Money, money, money….shhhhhhh!

Let’s talk about money.   I’ll go first:  I like it, I’m for it and I want to collect as much as I can.  I know this is a very unfashionable thing to say, but I’m past worrying about fashion.  Here’s what I think; I think that most of you feel exactly the same way, but it would be unseemly or crass to say it out loud.  It’s okay if you feel that way, because this post is aimed directly between your eyes.

I’ve always liked money and have always been quite the little saver from the time I was a kid, when I hoarded my allowance and couldn’t wait to put in my little bank every week.   Every Christmas, I would get checks from a few relatives and I nagged my mom to take me to the bank, so I could deposit the money in my passbook savings account.

In junior high and high school, I saved not only my allowance, but all of the lunch money that my mom gave me, so that I could buy a tennis racket and a 10 speed Schwinn bicycle.  I managed to talk my friends into buying me cookies and milk, while I saved my money, but that’s not the worst of it.  In 9th grade, I would kiss Clayton Rice in the band room for a quarter, everyday!  I look back on it now and am thankful that he never produced a $100 bill or my life may have taken a completely different turn. He became my actual boyfriend and so I lost that stream of revenue.  It’s indecent to charge your boyfriend for, well, you know.  By then, I was old enough to get a real job serving food for tips.

As a grown-up I’ve been completely happy to collect and nurture my money through hard work and discipline.  Ever since my first post-college job, where I made all of  $9000 a year, I’ve always set aside whatever I could afford, with every single paycheck.  Eventually, I set a goal to save at least 10% of what I made.  I married a man who shares my money style and over the years, we’ve scraped together a decent nest egg.

In this country, we’re accused of having ‘puritanical’ views on sex.  I beg to differ; the current culture is absolutely INFUSED with sex, to the point where it’s actually kind of boring and fake and silly.  Where we’re puritanical, is in talking about money.  Go ahead, get with a group of people and start talking about money, I dare you.  If you want to see people screaming and hyperventilating and calling you names, try to have a healthy conversation about money.  Admitting that you earn a decent living, have invested smartly and want to have more money, is like unveiling pornography at Sunday school!

The current climate in our society encourages denial that money is important to you; to be suspicious or downright hostile toward wealth or success.  What hypocrisy.  I have YET to meet anyone who doesn’t wish for higher pay or more money.  And yet, it’s fashionable to deny any interest in money and in my opinion, that’s not noble or hip or realistic.  In fact, it’s flat-out stupid.  I like to live in the real world where money is necessary to fund the basics in life.  I prefer to have more than just the basics and have worked really hard to to make and save enough money to ensure that not only are our basic needs met, but that we can live comfortably and donate to worthy causes.

If you deny the importance of money or think it’s cool to ignore it, you’ll never have enough to meet and exceed those basic needs.  In Deepak Chopra’s book, “Creating Affluence,” he said that money is like blood; it must flow, in order to create wealth in a society and wealth is good, if you hope to be gainfully employed.  Notice I said “wealth is good”, not “greed is good”.  There is a big difference.  For those of you who are into the whole Law of Attraction philosophy, wealth can also be termed abundance.

So, let’s dig down to what money represents to me.  First off, I equate it with security; I want to be able to pay may own way without outside help.  When you rely on others to pay your way, there are ALWAYS strings attached.  Keep this in mind, as we seem to be moving toward some other entity paying for our needs: strings, hassles and following THEIR rules, rather than your own.  Secondly, money is freedom.  Read the book, “Your Money or your Life” for a blueprint of how you can achieve financial freedom.  If you have enough money put away, you are no longer beholden to others: your job, your family, the government (UGH!).  You may think that’s out of your reach, but with proper discipline and planning, you can certainly move toward that goal, if it appeals to you.

Look, I’m not saying that money should supersede happiness or fulfillment.  Don’t sell your soul for a piece of gold, but don’t feel awful about making it, growing it and yes, giving some away.

The REAL reason to love Oprah

 

I originally posted this  about a year and a half ago, but since this is  week is Oprah’s swan song for her syndicated show, I thought I would re-post.  Let me know what you think.

I am about to make a shocking admission to all of you:  I’m a middle-aged woman who doesn’t worship Oprah.  Hold on……I’m waiting for the lightening bolt….because for a woman to say that she’s not on Oprah’s team, is the equivalent of coming out against oxygen.  But, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Oprah and full disclosure:  I rarely watch her show anymore, but do catch one once in a while and I pick up her magazine a few times a year.  Having said that, I’m well aware of Oprah’s mission to make us all ‘just great’ and that’s where the problem comes in for me.  Oprah’s a smart cookie, so she KNOWS that if we all begin to love ourselves, as she proposes, we’ll have no use for her and her empire!  Which is where the cynic in me kicks in.  Oprah KNOWS that we’ll never love ourselves enough to dump her.  How does she know this?  Because Oprah, who is worth billions, has houses all over the world, is one of the most famous people in the universe, is hugely influential, perhaps to the point of electing a president, still doesn’t really like herself all that much.

