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Browsing category: Uncategorized

  • February 27, 2018

    Hope for the best, plan for the worst: On balancing a positive mindset with our pesky mate Murphy

    why you should hope for the best but plan for the worst

    I’m a big believer in Murphy’s law. A bit of a pessimist that way. Particularly when it comes to finances.

    I’m also a more recent convert to positive thinking, the power of mindset and yeah, maybe even manifestation to an extent.

    Which leaves me struggling a bit to reconcile the two approaches. They seem at odds, right?

    A few years ago I made the conscious choice to try and shift my thinking on the regular, and make an effort to switch up my default state.

    Amazingly … it made a difference. I wouldn’t say it changed my core personality – I’m definitely still a realist, with the same sarcastic tongue and sense of humour – but it actually did wonders for my state of mind and made me a more pleasant person to be around.

    Last year I really started to delve more into mindset, with books like Think and Grow Rich, You Are a Badass at Making Money, Secrets of Six-Figure Women.

    Hell, I even changed my passwords like some say to do, so that your goal is front of mind each time you type it in.

    Is it helping? Can’t hurt, I figure … there’s nothing to lose. At the very least, it reminds me of my goals multiple times a day.

    Of course, not everything is within our control and shit happens. Positive thinking doesn’t mean burying your head in the sand and blinding yourself to reality.

    But it can definitely shore up your ability to cope with setbacks and manage stress. I’ve found that opening up my mind like this has led to me to see more possibilities and think differently in order to succeed.

    Balancing these viewpoints, I’ve come to realise that this is something I’ve basically always proclaimed to aspire to:

    Live for today, save for tomorrow.

    Hope for the best, but also, plan for the worst.

    What would yours be?

  • February 14, 2018

    What makes you feel rich?

    How little things can make you feel rich every day

    Aside from actually looking at your account balances, that is!

    For me, it’s things like…

    Passing a WOF

    After years of expensive Warrant of Fitness checks (they always struck terror into my heart – our crappy car always failed and so it was never a question of whether we needed to sink money into it to pass the WOF, but how much). Since buying this car, that stress has totally gone away, and we only need to go once a year as opposed to every six months. It’s such a great feeling to pass the first time around. And it still feels like a luxury.

    Going to the movies

    We’re lucky that competition in our part of the city has driven prices down. Instead of paying $15 or more per ticket, we can buy tickets for under $9 at our local cinema! Even so, going to the movies still feels like a big extravagance to me.

    As a kid we only ever rented movies from the video store. Even though new releases ($8 for overnight) cost more than a child movie ticket. (Sure, more than one person can watch it if you’re hiring movies to play at home … but it was only ever just me, as my parents aren’t into movies and my brother was so much younger.)

    Getting food delivered

    Recently UberEats launched here and I got a $10 voucher to use on it. There’s something so crazy indulgent about having a meal come to you without having to lift a finger (aside from tapping out your order in the app). I feel very strange about having a person rock up at my door with dinner from an outlet that’s literally located just a few minutes away. Not planning to make this a habit, but a good backup for when you’re bedridden with the winter flu potentially and can’t rustle up real food for yourself!

    It’s different for everyone…

    This all stemmed from a random conversation we had the other day when T talked about how as a kid, a bucket of chicken from KFC was kind of a signifier of money – it’s something he didn’t see or experience until adulthood. And how in general they never had name brand stuff growing up. These days it’s often important to him to get branded stuff if it’s going to last longer; the flipside is that having grown up with cheap stuff that they weren’t taught to care for or treat well, looking after the good stuff properly is not an instinctive thing either.

    For me, if I go back to my childhood … I don’t think we ever paid full price for anything, so buying something that’s not on sale sometimes still feels like a splurge.

    What little things make you feel rich?

    *Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich.*

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  • January 31, 2018

    Blogging helped me shape the life I wanted, but I rarely blog anymore (a guest post)

    How blogging changed my life

    This is a post from a dear friend and former PF blogger – who’s forged her own path and is killing it if I do say so myself. Enjoy 🙂

    There was a season, many years ago, when blogging was my passion and surrounded everything I did. I blogged my heart out from 2011 to 2013 and sold my blog by the end of that year. I still write online here and there, but blogging doesn’t consume me the way it did when I had a very personal personal finance blog.

