Are You a Good Money Parent? A Gift Inside…

Yeah. A money parent.

Maybe you think I’ve gone off the deep end, but I assure you, I (probably) haven’t. One of my absolute favorite authors of all time, as you may have read in another post, is Marilyn Jenett. She is a prosperity/money coach. Hey, we all need one! But I love her articles, her thinking, and her way of communicating about money and our feelings towards money.

Yesterday, on Valentine’s Day, her newsletter spoke about loving money and it resonated with me. She talked about how if we don’t love our money, we repel it. (I follow many prosperity writers/coaches so I’m familiar with most of the concepts out there, but this idea had a twist to it…).We can walk around saying “Boy, I love money,” or, “I love making money,” but if you are afraid of opening your checkbook or online account, you don’t love money, you are afraid of it. Here’s a short excerpt from her piece, but I encourage you to read the entire piece which I have created into a PDF for you to download if you’re interested:

Are you a gardener? Do you believe that when you love your plants, you nurture them and they are happier and healthier plants? How about your children? What happens when you love them and nurture them?

Is there anything you can think of in your life that does not grow and prosper when showered with love and blessing and praise? If you love your body, it will respond with health and vitality. If you love your work or your business, it will grow and prosper. Well, you can also love money right into your life.

–excerpt from Marilyn Jenett’s article on “Should We Really Love Our Money,” Feb. 14th, 2013.

So, why did this resonate with me? The parenting part got to me. I go around saying “I love money.” But…I am afraid of it. I hate opening my checking statements–I toss them aside hoping they will go away. Same with investment statements. I have literally left a pile of unopened envelopes from Fidelity about one of my accounts collecting dust on my shelf. From 2010 and 2011. I’m afraid of my own money. Gulp. And would I toss my kids into a pile and forget about them hoping they’d go away? No!

If you read Marilyn’s article, she talks about how to personify money. I’ve heard other personal finance folks talk about how you have to make your money into little soldiers that work for you. I can’t visualize or feel that. And I can’t visualize money as a person. Until I remembered those cute little Scrubbing Bubbles guys. That’s when I realized that I could personify my money, my checkbook, my files, my invoices, my check stubs, you name it, I can now personify it. Call me crazy….but…

old checkbook cover, new checkbook cover — I finally tossed the ripped vinyl blue checkbook cover for the leather one with the nice patina. I could feel my checkbook sigh with relief!

…I woke up this morning feeling terrible about how I’ve treated my money, my statements, my files, etc. and I promptly fixed it! My checkbook had this decrepit old vinyl cover until this morning when I dug out a gorgeous leather Coach checkbook cover I received as a gift looooong ago. Now, my checkbook feels “taken care of” and I swear, more loved. I made a beautiful clean binder for our 2013 investment statements, cleaned up the big book of unopened statements from 2010 through 2012, finally made nice, neat files for our paid bills (all of which were piling up on my office floor) I’m ready to be a better money parent and nurture my money so it doesn’t run away ;–)

If you think this concept is nutty, well, you can always try it on your kids. They may like it. Otherwise, enjoy the PDF and go to Marilyn’s website for some great ideas and insights about money (and again, I have no affiliation with her, just love her stuff and want to share her gifts).

~Marilyn, TFF

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