“Oh, Jane, how can you say such a thing”!!!  Well, because, she’s gained back a bunch of weight (again), she is on a constant search for enlightenment, either through some cleansing program, or another spiritual ‘guide’, or she’s buying stuff.  But, even as she tries to fix herself, she realizes that the collective self-loathing among lots of us chicks, is enough to keep her Oprah brand in business for decades and that’s not necessarily a criticism, since many of her followers love that about her; she’s flawed like us!  Well, yeah, but she’s NOT like us and that brings me to what I love about Oprah: She’s RICH, RICH, RICH!!!!  Fabulously wealthy in a way that none of us will ever know.  But we could, if we put in the time, effort, sacrifices and toughness that it takes to achieve her level of success.

Here’s another thing to love about O:  she’s made many other people wealthy (and I’m NOT talking about her BFF, Gayle…that’s a whole other topic).  Oprah’s empire has created literally thousands of jobs, she’s created other empires for her chosen ones (Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Rachel Ray, Nate Berkus etc.), who in turn are creating jobs and wealth for others.  There is a great show, produced by CNBC, called “The Oprah Effect,” where they actually trace the billions of dollars that Oprah is responsible for creating for others.  Oprah is the pebble, plopping in the pond and her effect and influence, are the rings in the water, radiating out from the pebble.  As her fellow empire builder, Martha Stewart (love her, too) would say, “that’s a very good thing”.

So, while I’m not necessarily buying what O is selling, I’m in awe of her power, her cult of personality and her smarts!  She realizes that her influence is probably at it’s zenith, demographically, which is why she has created these other superstars, to carry on her legacy and grow the cash flow.  I’d be willing to bet that for women under the age of 35, Oprah, is only a blip on the radar and so, her decision to end her show in 2011 is brilliant.  She’s going out on top and will concentrate on her cable channel and create even more ‘little Oprahs’.   Oprah is a one-woman stimulus package and for that, I LOVE HER!

Money, money, money…..

Let’s talk about money.   I’ll go first:  I like it, I’m for it and I want to collect as much as I can.  I know this is a very unfashionable thing to say, but I’m past worrying about fashion.  Here’s what I think; I think that most of you feel exactly the same way, but it would be unseemly or crass to say it out loud.  It’s okay if you feel that way, because this post is aimed directly between your eyes.

I’ve always liked money and have always been quite the little saver from the time I was a kid, when I hoarded my allowance and couldn’t wait to put in my little bank every week.   Every Christmas, I would get checks from a few relatives and I nagged my mom to take me to the bank, so I could deposit the money in my passbook savings account.

In Junior High and High School, I saved not only my allowance, but all of the lunch money that my mom gave me, so that I could buy a tennis racket and a 10 speed Schwinn bicycle.  I managed to talk my friends into buying me cookies and milk, while I saved my money, but that’s not the worst of it.  In 9th grade, I would kiss Clayton Rice in the band room for a quarter, everyday!  I look back on it now and am thankful that he never produced a $100 bill or my life may have taken a completely different turn. He became my actual boyfriend and so I lost that stream of revenue.  It’s indecent to charge your boyfriend for, well, you know.  By then, I was old enough to get a real job serving food for tips.

As a grown-up I’ve been completely happy to collect and nuture my money through hard work and discipline.  Ever since my first post-college job, where I made all of  $9000 a year, I’ve always set aside whatever I could afford, with every single paycheck.  Eventually, I set a goal to save at least 10% of what I made.  I married a man who shares my money style and over the years, we’ve scraped together a decent nest egg.

In this country, we’re accused of having ‘puritanical’ views on sex.  I beg to differ; the current culture is absolutely INFUSED with sex, to the point where it’s actually kind of boring and fake and silly.  Where we’re puritanical, is in talking about money.  Go ahead, get with a group of people and start talking about money, I dare you.  If you want to see people screaming and hyperventilating and calling you names, try to have a healthy conversation about money.  Admitting that you earn a decent living, have invested smartly and want to have more money, is like unveiling pornography at Sunday school!

