I have been dissatisfied with money all my life.

In early childhood I became aware of the doors it could open and close, depending on whether you had it or not. Whilst I had a great childhood, many of the doors I wanted to open were locked. In my teens, my cousin and I plotted how we would make it big so we could buy whatever we wanted. We now know there’s more to just buying. In my twenties I got my dream first class degree and my first proper job. Except in the end, it wasn’t so ‘proper’. Neither was the job after that.

And so began my journey into self employment — the world of figuring things out as you go along, working days, nights and weekends, often, and certainly in my case, with no immediate substantial financial reward. It is a world in which you face your own incessant fears and doubts, not at all helped by the anxiety and skepticism of those around you.

So, here I am in my late thirties, staring at this lifelong dissatisfaction with money and deciding I’ve got to do something about it. I’ve got to get to the bottom of why life has been, and is great, in so many ways, except the money thing.

Great marriage ✓
Happy, healthy little boy ✓
Close family and friends ✓
Personal health ✓
A home to call my own ✓
Education and opportunities ✓
Money ✗

Yup, my personal finances are distinctly average, and quite possibly, below average.

Discovering badassery

On my 37th birthday I wrote a letter to myself and started thinking deeply about what my issues with money may be. They say, when the student is ready the teacher will appear…. Enter Jen Sincero’s, ‘You Are A Badass At Making Money’. It spoke to me as I scrolled through Amazon.

Circa two weeks into the audiobook I bought the actual book. I don’t have the luxury of focused listens. My audiobooks experience is more like multitasking snippets in between 24/7 mamahood responsibilities. However, in this instance I had the urge to highlight and reread, ot something you can easily do on an audiobook.

The problem with notebooks

One morning, as I started scrawling the You Are A Badass ‘homework’, I found my son’s scribble on my notes and my husband’s DIY to do list on the next blank page… Seriously boys?

I’m doing this self work at 5am in the morning. I can’t afford to disturb my light sleeper of a toddler or our nervy dog while I’m creeping around avoiding squeaky floorboards and squawking toys while I’m trying to find my notebook in all its beautiful physicalness.

I adore notebooks but in my world they get moved by tiny hands or buried by laundry. It gets forgotten downstairs when I need it upstairs, where I am imprisoned by squeaky floorboards, especially in the early hours when little people sleep even lighter, seeming to sense you are awake, daring to do something for you.

Could (little me) write about money?

One early morning, amidst the humdrum of 10,000 thoughts, a little voice in my head whispered, “Use your blog”… You know the one. The blog I’ve been paying for that has sat unused for years… The blog that has meant to house my love of writing... The blog that has needed me to find something to write about…

And so I promptly ignored this little piece of intuition. I mean people don’t talk openly about money. It’s one of the sticky topics like religion, politics and race where people aren’t too sure whether they should say what they’re thinking. Should I really be putting my money story out there? This could get really embarrassing. And who the hell am I to offer opinions and advice on money? I have zero credibility on the topic. This was exactly why I was not going to write about money until I heard Jen say,

“Listen to your intuition during meditation, visualisation or just running around being you, and the moment you get a brilliant idea that would move you in the direction of your financial dreams, jump on it. Go for it like you’ve never gone for it before. Leap like the largest leaping leaper ever. Notice any crappy thoughts that come up while you’re in mid air, and rewrite them, but do not stop your forward motion in order to do so. The successful completion of this one exercise could land you in full-on badassery. Just sayin’”. Jen Sincero

After that wake up call, I turned my attention to resurrecting this blog, trying hard not to get distracted by design choices, which could quite easily chew up hours of my very limited time and stop my forward motion. I am facing my fears, yes but’s, and 101 reasons not to do this. I am using this blog to explore my lifelong dissatisfaction with money. I am going to use it to unravel my money issues with a lot of help from authors and podcasters along the way, starting with Jen Sincero’s You Are A Badass At Making Money. I am leaping like the largest leaping leaper ever.

Money, motherhood and meaning

So I started writing and thinking about the angle of this blog. I don’t want a dirty laundry diary. I don’t want one of those blogs that talks about me all-the-time. I’ve toyed with starting a mummy blog, but there are gazillions of them. What could possibly make my mummy blog unique and therefore worth reading? Money. The answer is money.

Motherhood has done something to me. As a mother, I desire financial success more than ever. For the sake of my son and the things I want to do with and for him, the money frustration is bubbling more ferociously inside of me. I know I’m not the only mother feeling this frustration. Conversations with other mothers and threads I’ve read on social media confirm this. Money brings safety, security, promise, opportunity and joy — things that mothers desire for their children.

But money isn’t everything right? True, not true and everything in between. We are all seeking meaning of some kind. Satisfaction. Significance. Purpose. Worthiness. Fulfilment. And after decades of having limited funds, I know that money contributes to achieving the things we seek. It is not the answer, it is a contributor.

Edited 08/01/21

findandflourish.com

After struggling to make real headway with my blog in 2019 and 2020 I decided to sit with why.

Other important projects got in the way, such as completely refurbishing a house we bough to rent out
I didn’t really love thismamathrives.com, the domain name I had settled with. Settled is exactly what I had done. I felt it was too much about me and not enough about the people I was serving.
Most importantly, I felt like an imposter when it came to writing about money. I have a complicated relationship with money which I am forever detangling. I found people didn’t really want to speak openly about money. And, though ‘enough’ money is a key contributor to our individual definitions of satisfaction and wellbeing, it wasn’t the only contributor.

So, after much thought, in late 2020, I adjusted the course of this blog. I finally found a domain name I loved in findandflourish.com. It encompasses all we have to find in order to fully flourish, not just the money.