    Blogging Can Change Your Life (It Changed Mine)

    Blogging was one of the best, purpose-driven actions I ever took. When I created my blog, I was 28 years old and loaded with over $30,000 of credit card debt. I was unorganized, unsure of where I was headed and frustrated that I always felt broke and trapped in debt. I was good at math, so what the heck was my problem?

    Googling my way to a solution, I read a half-dozen personal finance blogs where people took stock of their finances and dispensed advice on ways to keep improving, and I knew I had to start my own blog.

    I won’t bore you with the details, because mine is a tale that’s literally become creation myth for hundreds of personal finance bloggers.

    So here is the short version: I got my act together financially, paid off ALL my debt, got a much better job and found much deeper happiness in a more frugal and less consumption-focused lifestyle. I completed what I set out to do: paid off my debt and took charge of my life and the incredible growth I had experienced in the past couple years through my blog and connection to the blogging community would soon come from another interest (more on that later).

    Fast forward five years to present day, and my life doesn’t resemble those who have turned blogging into a full-time gig. People who used to comment on my blog are straight up famous now!

    Some Bloggers Became HUGE

    If you look at the Personal Finance Blog alumni network of circa 2012 (my term), it’s a Who’s Who of media personalities: Jeff Rose is a personal finance media powerhouse and recently starred in a TLC reality TV show. Cait Flanders is well on her way to becoming a NYT-bestselling author with her first book, The Year of Less. Michelle Schroeder is about to start sailing around the world while raking in over $100K a month from her blog. I just saw Ramit Sethi on Adam Ruins Everything, among many other TV appearances. Even still-anonymous Financial Samurai dominates the first page of Google search results for tons of key personal finance concepts, bringing in new readers daily to his tongue-in-cheek personal finance site.

    A lot of the bloggers I used to know have become polished, gleaming gurus in their own right, selling courses, books, ebooks, hosting podcasts, web series and having fun doing it. If there was one key that it seemed all of us bloggers were interested in both then and now, it was that often talked about, rarely grasped, tenuous freedom we seek in our brief lives.

    I’ve watched all of this growth from the outside now. The last FinCon I attended was back in 2012. I don’t really comment on or read personal finance blogs anymore, although I am lucky to count NZMuse among a few others as real-life friends who I get to visit and have come visit me.

    But all of the incredible growth and success that I have witnessed sometimes makes me wonder: should I have kept on blogging? Didn’t I still have a story to tell? Did I miss my calling as a successful blogger, escaping the 9-5 and creating my own destiny?

    It’s the Growth that Matters, Not the Blog

    I won’t keep you in suspense for long: being a big time blogger or an online personality is just not for me.

    Over the past eight years, I have found a role in a niche industry that I am passionate about and I freaking love what I do. I work with my friends. We laugh all day long as we navigate a fast-changing and fascinating market. I get invited to speak at conferences as an “expert”, which I like to shrug off as no big deal, but I really do know this business and I’m good at sharing my knowledge.

    This is not an industry where everything is moving online or where you would be successful as a one-person or two-person shop. This industry requires a shitload of capital (political, social and economic). It’s easy to forget if your business revolves around online media, social media and direct to consumer marketing, but it’s a big world out there. Not all of it gets written about online.

    There are more ways to find your calling, your passion or whatever they call it these days then refining a product to sell to your email list. There are more ways to become wealthy (if that’s your goal) than to hawk affiliate products, consumer products or be a media personality and get paid for that.

    I know that sounds dismissive, but I don’t mean it to be so. No one knows better than a formerly mediocre blogger how hard it is to be a successful, profitable blogger. Plus, bloggers live a lifestyle that is unconventional and that’s not easy either, because people will always question anything that threatens their conventional understanding of the world. So I do think bloggers are pretty awesome.

    But sometimes I get lost in their earnest calls to action. I’ve wondered if I’m doing something wrong because I still work.in.an.office (shudder) and I still get a biweekly paycheck (I’ll pause while the bloggers collectively cringe).

