An apple seed can grow an orchard

When it comes to teaching people about the power of money, therer’s a danger that the vision of loads of money can take over, greed can kick and, and suddenly we find ourselves holding on tighter to our money.  The truth about money is that the tighter you hold on to it, the less you end up with.  Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Money is a funny thing, somehow the more you share the more you have.  Is this really true?  I believe so.

When you share money as a priority in your life you learn the age old principle of sowing and reaping.  What you send out as a seed, generally returns as a harvest.  The easiest way to explain this is to use the example of the apple seed.

When you eat an apple you get to the middle and find the core, and the core is full of apple seeds.  If you plant this seed and nuture it, what grows?  Is it an apple?  No, of course not, it’s an apple tree.  And when that apple tree grows, does it just return one apple?  No way!  The apple tree will provide loads of apples, and keep doing that every year.  And if you had taken each of the seeds in that first apple and planted all of them, you would have an orchard of apple trees all providing you with fresh fruit.  This is the miracle of sowing and reaping.

When you apply this principle to your finances you can learn the power of sowing and reaping in financial terms.  The life changing book The One Minute Millionaire (www.oneminutemillionaire.com) talks about what can be achieved by applying this giving attitude with money.  These guys advocate that Abundance can only happen when you demonstrate that you are prepared to share what you have, they say, for when you share from what you have you make room for more.

You’ll find some inspiring articles on giving, and loads of other financial topics, at www.wisemoney.co.nz, written by a guy I know.

What is one thing you could do this week to begin to share?  Who knows, you may end up with an orchard!

Understand the power that comes from Giving

“Why the f*&^ would you be telling me to give my hard earned money away?!” 

I could tell this guy was pretty upset and it was all I could do to restrain myself from responding to match his inappropriate way of expressing himself.

So here I am running a seminar, the room is filled with people hungry to learn more about money, and this guy is standing at the back providing some unplanned entertainment.  Luckily for me and everyone else in the room things calmed down pretty quickly and we all moved on, but that situation really made me think about how I teach the principle of giving.

It’s true, I teach the importance of giving as a vital part of the process of controlling your money.  In fact, I teach that you must give first, as a priority, to prove that your money does not own you.  I teach that there are four reason to give first:  spiritual, success, business, and generosity.  In all of these principles the concept of multiplication appplies.  When you give, you allow your money to multiply.  Let me explain with a simple analogy I use when I teach the giving principle to kids.

Take an apple and cut it in half.  In the centre of the apple is the core, and here you find the apple seeds.  If you took an apple seed and planted it in the ground, watered it and looked after it, what would you grow?  An apple?  No, you would grow an apple tree.  And what would the apple tree produce for you?  One apple?  No, the apple tree produces a life time of apples.  All this from one tiny seed.

And so the principle of giving is portrayed.  When you give a little bit of money away you plant a seed somewhere.  That seed can be looked after, watered and nutured, and will produce a harvest somewhere in the world.  The old saying “you reap what you sow” is true, for if you don’t plant the apple seed in the ground you don’t get an apple tree.

So I encourage you to introduce the concept of giving into your finances.  Don’t think that giving money away will limit your lifestyle, rather the oppposite.  Because what I have learned is that when I give some money away I make room for more to enter my life.  If I don’t make room, it doesn’t appear!

Try it and see.

For more info from Phil on how to get more from your money, visit his library of articles on www.wisemoney.co.nz

Your kids need money!

Today some brief musings on kids and money… and yes I do not want you to deny it – your kids need money!  Here’s a thought, if you’re a kid reading this why don’t you put this post in from of your Mum or Dad?!!

Mum and Dad pay attention.  If you ignore your kids education about money they will leave home useless, by that I mean they will be unable to make financial decisions and probably end up in the “pooh” very quickly.  Is that what you want for your kids?

Now, I do not mean that you shoud hand out hard, cold cash to your kids and call it financial education!  This is not teaching them anything.  I do not mean that you should buy them what they need so that you feel good.  Do not use money as a parenting substitute for it will come back to bite you on the bum in the future.  Be proactive, be positive, and most of all construct opportunities to feed them knowledge about money.  Sometimes that means letting them learn from your mistakes.  but hey, wouldn’t you rather they didn’t end up making the same mistakes you did?

Here are a few ideas on what I think you can do:

1.  Involve your kids in discussions about family goals.  If they know you’re working hard to achieve goals this will teach them how they can be proactive in achieving things in the future.  Role model to them the positive decisions you make around opportunity cost.  That means show them that you sometimes make sacrifices in the short term in order to achieve better things in the long term… you do do this don’t you?

2.  Give the kids some areas of responsibility with money.  You make a judgement call on just how much responsibility they can handle, or how much “risk” there is.  But why not put them in charge of the groceries every now and then?  Stop laughing and consider the wide range of skills you could help them to learn by giving them this level of responsibliity.

