On the scale of money, how do you measure?
How’s you money health? Mind you, I am not asking about your financial health — that may be up or down, and it is what it is. But what’s your relationship with money like?
Friend or foe
How does money make you feel? Not the lack of it or the prospect of a windfall… just the thought of money. Stressed? Anxious? Excited? Happy? Some are unaffected by the presence or absence of it. Their attitude to money is about making do with what they have and not letting it define their lives. And there are those who live for money, almost wedded to it, plotting and planning their lives around it.
The vast majority of the population, however, are somewhere in between. We have too much going on to devote ourselves to money, and yet, our lives demand it with such consistent regularity that we can never shrug it off. And so begins our relationship with money, through jobs, through marriage, through reaching the milestones already marked ahead.
Playing with money
Do you remember playing Monopoly? Do you remember the edge of arrogance that creeps in when your pile is growing and you’ve added hotels to your kitty? That’s what having money makes us feel. We walk a little taller when we go to the bank. We enter stores with confidence, knowing that we don’t have to look at the sale rack. To be able to spend gives us such a sense of power. If you live from paycheck to paycheck, you probably experience this every month. Think about how you feel on Pay Day and how you feel at the end of the month, how that self-assurance winds down to those last few days of lying low timidly.
We judge ourselves and each other by our ability to spend. It is a measure of our self-worth — the most important social measure. On the scale of money, everyone — relatives, neighbors, old schoolmates, acquaintances — can be measured without exception. There has never been a more universal indicator of an individual’s worth than money.
Let’s talk about money
And yet, money and sex are still considered taboo topics in most homes. There are a number of surveys done that show that parents would rather talk about sex than money with their children. Leave aside parents, even peer groups shy away from being open about money. Try this when you meet your cousins or friends: Ask them — as one surveyor did — two questions, their favorite sexual position, and their bank balance. You’re more likely to get a ready answer for the former, and a fidget-and-pause for the latter. Ask yourself what you’d reply to, and there you have it.
In the Indian context, this is not a blanket norm. Traditional Indian merchant communities famously manage successful small to mid businesses that are staffed almost entirely by the family. Here, training begins early, when younger family members are roped in to “help at the shop”. After-school hours and holidays are not wasted but used to impart useful and practical lessons in negotiating with suppliers and customers, managing staff, and the most important one — dealing with money. Their children watch and learn from the best, and consequently, their relationship with money is not fraught with stress.
Making friends with money
I once accompanied a friend on her shopping. We stopped at one of her regular stores where it was a quiet day. My friend asked the proprietor, “What do you do when there are no customers?” He replied “I go shopping.”
My friend was incredulous, “You spend money on days you don’t earn any? Is that even wise?”
“Well,” said the man. “It’s only when I put out money with one hand will it return to the other.”
His relationship with money was enviable, with the right amount of brazenness but stopping short of foolishness.
We spend every day dealing with money without perhaps realising how much it’s influenced from our relationship with it. We are influenced by a narrative we’ve spun for ourselves that influences every financial decision we’ll ever make. Which brings us back to the beginning of this story and the need to revisit and rewrite our own money story.