    Work is What You Make It

    But you know what? I decide when I go to work. I travel as much as I want. I get access to certain travel and business opportunities through work that I never imagined. I may still move on to other ventures on my own, and I am an active investor, but I am right where I need to be. I am somewhere in the top 1% of earners in my specific category (age, gender, education) and top 2% of all US wage earners. As much as possible, I have been creating my own destiny, and I like where it’s headed.

    I don’t want to focus on how much money I make as if that validates me. I don’t think it does. Way back in the beginning, I said I started to find another outlet that led to growth after I sold my blog. Are you ready for it?

    The Only Way Out is In

    I started looking inward. I found a spiritual home in a 12-step meeting group, and even though I don’t abuse any substances, I found accountability, honesty and openness by attending those meetings and connecting to the idea of the twelve steps. Nowadays, I put my spiritual growth and mindfulness even ahead of the growth that I realized through blogging.

    I would have never gotten to the 12 steps and mindfulness (I even go on meditation retreats!) without blogging. I had to break through the fog of my unconscious habits, consumerism and untested assumptions through blogging in order to be ready to look at deeper concepts in my life.

    The path I walk now doesn’t need external validation. It doesn’t matter whether I create my own destiny as a freelancer, blogger, office worker or anything else. It doesn’t check if I’m doing a lot of things that look fun and amazing to the outside world. It doesn’t depend on another person for my happiness. It doesn’t even purport that happiness is the be-all, end-all of my existence. But the path I am on provides a lot of peace and serenity that I never knew before.

    So that’s my story. There’s no product to sell and I don’t have a crafted online image or personality that I can present to the world. But that’s the way I prefer it. I have found other ways to connect to people and I may still write that novel yet (creators gotta create!).

    The lessons I learned from having a blog changed my life and got me where I wanted to be in my life and career. I will never doubt my ability to create something, because having a blog allowed me to hit publish, create and reach readers. A blog is a great equalizer, allowing me to connect on a platform where I was only as good as my last post.

    I took that lesson and now I create things offline and I don’t talk about it online. But without the blog, I may never have learned to believe in myself.

  • January 17, 2018

    Productive worrying vs pointless spiralling: How I stop myself from freaking out about money

    how to stop worrying about money

    $&@*!!!!

    That was my reaction a few weeks ago when the first pay day of the year arrived … and I hadn’t been paid.

    My mind immediately went into overdrive.

    Where was the money?
    Was it just delayed due to the New Year public holidays?
    Had it not been processed by the finance team?
    What if I wasn’t going to get paid at all?
    What would this mean for cashflow for the next week, and the week after, and the week after, and the week after? I’d have to tap into savings, maybe take some from the house renovation fund …

    And so on and so forth. Straight into the worst case scenario and all the disastrous consequences.

    It’s so easy to spiral – but I managed to take a deep breath before spinning totally out of control and reassess.

    I had enough in that account to pay the mortgage – priority numero uno.

    Cash savings elsewhere would tide me over for all the other expenses.

    And that was all I truly needed to think about right then and there.

    No use immediately jumping to catastrophic conclusions and getting lost down the paths of endless what ifs.

    Worrying isn’t always a bad thing, if you know when to stop

    There’s the productive kind that leads to making contingency plans.

    But then there’s needless stressing. It’s like picking a scab.

    It serves no purpose whatsoever – aside, perhaps, from giving your mind something to do. And the only possible result is that you make yourself feel worse and worse as it drives you into a frenzy of fear and self pity (you know exactly what I’m talking about).

    That’s unhelpful, unhealthy, and it’s something I’ve worked hard to cut out.

    It doesn’t sound like much, but I was super proud of myself for catching myself in the act and nipping it in the bud.

    Because as it turns out, my biggest downfall is my own hyperactive mind. Some might abuse substances, or food; my destructive behaviour manifests as compulsive, obsessive stressing.

    Happy ending! The money came through sometime between then and the next time I checked back – which I refrained from doing until the next day. All that fretting would have been for nothing.

    The urge to scratch that itch was strong, but every time I stamp it down it gets a little easier.