3.  Encourage them to contribute.  I’ve just helped a lady who is working hard to achieve some goals for her family.  She has accepted my challenge to involve her daughters, and will be asking them to contribute to the amount required.  Set a target for them to raise and help them ot come up with creative (and legal) ways to raise funds.

I hope this gives you some ideas.  If you have any constructive ideas that could help others, post a response.

Distract yourself from the horror of petrol price rises

If you followed the NZ Government’s 2008 Budget you may have been as disappointed as I was.  What an anti-climax!  Everyone I’ve spoken to has forgotten any benefits there were already as they have been side-swiped by the horror of petrol prices finally smashing the $2.00 per litre barrier.  How can you distract yourself from this shock?

To save yourself from financial hardship you can vote with your feet, (literally) as you boycott petrol companies by walking everywhere.  Think of the time and finger-nails saved by not having to scrape ice of your windscreen in the morning, and the vitality you’ll feel with the fresh, crisp air filling your lungs as you stride to work.  Think of the joy you’ll have taking the children to school, singing together as you skip through the fog.

We are all aware of the lack of provision the recent Budget has promised us, so you can take heart by considering the savings you can make in other areas by boycotting the petrol companies.

By walking you’ll avoid the depressing news items you hear on the car radio which will no longer distract you from your work.  Instead of sitting at your desk for 8 hours a day totally immersed in your solutions to the world’s problems, you’ll be able to focus 100% on the tasks you’re paid to complete.  The freedom you’ll experience by not carrying the burdens of the world each day will allow you to enjoy your job and your life.

There will be no more queues waiting to pay for your petrol, as you don’t need any.  You will save hundreds of dollars by not buying the coffee, chocolate bars and cheap jandals that often tempt you in the petrol store.  You will no longer lie awake at night perplexed by the transformation your petrol station has undertaken to morph into your corner grocery store.  Finally sleep will come as you are released from these taxing sessions of mental gymnastics in the middle of the night.

You can also distract yourself by focussing fully on saving more money at the supermarket.  You will be limited in your shopping capacity by the size of the basket on your bike, or the size of your shopping trundler.  The small amount of space you now have for groceries pales in comparison to the size of your car bootspace, and you no longer feel like you need to fill that huge cavity.  Thank heavens you’ll have no room for cheese, think of the savings! 

And finally, you can turn your garage into an extra bedroom as you’ve been able to give your car away.  Who would pay to buy a gas guzzler anyway?  That extra bedroom space you have can now be rented out to the neighbour’s kids as a practice room for their heavy metal band.  Oh how you’ll enjoy the sweet sound of music ringing in your ears morning, noon, and night.

Ok, so maybe you don’t want to give away the car and walk everywhere.  But here’s my key point:  Let’s not get distracted by the things we can’t control and focus on the things we can.  Here are five ideas:

Make some different choices to make your dollars go further
I was amazed the other day at how many budget brands had appeared in our shopping trolley.  Kathy had a real focus on saving money on the groceries and had made some different choices.  None of the family have really noticed and it meant that the shopping budget went further.  So what different choices can you make in the areas of groceries, banking, clothing, schooling, and lifestyle choices?

Make a commitment to spend a limited amount on petrol every week
Petrol is the real killer at the moment and you have no control over the price at the pump, but you do have control over how often you have to return to the pump.  So try setting yourself a limit on how far you go during the week, after all, this is how a budget is supposed to work!  I’m sure you’ll come up with creative ways to get places… or imagine how much more you can achieve around the home by deciding not to go out?!!

Discover new hobbies that don’t cost money
Apparently if you try hard enough you can find hobbies you enjoy that don’t cost a cent!  I say “apparently” because I haven’t discovered any for me yet – I am looking though.  Suggestions include; learning a musical instrument, (get lessons from a friend instead of paying for them), try finding the enjoyment in exercise, (if you walk with friends you can learn to communicate by talking instead of texting!), or you could try an online hobby (maybe you’re the next online poker champion?)

Start a crash diet… on spending
Go through your bank statements and credit card statements and find a weakness that you need to eliminate from your spending.  We all have weaknesses, mine is great coffee.  If you can identify something that is literally stealing money from you and you are prepared to go on a crash diet then this is the time to break that habit.  Do it “cold turkey” and cut out all spending on that area.  Be tough on yourself!

Use the power of goals to find your success
For me, I refuse to accept that less money in my life means I have to achieve less.  Why should you be any different?  This is the time that we all need to dig in deep and find the real person inside every one of us; we need to be motivated to do whatever it takes to find our personal success.  And the way for you to do that is harness the power of financial goals.  As I always say, “Financial goals are how you can get ahead no matter what your 1ncome level.”  And today I’ll add, “And no matter how much petrol costs!”

So to all of us, including me, I say:

Come on everybody, isn’t life great?  Let’s not get distracted by the things we can’t control and focus on the things we can.

Check out more articles here www.wisemoney.co.nz