It’s important to remember I haven’t been selling anything in this Talking Money series. It’s all about sharing and ultimately blessing, free of charge.
I urge caution about financial advisers who represent a product, even though they can be helpful and sometimes advance a goal in common.
If you’re new to this site, I hope you’ll take time to jump back through the archives. Most of the posts were set up as exercises for either personal use or a discussion group to pursue. Many of them draw on materials others have given me as we’ve explored the interwoven threads of money, wealth, possessions, labor, and time, often from emotional, spiritual, and even ecological perspectives.
Again, the disclaimer. These postings won’t provide any outright shortcuts to a private vault of gold bullion. These exercises won’t solve your monetary problems once and for all — in part, because you’ll confront new situations as you move through each stage of life. The discussion will, however, likely have you feeling richer with what you already possess and liberate you to participate more fully in the colorful array of humanity as you pursue the goals you really value. Shouldn’t that be plenty?
If you’ve been following this series, thank you. I hope these have helped and that you’ve found items to pass along to others. Feel free to reblog, too, if you wish.
As for my own changing priorities?
These days my most important personal possession is my laptop. Not my car?
No, now that I no longer have to commute to the office.
The house, by the way, is a shared possession. Just for perspective.
The laptop is where I’m doing all of my writing. My correspondence, too, and much of my research. Many of my files are now there, too.
Gone are the filing cabinets and mailing supplies. I’m slimming my bookshelves. Don’t need as many clothes. I’m even looking at things and thinking I should spare my survivors the cleaning up, when it happens.
Sound common?
We were recently cleaning out corners of the loft in the barn.
The kids are off on their own. My mother-in-law has passed away. There’s still tons of junk left behind.
As we went through the boxes and piles and got ready to discard much of it, we returned to a lot of neat stuff that had been put aside for “someday.” This was like Christmas. If not now, when?
Got it?
And then there were things we even found unopened in their original packaging, some from yard sales, much of it already out-of-date.
How hard to believe this project goes back more than 30 years! The impact of two kids in my household certainly had a big impact on me, and I am seeing how much personal finance advice seems to skate right over the realities that children demand and deserve.
As always, open discussion is important.
Remember, it’s #TalkingMoney.
Chicken Farmer, I still love you 