    Rewiring your mind

    Another example: several months ago I got a letter from the owner/landlord of the neighbouring property. They wanted to put up a new fence … and their estimate was over $6,000, or $3,000 for my half.

    Now, a new fence is on the roadmap for us, and it’s something we wanted to get done as soon as possible. But not just yet (the kitchen comes first) and certainly not at that price. $3k for a fence was not in the budget any time soon.

    I stressed out majorly about this. Raged, worried, spent ages researching the law and our obligations. Wrote back outlining my viewpoint and countering their proposal (which boiled down to, we do not currently have the funds or desire to do this right now).

    Then it was just a matter of waiting. Time enough for me to review the situation with a clearer mind and reassure myself that even if this were to go ahead, I could absorb the expense. Sure, it would make a massive dent in my savings and postpone our kitchen project for who knows how long … but it wouldn’t ruin me.

    Time passed and no response came, so: crisis averted. We can tackle the fence later  when we’re in a position to do so.

    And that was a huge exercise in resetting my emotional reactions, and a big leap forward for me. In fact, I think it was my biggest breakthrough in terms of stopping the spiral before it went too far.

    Breaking the cycle

    Since then, I’ve taught myself to allow less and less time to freak the fuck out, and more quickly move on to considering the options, and accepting the possible outcomes. Stop panicking. Stop spiralling. Stop freaking out about money.

    Overwriting that thought pattern takes time, just like building any muscle or habit. Developing the self awareness and self control so that you can catch yourself before the worrying stops being productive and crosses over into self flagellation.

    You’ve got to be able to recognise when you’re heading down that path, and make the choice to break the cycle right there.

    It’ll do wonders for your happiness. Seriously, learning to not let my scarcity mindset drag me down is probably my favourite life hack ever.

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  • January 13, 2018

    Mt Maunganui, at last!

    Tauranga highlights - Moturiki Leisure Island, our rural Airbnb with views to Mt Maunganui and Kaiate Falls

    Moturiki Island, our rural Airbnb with views to Mt Maunganui and Kaiate Falls

     

    I’ve been saying for ages that it’s crazy that I’ve still never been to Mt Maunganui! Well, that got rectified over the Christmas break. Here are a few highlights from our whirlwind trip into the Bay of Plenty.

    Pies!

    From the award winning Gold Star Patrick’s Pies, that is. Lots of interesting flavour combinations there – but go early, the selection was a bit limited by the time we arrived late afternoon (damn Auckland-fleeing traffic).

    Mt Maunganui

    The Mount itself dominates the landscape all around – it’s THE icon of the region. We only walked as far as Pilot Bay … it was so freaking hot, we didn’t feel like climbing the whole thing and it was way later in the day than we expected given the traffic – maybe next time?

    Hot pools

    They’re not really our thing, but we had to try the famous Mt Maunganui salt water pools out. It was worth it to get a private pool room given that we didn’t plan to stay for ages as the price was only marginally higher.

    Moturiki Island

    Another wacky thing about the Mount – this little island you can walk to from the beach! Great vantage point for the views, and cute rabbits scampering around.

    Our countryside Airbnb

    We stayed in a rural rental just a short drive away. And yet it was like a whole different world – utterly silent at night, once the cows on nearby farms piped down, that is. The property was full of gardens and trees – the hosts were organic growers, who supplied fresh fruit, muffins and juice. It kinda made me want to retire to the countryside right now.

    Kaiate Falls

    Making up for the hike we didn’t do at the Mount! The thundering falls were an awesome sight as were the rocks where dozens or maybe even hundreds of people had carved their names.

  • January 11, 2018

    Do the right thing, dammit (even if it’s not the easy thing)

    WHY IT PAYS TO DO THE RIGHT THING

    The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.

    Ain’t that the truth?

     

    Thing is, taking the easy way out will often backfire. Laziness, procrastination, whatever you want to call it … sometimes it comes back to bite you square on the butt.

    And I don’t know about you, but very few things annoy me quite as much as putting things off for later only for it to come back and cost me later.

    How laziness can be expensive, in two case studies:

    Example A: The oil leak

    Our car boot has been home to a spear (as in spearfishing) for awhile – it’s just been kicking around in there since a mate left it there.

