Get Happy With Your Money
Updated: Mar 25, 2020
I talk with a lot of people about their finances – a lot – and if there’s anything I have learned it is that people are not happy with their money. They feel guilty about their spending and savings habits, feel they need to justify purchases and always end the month without.
Mike Rowe, host of ‘Dirty Jobs’ answered this to someone who was having a hard time finding a job they were ‘happy’ with:
Happiness doesn’t come from a job. It comes from knowing what you truly value, and behaving in a way that’s consistent with those beliefs.
Every household, no matter what stage of life – married, single, divorced, retired, etc – can benefit from considering their values as it relates to their finances, investing, goal setting, etc. Once the values have been established, the decisions become easy.
Let’s talk about these values for a few minutes. First, let’s talk about spending. If a household sat down and said, “We value being debt free,” a number of decisions get really easy. “Should we buy a brand new car that will take us 8 years to pay off?” “Should we buy a brand new house with an accompanying $350,000 mortgage?” “Should we apply this work bonus to our mortgage using a pre-payment option?” Easy questions to answer once the household value is identified.
How about investing? “I value long term growth over safety and low volatility,” is a different statement from, “I value security in my investments.” Each of these investment statements mean that many strategies are immediately eliminated and need never be considered again – how’s that for simplifying the decision making process!
One of the issues here is that some values are ‘better’ than others – or so we think. There is no inherent benefit to valuing security over growth or vice versa. The important part is to follow your values so that your investment experience matches your values.
Values based investing isn’t about the investment itself – it’s about you.
If you don’t know what your values are, contact me and we can figure it out together.
Chris Worby is a Trusted Regina based financial advisor and Wealth Management services provider servicing local Regina households and businesses. Since 2001, Chris has been committed to providing a high standard of financial service to individuals, families and business owners. Chris listens and provides a personalized financial plan.