Ask Nick

Welcome back!

It’s Moneyday 28th June 2010 ~ and I trust you had a great weekend!

In my many errands today, I was reminded of how confidence, security and well-being come from having cash; whilst uneasiness and uncertainty accompany declining bank balances.

“Money Confidence” can show forth in many ways. Today I’ll share my observations of some of the people I have interacted with over the years who enjoy healthy balance sheets.

Quiet Confident: As the name implies their body language and speech suggests a person who knows what they are about but do not feel the need to show off. They have money in all the right places and it’s very difficult to confuse them. Sometimes they may even be secretly patronizing persons of modest means.

Humble Confident: These people are not defined by how much money they have, in fact some of these gems even feel a sense of guilt for having more than they need. This doesn’t mean that they will give it all away.

Helpful Confident: Go out of their way to make the world a better place and share a healthy portion of their wealth.

Cocky Confident: Probably persons new to wealth and feel superior because of the number of zeros at the end of the bank statement. They often use symbols such as clothing, cars, gadgets, houses and cars to exhibit their wealth. It is not uncommon that they treat people of lesser means with indifference or disrespect. It is likely that these people will enter depression if they lose what they have.

Aloof Confident: This genre more than likely have grown up in wealth and business (old money). They see money as a form of status and dispense with anyone they suspect is not equal to or greater than their level of net worth.

Hard Working Confident: More likely than not, they are  well educated professionals or own businesses and work 12 hour days and weekends. They usually do not have the time to count their beans but know that they can comfortably deal with any financial setback. Many of these persons may have started as “dirt poor”. If they lose all their money they don’t flinch as they know how to reproduce it whilst living frugal and conservative lifestyles.

Wasteful Confident: The confidence of these individuals usually come from their high levels of  incomes which they feel is guaranteed. They simply go overboard with spending. The more expensive, the more desirable it is. For those who own businesses, they sometimes scrimp on paying employees but spare no expense to perpetuate their high consumption lifestyle. Sometimes these persons risk their net worths with debt just to eat and live more.

Insecure Confident: This group is somewhat of an anomaly as, no matter how much wealth they retain they always feel insecure and fearful. Probably fear of losing what they have. They are closely related to the Miserly or Greedy Confident below.

Miserly Confident: So entrenched in cutting costs they pride themselves in being experts at frugality.

Greedy Confident: One of the seven deadly sins ~ at all costs and at anyone’s expense their confidence increases exponentially from adding to the already full pot of gold.

Lucky Confident: Just got a break in life that would translate into money. Maybe they worked hard (in this case refer to hard working confident above), maybe they won the lotto or just got a lump sum. Chances are they did not work and save religiously for years. The risk is, without some coaching they may end up back to the pre-lucky days at some point.

Well this is probably the longest blog post I’ve made to date – hope I didn’t lose you.

Tune in next time for the list of “Money Don’t haves”

Nick Says ~ “Tell me if I should create another money confidence group for someone you know that was not included in any above”

Week peak ~ Wed 23rd June 2010: In the last 24 hours two of my friends (who don’t know each other) shared their feelings regarding frustration and disappointment ~ here are their words verbatim:

“Sometimes I just want to quit!”

“Overwhelmingly disappointed today……..but ……”The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.”

In matters of:  Money ~ Business ~ Career ~ Relationships ~ there is no shortage of setbacks or things that make you go “Grrr!!” Nothing lasts forever, neither the peaks nor the troughs are permanent, even though some spells may seem never-ending.

I think friend #2 summed it up perfectly and it’s worth repeating here:

“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire ~ the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.”

Nick says ~ take a time-out if you must, but remain positive and get back in the race!

Monday 22nd June 2010. Over the weekend one of my facebook friends shouted “I want to be a….. billionaire!” I found out she was echoing the words of a song.

Notwithstanding that, I sensed a bit of hopefulness in her words, so I commented saying “I can show you how!” With lightening speed she responded:“I’m taking notes Nick!”

Isn’t  a billion dollars made up of $1.00 bills?

Seldom we recognize the power of $1.00 and dispense with it without thinking twice and we even pass up billions of opportunities to earn it too.

Think about this:

• “You cannot be a Billionaire without first being a Millionaire”
• “You’re not a Millionaire without being a Hundred Thousand-aire”
• “You would first have to be a: Ten-Thousand-aire, Thousand-aire, Hundred-aire and of course a Dollar-aire”

.

If not, you are simply hoping to get lucky. What are the odds, when betting on a Million Dollar jackpot?  How much would you have to invest to guarantee your chances of success?

A wise person once said:

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity”

Nick says: “Make your own Luck!”

You know that feeling of: “Paying for something that you really didn’t want to buy but needed to and then realized that you didn’t exactly get what you paid for” Sheesh!

I had this feeling at least three times this year: one was Clothes, another an Appliance and the other Car related.

In all these cases, I either paid too much or didn’t get what I paid for. The long and short of the story was, whether I had recourse or not (stress), I had to deal with my lower bank balance and live with the thing that reminded me of a bad buying experience. In one emoticon

After stewing over the situation and losing sleep, I made 4 decisions:

1) Fix it if I can 2) What is spent is spent  3) Don’t let the same thing happen twice  4) Learn from the experience.

That’s it for Thursday 17th June 2010 ~ we’ll catch up again! ~ Nick