Do You Trade Happiness for Money?

My colleague, Stacey Francis is CEO & President of Francis Financial.  She is also Founder of Savvy Ladies, a non-profit organization that spreads free financial information to women.  As with many of us who are in the money business, we have stories that drove us here.  These stories are personal and emotional. Here is Stacey’s:

When Money Wins

Stacey’s grandmother stayed in an abusive relationship because she didn’t have enough money to survive alone. This reason still exists today – people who don’t want to divorce because our standard of living will be compromised. We are consciously or unconsciously, trading happiness for money.  When this happens, unhappiness becomes a downward spiral. It’s hard to get up in the morning, to put your “all” into anything. Your work suffers, children feel it, and the world is viewed through a clouded lens. Unhappiness manifests itself through our health, our friendships, and our ability to get out of a terrible circumstance.

Many of us Trade Happiness for Money in some Way

Some of us commute 2-3 hours a day for a better job, while enabling our kids and spouse to live in an affordable home with a backyard.  Sometimes we’re gone before the kids are up and home after the kids are in bed.  Is giving our children an opportunity for a better life more important than giving them more of our own love? Is sending them to college so they don’t face debt when they graduate better than special adventures with us as they grow? Who knows?!  

The Shift

The answer is in asking the questions. It is about being deliberate in our decisions for our family, instead of falling into behavioral patterns that are accepted…or expected.  The things money buy can often be seen, while happiness is much harder to measure. Are they connected? Does money buy happiness? Do you jump out of bed in the morning? Do your kids miss you and vie for attention? If you passed away tomorrow, what would your tombstone say, and are you good with that?

Since our fear of having less, or living less is often greater than reality, the answer starts with investigating facts.

1. What makes you truly happy? How many of these activities are you getting?

2. How would you like to be earning money? What could it pay if you put your all into it?

3. What expenses can you actually live without if you had this new life with more happiness? 

Now you’re saying “Who has the time?”. I get it. Work on one happiness activity  per month. What are you missing? How can you fit in the time and energy to have it? How much will it really steal from your current work life as you build the change?  Will it cost money, or decrease the money you are earning, but make you much happier? Small steps toward happiness add up, and you are so worth it.

Related Topic:Do you have Money-Life Balance?

Carrie Rattle is a Financial Therapist and the CEO at BehavioralCents. She is an executive veteran of the financial services industry and works with professional women on their mind and money behaviors to help them build an equal voice in the world. Thoughts always welcome: carrierattle@behavioralcents.com.