This is where we ask you to reflect on your experiences with money.
Many of us struggle with similar challenges and it can be helpful to see how others have dealt with the same issues.
Also to see that we are not alone.
Before we can get better at managing our own money, we need to understand our thinking about money and the role it plays in our lives.
Some questions to start you thinking about your own Personal Journey:
Who or what shaped your understanding of money and how? How has your attitude toward managing your money changed or been affected by life experiences? What is the key lesson you've learned at this stage of life about your relationship with money?
Below are what others have shared. If you would like to share your own Personal Journey, please email us.
Growing up, I thought my family didn't have money. Though we lived in a nice enough house and neighborhood, my parents were very frugal and never spent money like my friends' families. Aside from the occasional luxuries, the message from my parents to me was tha money was to be saved.
Although I run my own business (and know exactly how to organise everything in that world), I am completely reliant on my husband for the day-to-day administration of our personal financial matters. I think I gained my resilience in business and entrepreneurial flair from my father and continue to learn from him, but also probably have developed his bad habits when it comes to casual spending.
I’m still on a career break to raise our three children. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t change the dynamic between my husband and me. I went from a peer and an equal in our earnings power – to essentially a dependent. As a strong, career-minded women, this has been humbling. I wouldn’t change my decision to take a break, but I went through a feeling of lost identity.
While in our corporate jobs, we weren’t conscious about expenses. We made all the yuppie mistakes of buying “nothing but the best” for our first child. Looking back, I regret our lavish ways.
My father told me once that money is like water in your fist. Once you loosen one finger, it all flows out. To me this means that you must watch where you spend. It's easier to move up to a higher expenditure lifestyle than to move down to a more restricted financial lifestyle. This lesson has stuck with me and makes me focus on a lifestyle that gives me freedom both financially and in terms of time.
The two biggest contributors to my attitude towards money have been my parents and seeing their successes as well as mistakes in managing it. They had fairly different outlooks on life and money, and until now I didn’t realise how fluidly I adopted each approach in various forms through different stages of my life.