    Then we bought some oil for the car, since it’s about due for a service. Left that in the boot too, until a few days later when T went to retrieve it …

    Cue oil leak. The dang spear pierced the bottom of the oil bottle and about 80% of the contents leaked, seeping into the boot carpeting and down into the spare tyre alcove (at least the cap didn’t come off, a gushing flood would have been SO much worse).

    To add insult to injury, we have a protective rubber liner that usually lives on the boot floor but had been putting off putting it back in after taking it out for a cleaning ages ago. If that had been in place, it would have been much tidier and made cleaning up a cinch.

    The damage: about $50 in oil and the subsequent cleanup.

    Example B: The water leak

    We took out part of a wall over the holidays, as part of the kitchen project. We did get an absolute steal on the labour because we know the guys, but they are legit building professionals.

    Afterward, they apparently swept a bunch of the detritus straight through the hole in the floor, under the house. I learned this too late, and was wringing my hands about it (“what about the dogs?! You KNOW they like to wander underneath the house sometimes, and they could get hurt!”)

    Alas, what was done was done.

    And then a few days later I suspected a leak. Sure enough, we have a tiny little rubber water hose running below the house – it connects the main tap to our fridge (our new fridge has a cold water dispenser built in) and in their willy nilly dumping of crap through the floor instead of disposing of it properly, must have punctured the hose.

    The damage: TBC. I’m hoping it won’t have majorly impacted our water bill, given how small the hose is and the size of the hole/leak. And I doubt that amount of water will have done much damage to the house itself. But I’m still majorly annoyed about it .

    (The fix: I faced my claustrophobia and crawled under the house to snip the hose off before the leak and cap it there to stop the flow. It SUCKED but at least now I know I can handle it, dirt and all. I still, however, refuse to try to get up into the roof … that involves putting a chair in our tiny hall closet and then squeezing through an even smaller hole to reach the roof space.)

    Laziness costs money, guys.

    Ever taken the easy route and wound up regretting it?

  • January 8, 2018

    A short, sweet, 2017 highlights reel

    2017 review

    Most people did their 2017 reviews in, er, 2017. Oops.

    December was a month of two halves for me: a manic first half, and then a super chilled second half in which I had zero desire to write! Hence this extremely late recap

    Work & Money

    • Delivered some cool projects
    • Joined a nonprofit board
    • Landed a new job
    • Got great feedback 4 months in
    • Reached a milestone net worth goal

    Home (er, credit mostly to T)

    • Got the veggie garden fenced off
    • Built dog kennels
    • Finished printing and framing photos for the wall
    • Began kitchen renovation

    Fitness

    • Started using the Seven app (lightning quick workouts you can do at home)
    • Experimented with fitness tracking – testing out app + watch device for a friend’s startup employer
    • Played Frisbee for the spring season (it’s, surprisingly, freaking good exercise)
    • Played touch rugby (though  not for the full season)

    Personal

    • Continued to work on Leila’s dog-dog reactivity
    • Had several fun doggy dates
    • Went to two weddings
    • Met two friends’ new babies
    • Actually picked up my guitar a few times
    • Did a LOT of inner work on mindset, stress management, etc

    I’m impatient to see what 2018 has in store for me – I can’t wait! And I may finally be coming out of the blogging dry spell I’ve been in … for the first time in months, I’ve got ideas for new posts brewing. Happy new year indeed.

  • December 20, 2017

    When it comes to money, you win some and you lose some

    My grocery shopping game weakens every week now that we do so much of it online. My new groove is going to the supermarket near work at lunch to pick up supplies, which costs more than if I were to plan ahead better – but at least I have a few teammates who do the same thing, so it’s like going out for lunch together but way more frugal!

    Max (our big dopey dog) will need some teeth yanked. Eeeek.

    I’ve been saving a bit of money here and there on commuting, getting a ride in with T sometimes in the morning (OTOH, this occasionally results in him ranting about particular issues which I have no interest in debating, least of all at 7am before work).

