Stressed About Money!? This blog’s for you!

(Note:  This post will always be the first post, it’s like my home page.  Please scroll down for newer – and older – posts and articles.  KP)

Financial stress and frustration affect more than 70% of Americans.  Nearly the same percentage of Americans confess to living “paycheck to paycheck” on a regular basis.

If you’re a woman, you’re likely one of the 91% of women do not feel confident that they will be able to retire with enough money.  Money may be a constant source of stress and frustration for you, destroying any sense of inner peace.

If you’re a man, it is likely that you feel constantly evaluated and judged by your financial success (or lack of it).  This can affect your confidence, your relationships, everything.

If you’re a business owner, you have the pleasure and the pain of creating your own paycheck.  The good news: nobody puts a ceiling on what you can earn!  The bad news:  Nobody gives you a paid vacation, matches your retirement contributions, or guarantees you a single cent. 

Perhaps you are very successful in many ways, but you have not been able to build wealth, or perhaps you have lost what you once had.

Maybe you earn a good income, even a great one, but you’re at a loss to explain where all the money goes.

The New Blog is Over HERE…

I just noticed my “old blog” is still up, although I transfered everything to a self-hosted wordpress.org set-up awhile back. (Needless to say, I don’t really “get” the technicalities of the switch.)

If you’ve found this, you found an old link. But with just a click of your heels (and mouse), you’ll be at the “new and improved” Garden of Plenty blog,

or it’s sister link, Total Wealth Coaching.

The main URL’s haven’t changed (http://thegardenofplenty.com, http://www.totalwealthcoaching.com) but apparently there are still links out there to this old wordpress.com address.

You’ll find GREAT new articles about Why the Law of Attraction Doesn’t Always Work, Financial Failure, the Dark Before the Dawn, and much, much more.

I’ll see you over at the new blog!

Kate

Coming Soon… Overcoming Financial Stress program

Hello readers! 

I just wanted you all to know that I am hard at work on a special report about Overcoming Financial Stress.  Parts of it will be posted here, though I will probably put much of the information into a Special Report, eBook and/or workbook.

I would like to offer this to my readers for FREE!  (For those who have trouble receiving, I’d be happy to charge you however much makes you feel good!) 

Seriously, I am excited to serve you and feel there is not a lot of really effective information about how to truly overcome financial stress.  It is a national epidemic right now, affecting people’s relationships, health, and so much more.  I know that I can make a difference, and I feel compelled to do so.

Heroes, Villains, and Slippery Slopes

The financial world is still reeling from the discovery of Bernie Madoff’s fraud, the Ponzi scheme that vanished as much as 50 billion dollars as if by magic.

An estimated 400 charities were taken to the cleaners, as well many celebrities, from Steven Speilberg and Kevin Bacon to sports team owners and Alicia Koplowitz, named as the richest woman in Spain.  Also on the losing side were Japanese, European and U.S. banks, private fund managers, and Madoff’s own friends and family.

Bernard Madoff’s accountant Jerry Horowitz lost his retirement in the scheme, and even his own sons, Mark and Andrew Madoff, who turned their father in to the authorities after his confession that his investment firm was “a big lie,” were taken.

As someone who studies how people relate to their money, I am fascinated.

What started the slippery slope that led the once well-respected Madoff to pull off the largest single case of fraud in history? (Daniel Finkelstein couldn’t help but point out the irony of the name “Madoff” – he literally “made off” with his clients, friends, and family’s money.)

While Madoff has lived in luxury, enjoying lavish homes, yachts, and the best of everything, I believe that under the gilded surface lurks the dark face of Scarcity itself.

Announcement: Christmas has been Postponed!

“Are we on for Christmas!?” has been the question of the week. 

My family and friends have been in touch this week via phone and email, keeping tabs on who has how much snow, and who is (and isn’t) mobile, assessing road conditions, comparing weather reports, measuring safety against tradition.  

With a foot of snow, my parents cancelled their anticipated holiday trip, inviting neighbors to dinner instead.  Friends are “hunkering down” in their homes and travelling my foot to stores and even work.  Fearing getting stranded with no power in my rural Carnation house through the storms, I was picked up by my boyfriend several days ago and relocated to nearby Duvall.  (Then we got hit with the next snow storm, totalling 19 inches of snow!) 

