The Money Vacuum

The Money Vacuum
"Beware of little expenses - a small leak will sink a great ship." – Benjamin Franklin

I will confess that there is always something about the very beginning of the new year that feels refreshing. A sense of renewed ambition, focus and clarity seems to always follow the brief season of decadence, joy and comfort that is the “holiday season” and with good reason…we are physical beings that are always striving for equilibrium. What goes up, must come down. What is overdone must then be overcompensated for to maintain homeostasis. But it’s in this reflective and sober-minded pocket of time that we are in fact very capable of creating long-term sustainable goals that put us on the right path until the next harvest season and without the distraction that the real world and everyday life begin throwing our way particularly at the dawn of tax season (That’s right…it’s about time to get on that 😉.)

Speaking of distractions, I found myself starting the new year off with quite a few of my own. Running a financial planning practice without an assistant in this era requires quite enough bandwidth as it is…

(This will change very soon by the way, and I’ll be delighted to share the news and how it will beneficially impact all of my clients when the time comes).

But add to that planning a wedding, buying a property, repairing a house and the hiring search for said new staff and you’ve got a classic situation where there is not enough cash flow to go around in an idyllic manner. I believe they call that “life”. But what these chaotic, clustered, when-it-rains-it-pours pockets of time really reinforce for me personally is just how much time, bandwidth and money is actually available (and squandered) at any given time without life’s added pressures and distractions.

I have a habit of occasionally rambling before getting to my thesis in these articles, but reverting back to the idea that we humans are an incredibly adaptive species with an innate sensibility of maintaining homeostasis and balance, it becomes very obvious to me when the pressure is on just how much of our time is otherwise eaten up with senseless distraction and how much money is DIVERTED towards things that don’t really matter or serve us and/or our loved ones. After some careful meditation, I now refer to the latter phenomenon as “the money vacuum”.

Money is a fascinating subject if not its own entity. Primarily because on the one hand, it’s just math made into paper (or metal…or electronic digits on a screen). Timeless principles and concrete calculations determine how it’s manipulated for better and for worse and yet it seems to have a life and set of laws unto itself that become something more autonomous and whose fundamental nature is often tougher to crack than just sheer numerals. I believe one of the main reasons if not the top reason for this is due to the emotion and the value that we each assign to money. Money is different things to different people. For some, it is material wealth and objects of possession. For others it is simply means, abilities and experiences. For even others it is security, ego or status. And thus, we all have different reasons for desiring its acquisition and different motivations. This amazing, yet at times crazy, country we live in that is the United States often seems to me more like one big business than it is a politically-driven institution. It has taken many trips around the globe to sharpen my perspective on how money is treated here compared to many other parts of the world. The word that best describes this collective notion and is ultimately the case study of this article is “consumerism”. We live in a society that is primed to evoke our spending on endless products and services at ALL TIMES. It takes several steps back to see just how powerful and prevalent this principle is alive and well in our great American society. I don’t say that mockingly because consumerism and the ability for us to have such an institution in the first place is a testament to how prosperous and wealthy this country is when compared with most other places on planet earth. If I’m saying anything at all, it is about a simultaneous recognition of the vast prosperity that circulates throughout our economic system as well as the endless forces that are constantly coming for your money and mine which ultimately requires a very concerted effort to determine just how few of those sources actually acquire any of it from us.

The humbling truth is that in practice, there is rarely enough money to go around for most of us each month with life’s constant barrage of responsibilities, accidents, emergencies and the self-imposed burden that we all carry which is our discretionary budget. For most Americans, they spend all of what they make no matter how many digits get added to that number and yet among us is a small percentage of truly savvy, thrifty (usually quiet) ones who are hard at work accumulating capital and never conceding any more than is necessary to any party other than who is truly deserving or demanding of it. Aside from how one INVESTS their money and grows their wealth, I think these subtle, calculating savers are the people of whom we should strive to model our finances more than almost anyone else. And what separates them from the pack is not their ability to manipulate numbers any better than anyone else who can do basic algebra or even the size of their annual salaries. It’s how they THINK about money and recognizing that everyone and everything that is part of the voracious consumerism machine wants a chance to skim a piece of what they have. It is also the fact that they concede very little of it other than to things that serve their better selves and USUALLY giving to and serving those that are truly in need of charity. Everyone and everything else is simply white noise to their hard-earned capital. In a society of never-ending distraction, baiting, scamming and diversions, these are my model financial citizens. I have worked with many of them for years and the size of their savings accounts and charitable contributions would shock and awe most when compared to their humble abodes and vehicles.

So as we set adrift into the new year in its ever-increasing current, take just a moment to evaluate where your money is going (every single dime,) and ask yourself if it could be diverted to a better serving cause for your wealth and/or those that are in true need of charity from said wealth. This is a difficult yet humbling exercise, but its rewards far outweigh its temporary discomfort. You are the only one that gets to decide whether or not you keep what you earn and how you control what you accumulate. Ask yourself honestly and thoughtfully if that expenditure is something that serves you or just another player in the never-ending money vacuum.

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