Do you catch yourself telling your children the same disempowering statements about money that your parents taught (or modelled for) you? Then it might be time to reframe your money beliefs.

In our house, we talk in the currency of ‘worth it’, and the girls understood this concept from a young age. Money is finite and you can’t have everything you want. But what you can have is everything that’s WORTH IT.

In today’s episode I talk about HOW to reframe your money beliefs, so that you can live now AND invest for your future freedom.

Show Notes

• [01.01] Money Beliefs

• [02.02] Rewriting the story

• [03.56] The currency of ‘worth it’
  

Related posts and episodes

• The F*ck It Fund

• Reprioritising for financial ease and confidence with Donna Mc Callum

• Change your money thinking, change your life

• The challenge of giving your kids the best

• The little known, easily fixable reason most people aren’t financially free
  

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Quotes

“In order to TRULY grasp worth it, it’s always in comparison to whatever you're trading for, that is worth it.” – Lisa Linfield

“As we know, because money is finite, our income can only go to two things – either expenses, or investments for our financial freedom. We also need to therefore ask ourselves, do we want a bigger car or do we want to retire early?” – Lisa Linfield

“If I was to choose only ONE piece of advice to give a youngster, or my children, on how to become wealthy it would be this – Decide now what’s ‘Worth It’, spend well on that, and then ruthlessly cut back on everything else so that you can invest at a very young age for your financial freedom.” – Lisa Linfield

Script:

199 – How to reframe your money beliefs

Hello everyone and welcome to today’s episode of Working Women’s Wealth.  I’m Lisa Linfield and I’m building a community of Women who are committed to the journey of living Financially Free lives – so that we can have the money that enables us to CHOOSE – IF we want to work, where we work, and when, so that we can follow our dreams.

As you know, I launched my workshop Stress-Free Money Management last week – and we had such a lovely 2 hours together.  The feedback just made me realise how much I love teaching money and helping people see things from a completely different perspective. 

As an ice-breaker we did an exercise where we shared our earliest money memory or money belief we’d developed, and why we’d developed it, and how we would want to more consciously reframe that for our children.

I shared that my deepest money belief was that you had to work 7 days and nights a week to provide the money for your family.  My dad did that.  If I think of my dad while I was growing up, he always came home late from work, always worked at the dining room table after work, and every Saturday and Sunday would work at the dining room table.  “Dad works so hard to provide for us”.

So my belief is that if I wanted to provide for myself and my family, I had to trade many hours for my money.

And, I have completely followed in my dad’s footsteps.  Even though I am financially free, I still work 6 days a week, taking Sunday only off.

But, I am conscious to rewrite the story for my children. 

They know that mum loves her work, and she works because she loves it.  But I am also mindful to point out to them that mum needs to work on Saturday because she spent Tuesday and Thursday with you doing x,y or Z.  Because in reality, that’s closer to the truth.  I work hard because I love it.  And I work Saturdays if I have been doing stuff with the girls.  But they know that Sundays is their time.

I re-enforce the concept of the AND.  I love spending time with my family AND I love work.  And some of my work doesn’t feel like work, it feels like creative play (like building a website or a new course).  So last week when it was freezing and raining (before the snow came) and we were ALL in bed, I had my laptop and they were building a world in Minecraft.  When Em said, “mama, are you working?” I said “no baby, I’m building a pretty website”… she took a look, saw it, and smiled. 

Would I rather scroll social media or build a website?  Definitely build a website.

I want to reframe work for my children not as something you HAVE to do (even though I know it is when you don’t have money) to something you want or choose to do when you love the work you do.

So instead of “you have to work 7 days a week to provide for your family” I’d rather reframe to my kids a story which is “you have to invest from early on in your life so that your money can make free money so you can choose to do work you love”.

Still in bed on Saturday, I was looking at my investment accounts and showed Emma how much her birthday money investments had grown.  “See my love, right now you’ve made R460”.  She had a slight smile, but not a big appreciation of that as Children are very concrete.  So I translated it into her ‘Worth It’ language… gummies.  “That’s 46 bags of gummies FOR FREE!!!!!”  At which she had a HUGE smile and thought investing was clearly the answer to world peace!