This picture was taken BEFORE the last two snowstorms...

I live on a rather large hill, and have not felt that I could safely get out to even get a Christmas tree this week.  (We decorated the porch instead.) Some of us have not been able to drive – or Christmas shop - for days.  (This is a minor tragedy for those who always “save their shopping” for the last minute!) 

Minor tragedies, major inconveniences, or perhaps… just an opportunity to just do Christmas a little differently this year.

With a few more inches of snow last night for some, we made the decision to ”postpone” our Christmas gathering and dinner.

Postpone Christmas!? 

Paying it Forward at a Starbucks Stand

I made a stop at the QFC grocery store in Redmond Ridge Saturday night.  I was on my way home from teaching a “Wealthy, Worthy and Wise” workshop and I needed a few groceries.  It had been a long day with an early start, and besides the groceries, I was also in the market for a shot of caffeine.

Starbucks mocha

I stopped by the in-store Starbucks stand and ordered a mocha from the friendly young male barista.  After writing on the cup and ringing my drink into the register, he started telling me a story before allowing me to pay for my drink.

“This morning, our store’s assistant manager decided to pay for his drink and also the drink of the person following him,” he explained.  “The next person did the same, and people have continued it all day long, paying for the next person’s drink.” 

Sure to let me know that there was no obligation, he added, “So your drink has already been paid for.  If you’d like to contribute to the next person’s drink, you can.”

Chauncey Gardiner and the Audacity of Hope

(A tale of two political figures – one fictional as well as accidental, one real and very intentional.)

As long as the roots are not severed, all is well.

This week I re-watched the brilliantly constructed satire, “Being There.”  (A 1979 film directed by Hal Ashby, adapted from the 1971 novel written by Jerzy Kosiński.)  Peter Sellers plays a simple-minded gardner with no social or intellectual skills, being essentially raised by television sets and the plants he tended.  When forced into new situations such as befriending a billionaire and meeting the president, he is mistaken for a genius of sorts.  ”Chance the Gardner” becomes “Chauncey Gardiner,” his simple sentences interpreted as deep metaphors about the state of the nation.

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

I was so moved by the words of FDR at his inaugural address, and struck by the timeliness of what he wrote for our own time as well, I wanted to share this excerpt.  Given March 4, 1933, this speech was delivered in the depth of the Depression. 

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. 

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

 

 

In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.  I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

“In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties.  They concern, thank God, only material things.  Values have

Autumn Contemplations, Financial Chaos, and Spring

The chaos in our financial markets seems to stand in contrast to the serenity of a beautiful fall day, with many-colored leaves on display and the gentlest of breezes giving them breath. 

But look closely…

I often find that my life tends to mirror and follow the season, both in exterior patterns and interior rhythms.  And perhaps the financial markets, which at a glance appear to be such a contrast to this autumn beauty, are doing the same.

“Financial Therapy”

“What do you do?”  It’s the simplest, most basic question, one we might be asked on a daily basis.  I know exactly what I do, but I’m still trying to figure out how to answer that question in a way that people can understand.

In a nutshell, I help people think and feel differently about money.

I help people create wealth, but not with stocks, bonds, real estate and budgets with built-in automatic saving plans.  (Yes, one must have a plan, but it’s the wrong starting place.)  I help people create wealth from the inside out, through transforming beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. 

But what am I?

Sometimes I define it by describing what I’m not.  We all probably know what a Financial Planner is, or perhaps we have had experience with a Financial Advisor, Financial Services Representative, or similar animal.  Some work on commission, some work for fees, all have tools to help you assess your current financial situation, panic properly as you grasp the enormity of the canyon over which you must leap in order to one day retire, and financial products (investments, insurance, etc.) you can purchase that may assist you in reaching that and other benchmarks. 

I took a CFP course once.  I got my life insurance license.  I interviewed in the financial services field.  I was well on my way to a life of using tools and charts and calculators to help people plan their financial futures. 

But I wasn’t sleeping well.  It wasn’t my calling.  I knew the world didn’t need another financial planner (with all due respect to the thousands of fine financial planners who serve a genuine need to their grateful clients). 

I knew what I was.  I couldn’t deny it.  I had been one for years.  It was time to admit it.