A Month for Making Peace With Money

Much of Sunday was spent playing with my grandchildren. Their parents had a long overdue weekend away and I wanted to help out the lovely young babysitting couple who were beginning to look a bit bedraggled.

Four-year-old Zachy and I spent the better part of an hour playing with Legos. When he lost interest in building a Space Age helicopter, I began picking up the hundreds of tiny pieces that were hiding in the shag rug.

Zachy left the room, When he returned a few minutes later, he declared, “I own you.”

I laughed and said, “What do you mean?” Zachy, who is frequently the most earnest kid I’ve ever met, explained that since I was doing all the work, he needed to pay me.

“Oh,” I said, “you mean you owe me, not own me.”

I asked what he planned to pay me. He had already figured that out.

He left the room and returned with the ziplock bag that serves as his piggy bank. “I’m giving you some of my Chuck E. Cheese tickets,” he proudly announced.

“Hmmm, I’m not really a big fan,” I said. He wondered why. “Well, I don’t like their pizza,” I explained (but avoided adding that I wasn’t crazy about the noisy atmosphere either).

That did not deter him. “You don’t have to get pizza,” he said. “You can use these tickets for the games.” His eyes lit up at the thought of all the fun he was offering me.

I thanked him and took the tickets which I returned to the ziplock bag later.

As so often happens, Zachy got me thinking. I had already decided to spend this month writing about money on this blog, but after this little encounter I realized that so many people are owned by money.

The good news is (as I’ve been pointing out for years) that self-employment is where we come to develop a healthy relationship with money. For most of us, that’s a lifelong project that involves challenging years of negative money messages.

While I’m not about to challenge Suze Orman to a debate, I am going to spend this month sharing ways that you can create abundance, prosperity and ease in the financial area of your life.

And I promise that you’ll never hear me use the popular expression, “in this tough economy.” Prosperity thinking is much bigger than that fear-filled slogan.

As Coco Chanel reminds us, “There are people who have money and people who are rich.” I’m thinking we can be both.

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Here’s a money smart idea. Join Terri Belford and me for the upcoming Obstacle- Busters Mastermind on September 14-16 in enchanting Albuquerque. Register before July 15 and you’ll save $100 on your enrollment.