Another common money story was “Money doesn’t grow on Trees!” which was definitely one we heard all the time.  It was like our request as a child was as far removed from reality as a money-growing tree.  For some, it could have been a request for a takeaway, or a pair of jeans, or a holiday, or I remember once asking for platform trainers.  And as children, it was confusing – other people had these things, so why would us asking for it be such a crazy concept?

It’s funny how these things stick with us.  About a year ago I went past a shop window and saw a pair of platform trainers.  I looked at them with the same longing as I did as a teenager when all I wanted to fit in was to have one of these.  So, I walked in and bought them.  Well, because I could.  And, because as I said in episode XXX, F-It, I work so hard, why not?

I laugh at myself – I think platform trainers are the most uncomfortable version of trainers around… but I still wear them!!!!

But that’s diverting.

So how do I reframe it for my kids?  I don’t really ever say that expression.  Again, we talk in the currency of ‘worth it.’ 

You see, I first introduced the concept to them of ‘worth it’ when it came to food.

Emma, one of my twins, loooooovvveeesss gummies.  For me, they aren’t worth it – they aren’t worth the sugar or unhealthiness factor.  I love chocolate or triple caramel ice cream.  They totally got this concept from a young age.

So, when we started talking about money and buying things, it became a ‘worth it’ factor.  Big cars in my mind were not worth it.

In order to TRULY grasp worth it, it’s always in comparison to something you’re trading it for.

I’d rather not spend my ‘unhealthy points’ on gummies, but I’m happy to spend them on ice-cream. 

And my kids know that when it comes to money, there are two things we value most – time together and holidays (because it’s time together).

When we were buying our new house in our new village, we were only planning to buy a weekend house and we looked two houses.  One of them was on a golf estate, huge, absolutely gorgeous, with dams and rivers and forests…a house the kids LOVED.  The other, a granny lived in, and you needed a little ‘vision’ to see it as attractive.  It was small, had a pretty view, but they had put a cardboard wall in to divide the home in half and sublet it.  There was nothing grand about it, no estate, no dams… but a beautiful view of the mountains and forests.

My girls naturally wanted us to get the big, beautiful house.

So, I explained to them that we could buy the big house.  But, that would mean we wouldn’t have the money to go on holidays.  That, every holiday we’d need to come from Joburg here because this would be our place.  But, we could buy the little place, AND have holidays – even go travelling overseas.

For them, the little house became worth it.  We were all adamant that our values as a family was spending time together.

Our worth it currency of holidays together extends to discussions on cars.  When my baby Honda Jazz couldn’t survive the farm roads, the family engaged in lots of discussions on cars.  The Discovery was a big one, the Prada and others were thrown around… but when it came to the decision, again, it came down to how many holidays we’d have to trade for a bigger car.

Your car and your house are expenses, not assets.  They don’t generate income, they only consume money.  Bigger houses, bigger taxes and electricity bills each month.  Bigger cars, more petrol or gas each month, bigger maintenance costs.

So you need to assess them against other expenses.  Do you want a big house, or an education for your kids?

And, as we know that money is finite, and our income can only go to two things – expenses or investments, we also need to ask ourselves – do we want a bigger car or do we want to retire early?

When we sold our second house at the river, and our big house in the city and traded it for a little house in the country, three things happened.  Not only did we free up money that went into investments, we also settled our outstanding debt, which stopped stupid interest costs that paid for the bankers to sit on the beach.  Thirdly, we dropped our expenses by 75% per month.

So we ended up not only increasing our investments – the reduced monthly costs meant we now no longer needed such a big amount to retire, and could retire early.

So it came down to the question, was a big house and a holiday house WORTH the freedom of never having to work for a boss, never having to work, and the ability to have freedom to choose if you work, when you work and with whom you work.

Money is finite, and as humans are desires are ALWAYS bigger than our current reality – whether you earn 5,000, 10,000 or 50,000.  It’s human nature.  It’s why we put people on the moon.

So you can’t have everything you want.  But what you can have is everything that’s WORTH IT.  For each of us that’s totally different.  You just need to decide for you what’s worth it… and everything else, you need to ruthlessly cut or trade back to a cheaper version of the same thing.

If I was to choose only ONE piece of advice to give a youngster on how to become wealthy it would be this – Decide now what’s ‘Worth It’, spend well on that, and ruthlessly cut back on everything else so you can invest the rest for freedom.

That’s how you get to live now AND invest for your future freedom.

I’m Lisa Linfield…