Well, I used to hate money.
This may come as a surprise, as I’m known as a gal who has a pretty decent relationship with her money. However, my prudent money-saving habits didn’t originate from a TV sitcom-esque family, where mother and father dutifully used trips to the supermarket to teach their children budgeting basics. (Who really does that, anyway?) Like most, what I learned about money came by way of how the grownups around me treated their own finances.
Like many, my earliest memories about money were pretty freakin’ ugly and painful. My mom got her nursing degree and left her job working at the nail shop to become a full-time nurse. While this was indeed bright news, as a result, my mom worked and earned more. The downside? My older brother and I saw less and less of her. Then there was the time when my dad was being a deadbeat and my mom had to take him to court for child support. Heated exchanges over the phone, my mom waiting on checks to come to cover our bills. Money was the root of this turmoil.
We were also on subsidized housing in the Los Angeles suburbs for several years, and collected cans to swap for change. During one trip to the cans for cash machine, my mom lost a handful of change and starting crying uncontrollably in the strip mall parking lot.
Money was something to be feared, it was something to fret over. The adults around me worried over not having enough of it, fought over it, and literally cried over its loss. And in turn, an early belief I formed about money was that it was an all-consuming monster that devoured and thus needed to be slayed. If not careful, money could get in way of what I cherished the most—my personal freedom.
In order to slay this beast, I sublimated my fear and fascination over money by keeping a close watch on my it, and to do everything I could to exert some control over the damn thing. When I was a teen I asked everyone I knew their thoughts about money and made a ‘zine out of it. I taught myself to balance a checkbook, and in college created detailed Excel sheets to track my spending. I turned saving into a game. I experimented with different ways to slash my spending, and read as much as I could on savings, budgeting, credit, and investing. Money wasn’t going to get me, I resolved.
And in some ways, it hasn’t. I’m debt-free, I have a decent f*ck off fund. And while I’m far from rolling in it, I have enough. While things aren’t perfect, I don’t struggle with some of the money woes others endure, but my relationship with money remains complex and at times troubling. I still worry about wiping out my f*ck off fund and digging my own debt grave. I worry about being a penniless old lady in retirement.
And some days the thought crosses my mind: “I hate money.” I don’t think that feeling will ever go away entirely.
What I’ve found is that everyone has some sort of money woes. That’s right. Even those who seem to have it all figured out. Even those rare few who are champions of the FIRE movement (Financial independence, Retire Early), who retired in their 30s, and tout Instagram- lives, free of debt and are seriously wealthy mofos. Their issues with money may be different, and take on a new form, but they still persist.
The important thing is to recognize the relationship you have with your money is an important, ever-changing one. Pushing them aside will just cause further damage. It’s only by keeping one’s money issues top of mind that you can solve your problems and change the complex relationship you have with your finances.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