    After getting into a bit of a musical rut I downgraded to the free Spotify for a bit in favour of just listening to podcasts on the train, and then took up a 3-months-for-the-price-of-one deal for Premium. Particularly in summer, it’s so worth it to me to have offline music access.

    A little trip we were looking forward to won’t be happening after all, but financially this saves big $$$!

    I ordered a couple of small dog toys ages ago that went missing in the post but this is finally getting resolved!

    For the first time ever, I now have a phone with a monthly contract that I’m paying for myself. Most of my jobs have provided a phone (usually an iPhone) but currently this isn’t the case. There really wasn’t a saving to be made by buying outright vs going on a plan, and so despite my hatred of commitment to these things I’m now four months into a two-year deal.

    I’m loving watching my investments grow month on month now – while I didn’t hit my stretch salary goal with this offer, the awesome benefits (particularly around retirement contributions) mean that the total package is definitely worth around that target.

  • November 22, 2017

    The soul-sucking agony of job interviews

    The soul sucking agony of job interviews

     

    I knew my lucky streak couldn’t last forever, particularly after acknowledging it on the blog.

    My most recent job hunt took longer than I expected. It consumed my life – monitoring listings, reaching out to contacts, crafting cover letters and tweaking my resume, over and over again.

    Then the phone interviews (a nightmare to wrangle when you work in an open plan office with virtually no private spaces, and you don’t drive to work) and of course, the in person interviews!

    Here are a few highlights:

    • The interview that never was. I had phone confirmation (but no email confirmation) and when I turned up the interviewer wasn’t there. I’d left work early and gone all that way (it wasn’t a super handy location) and she was a no show – she was in another city that day!
    • The interview that started super late. I scheduled this one for my lunch break expecting to be back at work within an hour, give or take, even with travel time. Nope! I turned up on time, but they didn’t. The longer I waited the more nervous I got, being painfully aware of time ticking on. We didn’t begin until about 20 minutes after the scheduled start and their lateness really threw me off – I spent half of the interview worrying about making it back to work at a reasonable time, and the other struggling to keep up with their aggressive interviewing style. Did I mention that the interviewers were not the same people HR told me I I would meet with?! Just a disaster from start to finish.
    • The interview on my birthday. I took annual leave so that I could have a day at home to chill out, but you know what? The day before I got a frantic email from a recruiter who had been ‘trying to reach me for days’ (they most certainly had not). Cue a phone call in which they declared that my birthday was the only day on which they were holding interviews. I opted for an early slot to get it out of the way, and trekked into the city and back on my birthday just for it. (I didn’t get that job, but later that day I got a call about an interview – for another company I’d given up on ever hearing back from – for the next day, which wound up being The One.)

    Now I can look back and laugh, but dammit, it was grueling and disheartening at the time.

    And it all worked out perfectly in the end, as it always has in this regard. #praisebe

  • November 9, 2017

    Ever feel like you don’t deserve your good fortune?

    When you feel like you don't deserve your good fortune

    For all the work I’ve been doing on money and mindset recently, I still struggle sometimes with it all.

    The last few years have been awesome for my income growth  and financial security.

    And yet the thought keeps rearing its head: I don’t deserve this. How long can this last?

    What I’m doing to counter these doubts:

    Reminding myself there is room to grow

    I know it’s possible to do so. Salary surveys and job listings out there prove it. As do people I’ve worked with who earn more. (Of course, this leads to another dangerous path that lies in the complete opposite direction – why don’t I already make that much?)

    Remembering that me having less doesn’t make the world a better place somehow

    The starving artist, nobility is poverty mindset dies hard, I guess. And it’s ridiculous. Me struggling would do nobody any good. I try to remember to give back by donating every month, as well as trying to somewhat regularly give blood, meet up with my mentee, and I’ve also recently joined a local nonprofit board. (Another trigger for imposter syndrome right there!)

    Reviewing how far I’ve come

    I’m horrible at tracking my accomplishments. But I recently updated my CV and LinkedIn (you don’t even want to know how long that took me) and when I’m feeling down on myself professionally, I look back at some of the stuff I’ve done for reassurance.

    How do you cope when you feel like you don’t deserve what you’ve got?

     

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