadness that she couldn’t afford a washing machine.
Later that year, Bert decided he needed a new truck for the farm. He visited several car dealerships in his grubby overalls, searching for the perfect truck at a discount. He asked every sales associate what their best price was, but no one gave him a price cut. They assumed he wanted to purchase the car on credit.
Bert finally took matters into his own hands. Driving back to the first dealership, he sought out the manager in his office. ”If you give me your best discount on that truck in your showroom, I’ll pay cash!” he said, plunking money on the desk. The manager’s eyes grew wide, and Bert got himself a new truck!
You can imagine the gossip that circulated at the laundromat that week. Of course, everyone figured out Bert had enough money to buy his wife a washing machine! He was just too stingy to care about her comforts!
As a child, I heard this story and thought Bert was sooooo silly. What was the point of having money if you didn’t use it and enjoy it? I also unconsciously filed away the fact that rich people are too stingy to use their money.
Some people are rich, manipulative, cheaters, but that is the exception to the rule. Most wealthy people are generous!
Teach your kids that money is neither good nor evil. It just is. It’s good to desire money because you will be generous and use it to help others. Expect the best from yourself!
Remember the saying ‘Money is the root of all evil?’ well, most of us forget the first part. ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’
The saying originates in the Bible, Timothy 6:10 (King James Version): For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
If you love money more than anything else, you will probably live in sorrow because you will push friends and family away, always putting money first, but don’t forget it’s the love of money that’s considered bad. Creating wealth and helping others with it is a wonderful thing.
4. The idea that I must buy everything on sale I learned from my family. There is an adrenaline kick from getting a good deal, but good deals were cluttering up my home!
Of course, I don’t have to buy everything on sale. Actually, sales play with my mind and I buy more clothes, products, etc. than I would if there was no sale!
When I went to a store in need of a pair of pants and a shirt for my daughter the jeans cost $30 and the top $20.
But, I got lured by a sale rack. I found Jeans for $15 and a top for $10, but I bought my daughter five extra items that she didn’t need and 3 items for myself.
When I add it all up the total is $100 worth of sale items that now fill our drawers to overflowing. Even worse we realized we didn’t actually like the sale items when we get them home. We got swept up in a sale vortex and bought into the idea that items are scarce.
When I add up the two items I went in the store to get ($50) they were cheaper at full price than the combined price of all my extra sale purchases. Sales don’t necessarily save you money. The sale costs you extra money if you buy things you don’t need or don’t really like just because they’re on sale.
We’ve all been at the store trying to decide what to buy, and worrying that if we leave the sales items someone else will snap them up. This is normal and it happens to the best of us. Marketers know that putting sales signs up will stimulate our brains to buy more items even if the prices are barely dropped!
5. I need to keep things just-in-case! Having a few extra items at home isn’t a bad thing but when extra clothes, hand-me-downs, tons of toilet paper, extra ibuprofen and vitamins, extra food, worn-out shoes, etc fill our homes the cost of storage becomes the price of us, not being able to live our lives happily and easily.
If I’m going to be perfectly honest you should know that when I had lots of hand-me-down clothes at home I spent more money on items than when I just ordered the size my child needed exactly when she needed it.
Some of the clothes in storage I bought on sale and I guessed about the size. The problem was many items didn’t fit at the right time of year and my purchasing ‘Extra Just-In-Case’ items added up to more money than new full-priced items would have cost me if I’d bought them when my daughter needed them and could try them on.
If I’d quit storing extra stuff my daughter would’ve loved going shopping each time she needed a new size. She’d rather pick out her own clothing instead of wearing sale items I chose and hand-me-downs which were often a little bit too big or too small.
I recently got rid of most of the hand-me-downs in my storage room. Many of them fit my daughters, Maria 12, and Frida 7. The kids went through the clothes and picked out what they wanted and we gave the rest away. I saved some winter clothes for the girls to wear next winter, but I plan to take the girls shopping when they grow out of the clothes they have now.
The problem with large tubs full of clothes is it’s hard to know how many items you have in each size. When we finally pulled everything out there were more items that fit the kids right now than could fit in their wardrobes. fortunately, they didn’t like all the outfits and it was rather painless to weed out what they didn’t want to wear.
