Freedom, Fear and Money

When I was a kid I was sure that my family was going to end up in the poorhouse. I imagined myself grubby and forlorn but feisty, dressed in threadbare shades of gray like in Oliver Twist (which is quite likely where I got the idea).

I told myself that as long as I reached the minimum working age of 14 before it happened, all would be well. I would be a heroine, going off to work at Taco Time to support a family of seven. Resplendent in orange-and-brown polyester, face glowing with pride over an order of Mexi-Fries.

Now that I’m no longer a kid, my approach to money is less fantastical but still partially founded in fear. I’ve always tried to live well within my means, with the objective of not having to even think about money. But I wonder if avoiding thinking about it is just another way of trying to manage fear.

The other thing I’ve always thought about money – when I did think about it, that is – is that what it can really help you buy is freedom.

That is, money becomes important when you have a job you hate and either can or can’t leave it because of money. And money can help you get an education, travel… basically, it can give you greater mobility and the power to define your own life rather than have it defined for you.

This week I’ve been reading a book called Your Money or Your Life. It looks at money as something that we choose to exchange our life energy for, since we spend so many of the hours of our lives working for money, spending it, working for it and then spending it again. The book invites you to step out of that pattern and decide how you really want to spend your life energy.

And that – the question of how I want to spend my life energy – is right up my alley.

So – you guessed it. This week a lot of the “things that scared me” had to do with money. I took a hard look at my bank account (where I discovered a $1000 overcharge in insurance premiums); I went on a “money fast” for two days, to see how much of my spending is habitual rather than serving real needs; I tried to bring consciousness to deciding whether to renew my gym membership; I stopped having a smoothie every day at an Internet café and found a great spot to get online at the library instead. I also found the desire to be intentional in the way I use my life energy seeping into other parts of my life, and canceled a couple of weekly appointments so there’s more time to focus on what I’m most drawn to doing right now.

Oh, and I decided to continue the experiment. I notice that there’s a real edge, for me, when it comes to stepping into fears around money. And I suspect that this, like the other fears I’ve been exploring for the past couple of months, may lead to more freedom. So I’m going to stay with this particular fear for the month of March and… see what happens.

Will it be fear, or freedom, or both? The next month will decide.