Been checking the bank account a few times on the trip to NYC. I can’t tell if it’s just the insane cost of being in NYC that has me more vigilant than when I am in Los Angeles in my normal life, or if old money fears have been tripped up. I have given myself permission to explore both ideas - the colloquial “and” - to share my discoveries with you.
Discovery #1. Embrace that food costs a shit ton of money. Every time you walk into any kind of restaurant in NYC unless it is MacDonalds or Chipotle, the cost will be between $45 and $77 dollars. A quick bagel and coffee must be procured in the carts on the street to even come close to $12. And if you don’t like eating the world’s biggest carb bomb corn muffin in the pouring rain, then you are going to tuck into a cafe and order eggs. Now, eggs in LA are surely $20. Breakfast is an embarrassment these days. Nowhere can you find a simple breakfast special #1 for $9.95 unless you are in the armpit of America and then you have bigger problems. So when you go somewhere cool, don’t suddenly pull back and become miserly especially if the trip already cost you a week of hotel rooms and flights. Enjoy the neighborhoods, the waiters, the different cultures. If you are going to spend $77 for hummus and tabouli in a West Village cafe, you might as well find one that hands out tambourines so everyone can sing along to Israeli songs, and marvel at how cool you still are at 54.
Discovery #2. Money scarcity if it is ever in us, has a hard time dying no matter how much you throw money around saying “Let’s do it!” and “It’s vacation… why not!” What I do not have is the upset stomach that used to come with spending money. I have practiced sending large wires of money with home ownership that took my breath away, so when they charged me $8 a cup of regular coffee at the Algonquin Hotel because I had a sip of my client’s carafe, I just am annoyed with hotel financial lunacy. What I was triggered by was the ease of scanning your ATM card at the subway turnstile. We have taken a lot of subways on this trip, so every time the light illuminates on the turnstile keypad deducting $2.90 from my account times two, I feel that tinge of “Isn’t this kind of frivolous?” So I lean in and keep scanning because we have to take the subway and we are already walking a lot. And while I may be checking my bank account once a day when we are back in the hotel, I fell once into a rabbit hole of a 20 minute exhaustive checking of all my bank accounts, and some overthinking the future months, which led to panic that I will never make money again… Money scarcity if you have it is in your bloodstream. You have to be vigilant to push it away. You have to be in an abundant mindset so you can create more happiness and abundance. So I close the lap top and keep scanning my ATM card at the subway and love that I had the initiative to take my 14 year old on a trip she will remember forever.
Discovery #3. It’s smart to keep an eye on money but fun to forget about it. Over Christmas, I was running around downtown gathering some final gifts for my girls and I had my ATM card rejected at Sephora. I had that moment of thinking to explain to the sympathetic looking salesperson, “But I have money..” but I knew in my soul I did. But still. As the cashier gave me that “Oh honey, I know…” look, I paid the $4 overdraft with cash, and quickly loaded up my Capitol One app. I was tickled to find out I did in fact run out of cash, but simply had to move some from one account. I found it refreshing that I forgot about money. Because for decades all I thought about what saving and skimping and gathering. An exhausting mindset to gather stuff you end up eventually one way or another letting go of. That said, while one must be aware that there is a balance to cover their bills’ auto pay when galavanting around NYC throwing $250 at last minute theater tix (which can be really exciting by the way if you haven’t done it), spending money without a ton of thought after and during the experience will put a big smile on your face and you will feel like you dropped about ten pounds of historical gunk.
Discovery #4. Whatever anyone may say to me, your money story is yours and it is your journey to change it to a place of permission of happiness and wealth mindset. When I start to have fear I have just lost my mind financially and someone needs to enroll me in some kind of solvency course, I remember I have been in this mental game for a while. I always work to re-pay my expenditures. I never fully go beyond the measure of what has worked in the past and I am always re-writing my money story. Take some time to work through where you stand with permission to be happy today and see how money is entwined because you cannot separate the two unless you are a saint (which I am not and I am sure you are not either.)
Who told us we cannot have a care in the world when it comes to money? If we look at money as a cycle of happiness and freedom, we are more prone to give it away. When you get to a healthy cycles with money in your life, you get to celebrate that you are happy and wealthy to the degree you need to be in your life.
Take this lesson I taught my daughter yesterday.
I was on the subway yesterday and the man, you know the one, with the homeless can, got on. Now they have Venmo QR codes to gather money easily for this shelter or that initiative. No one was listening to him over the roar of the subway, but what I gathered was he was a rapper who sang about homeless people. What I could hear in fits and starts was moving, and the fact that he rode a subway all day in this manner was enough to warrant money from me. I gave him $5. Honestly I wanted to clear out my wallet but that felt like I was proving something. We locked eyes, “Thank you,” he said to me. “No thank you,” I said back.
My daughter asked, “Do you think that money is really going to go to homeless people?”
I answered, “I just bought a $35 pizza. He can have $5 of my money.”
She took that in.
Do you give away some of the money you receive in a way that is not guilty but because you understand that money is the flow of life? We can’t ultimately find happiness with our wealth if we don’t send it out into the world. I understand accumulation, and goals for money, but what if you let some of those purse strings loosen and you gave away to an organization you appreciate, or your church, or your kids school.
Today I get to wake up and spend more money in NYC. Why not? I get to go to the Guggenheim with my kid, and I get to eat a bagel, and tonight go see a show. I earned this vacation on the sweat of incredible clients who trust me to write their books. I am so grateful for them and I hope they are grateful for me.
Slay those old money habits by doing the opposite of what your mind tells you. Sign up for the big course that will elevate you to the next level. Buy your partner that wonderful gift. Take that holiday. Do what makes you happy.
The wealth you need for YOU will follow.
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