The current climate in our society encourages denial that money is important to you; to be suspicious or downright hostile toward wealth or success.  What hypocrisy.  I have YET to meet anyone who doesn’t wish for higher pay or more money.  And yet, it’s fashionable to deny any interest in money and in my opinion, that’s not noble or hip or realistic.  In fact, it’s flat-out stupid.  I like to live in the real world where money is necessary to fund the basics in life.  I prefer to have more than just the basics and have worked really hard to to make and save enough money to ensure that not only are our basic needs met, but that we can live comfortably and donate to worthy causes.  If you deny the importance of money or think it’s cool to ignore it, you’ll never have enough to meet and exceed those basic needs.  In Deepak Chopra’s book, “Creating Affluence,” he said that money is like blood; it must flow, in order to create wealth in a society and wealth is good, if you hope to be gainfully employed.  Notice I said “wealth is good”, not “greed is good”.  There is a big difference.  For those of you into the whole Law of Attraction philosophy, wealth can also be termed abundance.

So, let’s dig down as to what money represents to me.  First off, I equate it with security; I want to be able to pay may own way without outside help.  When you rely on others to pay your way, there are ALWAYS strings attached.  Keep this in mind, as we seem to be moving toward some other entity paying for our needs: strings, hassles and following THEIR rules, rather than your own.  Secondly, money is freedom.  Read the book, “Your Money or your Life” for a blueprint of how you can achieve financial freedom.  If you have enough money put away, you are no longer beholden to others: your job, your family, the government (UGH!).  You may think that’s out of your reach, but with proper discipline and planning, you can certainly move toward that goal, if it appeals to you.

Look, I’m not saying that money should supercede happiness or fulfillment.  Don’t sell your soul for a piece of gold, but don’t feel awful about making it, growing it and yes, giving some away.

The REAL reason to love Oprah

I am about to make a shocking admission to all of you:  I’m a middle-aged woman who doesn’t worship Oprah.  Hold on……I’m waiting for the lightening bolt….because for a woman to say that she’s not on Oprah’s team, is the equivalent of coming out against oxygen.  But, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Oprah and full disclosure:  I rarely watch her show anymore, but do catch one once in a while and I pick up her magazine a few times a year.  Having said that, I’m well aware of Oprah’s mission to make us all ‘just great’ and that’s where the problem comes in for me.  Oprah’s a smart cookie, so she KNOWS that if we all begin to love ourselves, as she proposes, we’ll have no use for her and her empire!  Which is where the cynic in me kicks in.  Oprah KNOWS that we’ll never love ourselves enough to dump her.  How does she know this?  Because Oprah, who is worth billions, has houses all over the world, is one of the most famous people in the universe, is hugely influential, perhaps to the point of electing a president, still doesn’t really like herself all that much.

“Oh, Jane, how can you say such a thing”!!!  Well, because, she’s gained back a bunch of weight (again), she is on a constant search for enlightenment, either through some cleansing program, or another spiritual ‘guide’, or she’s buying stuff.  But, even as she tries to fix herself, she realizes that the collective self-loathing among lots of us chicks, is enough to keep her Oprah brand in business for decades and that’s not necessarily a criticism, since many of her followers love that about her; she’s flawed like us!  Well, yeah, but she’s NOT like us and that brings me to what I love about Oprah: She’s RICH, RICH, RICH!!!!  Fabulously wealthy in a way that none of us will ever know.  But we could, if we put in the time, effort, sacrifices and toughness that it takes to achieve her level of success.

Here’s another thing to love about O:  she’s made many other people wealthy (and I’m NOT talking about her BFF, Gayle…that’s a whole other topic).  Oprah’s empire has created literally thousands of jobs, she’s created other empires for her chosen ones (Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Rachel Ray, Nate Berkus etc.), who in turn are creating jobs and wealth for others.  There is a great show, produced by CNBC, called “The Oprah Effect,” where they actually trace the billions of dollars that Oprah is responsible for creating for others.  Oprah is the pebble, plopping in the pond and her effect and influence, are the rings in the water, radiating out from the pebble.  As her fellow empire builder, Martha Stewart (love her, too) would say, “that’s a very good thing”.

So, while I’m not necessarily buying what O is selling, I’m in awe of her power, her cult of personality and her smarts!  She realizes that her influence is probably at it’s zenith, demographically, which is why she has created these other superstars, to carry on her legacy and grow the cash flow.  I’d be willing to bet that for women under the age of 35, Oprah, is only a blip on the radar and so, her decision to end her show in 2011 is brilliant.  She’s going out on top and will concentrate on her cable channel and create even more ‘little Oprahs’.   Oprah is a one-woman stimulus package and for that, I LOVE HER!