I had five tubs of clothes that fit my 12-year-old! there is no way five tubs of clothing would fit in her drawers! Even if it fit, she would never wear that much clothing. She tends to wear clothes that fill up a medium-sized washbasket every two weeks.
When you keep adding a few items at a time to the hoard in the storage room it doesn’t take long for the collection to get out of control, and you no longer know what you own.
Have fun picking out new clothes at the store together with your kids when they need them!
6. We can afford to pack light on vacation and buy things as we go!
My husband would have fun telling silly stories about how I brought insane amounts of kids’ clothes on vacation. He would be the first person to tell me to pack light and buy forgotten items along the way!
We do have more than enough money to buy forgotten clothes, toothpaste, shampoo, toothbrushes, raincoats, umbrellas, phone chargers, phones, shoes, etc. and the cost to our backs, our moods, and our patience doesn’t make lugging around extra stuff worth it.
I’ve actually packed so many clothes for kids on some international trips that they didn’t wear half of it, and you know what they didn’t wear? Just-in-case items of course!
Give yourself permission to forget things. Give yourself permission to leave just-in-case at home. Give yourself permission to feel good and have fun buying items you forgot! Don’t beat yourself up about it and ruin your trip. The point of the trip is to have fun with your family, relax, and have a good time.
Take only the things with you that make your trip great and don’t let small things get you down. Set a goal to have fun and be in a good mood no matter what!
7. I’ve been living as if I didn’t have enough money to take my kids swimming, and to do other fun sporty recreational activities like downhill biking, paddleball, and high ropes courses.
In reality, we have money to do these activities more often, and I want to encourage my kids to move and stay in shape.
If I never invest money in staying fit, keeping in shape, and having fun while doing it then I’m telling my kids those things are unimportant.
Experiences are better than things. Give your kids a fun sporty day together and make wonderful memories!
8. I just realized the other day that I am scared of creating wealth because I’m scared of starting a business based in my home country the USA. My money myth is that more money creates tax headaches!
Right now I have a small business in Sweden. I do taxes in both countries, but I pay taxes in Sweden. I may have to do more complicated taxes if I make more money, but the truth is I will have more money and I would be able to hire an expert to do my taxes! I would actually get rid of a headache because right now my husband and I do my taxes together.
9. When I started investing in the stockmarket I realized that money does grow on trees!
I guess it literally grows on trees because it’s made out of paper, but it multiplies when you invest in a fond robot. It grows while you sleep with practically no effort from you.
I know the stock market took a nose dive recently, but that just means it’s a great time to buy stocks cheaply! The stockmarket will always fluctuate. You just need to stick it out and buy some stocks every month and leave your money in your fond long term. That way your retirement is taken care of!
I taught my son that putting lots of money in a fond when he is young and keeping it there means he could have his retirement taken care of before he is thirty. He is fifteen as I write this and he started his own fond several years ago.
The scarry thing is that if you put money in a fond when you’re old you won’t ever catch up to the profit that someone makes when starting a fond while young.
It’s the time factor that makes the biggest difference in the profit you make saving money in fonds.
- Money + lots of time = lots of money
- Money + little time = slightly more money than what you started with.
Teach your kids to take charge of their personal finances when they are young! They’ll thank you for it later.
If your kids grow up thinking that money is bad, that it makes you greedy, and it will cause you to lose all your friends then a part of them deep down inside won’t want to be wealthy. Years later when they wonder why they can never get ahead financially it may all go back to this hidden underlying belief.
Debunking the money myths ingrained in all of us!
Money does grow on trees! In one sense, money grows on trees if you invest in a fond robot. In another sense, money grows on trees just because you believe that to be true.
Much of the drive that we have to act on ideas and create wealth stems from what we learned about money as a child.
If deep down you think money is the thing that is going to leave you friendless with a tax headache you will unconsciously repel money even if you tell yourself you need more money to pay your bills.
If on the other hand, you believe deep down that you want to create wealth in order to be generous, help others, and enjoy life then your eyes will be looking for ideas and opportunities to make money.
I am trying to teach my kids to dream big, be generous, create wealth, have fun, and use the resources they have for good!