What you know can hurt you
I just finished eating a chicken, cheese, onion and pineapple jaffle. None of those ingredients might be your cup of tea, particularly in combination, but I can tell you it was delicious.
It hit every food and emotional need I had, and was also entirely vegan.
But I can easily visualise the look on my husband’s face if I said, “Hey honey, do you want a vegan jaffle?”
Like many people, he’d be turned off by the label ‘vegan’, and miss out on some meat-free and dairy-free deliciousness.
We all have a similar tendency to adjust our thinking, in a positive or negative way, as soon as we hear a tiny detail.
Labels can freak us out, as so many terms are incredibly loaded — especially when it comes to our money.
Labels that lock our thinking
I always say, “I have a budget” rather than, “I’m on a budget.”
This is because ‘budget’ is associated with ‘less’ and ‘cheap’, rather than a strategic decision that suggests I’m living a life in control of my spending.
When we say ‘insurance’ we can think it’s for older people, who have dependants or mortgages.
And when we say ‘investing’, we jump to thinking it’s for those who already have a lot of money.
In all of these instances, the labels and their connotations can hold us back from making progress.
So how do we overcome this tendency to block our minds when it comes to looking after our money?
I think there are two ways forward here.
1. Eat the meal, don’t ask questions
Once when I was a teenager, my mum made a winter stew that was insanely tasty.
But I had some suspicions about it, because she was looking at me strangely whilst I was eating it.
It was so good that I didn’t ask any questions, I just kept eating. Afterwards, mum revealed it had anchovies in it — an ingredient I still screw my face up at.
If you know that you’re going to get freaked out by the details, then don’t go too deep. Know as much as you need to, and be comfortable with that (in the stew scenario, I was confident my mum was a good cook and wasn’t going to poison me).
If you’re going to find the intricacies of how an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is constructed overwhelming, then maybe you don’t need to go through that information.
If the details are creating paralysis and inaction, then perhaps less is more for you
2. Reconstruct the meal into something palatable
I know that nuts are quite good for us, but my taste buds don’t always agree. Eating any nuts whole (except macadamias) is not my scene.
But you know what I learnt? If I blitz those nuts in a food processor, I can make some pretty delicious granola.
Same ingredients, palatable outcome.
If you find that you’re turning your nose up at having a conversation about ‘money’ or ‘budgets’ (or whatever it might be), don’t. Find a way to reconstruct the conversation into something that resonates and is as tasty as my granola.
Perhaps focusing on an upcoming trip is a driver for you to set-up a special savings account and some automations to get the money in there in time. Great!
Maybe asking if there’s a better way to help you ‘save’ for your first home is what gets you involved in shares. Excellent!
Or asking the question of, “Shit, what would happen to the kids if I become seriously ill or injured?” is something you can wrap your brain around more readily than talking about insurance.
Same ingredients, palatable outcome.
Get rid of the roadblocks
Self-awareness is queen here. We can start to recognise how labels are holding us back from action, and focus on strategies to work through it.
And now I feel like a jaffle again :)