The good, the bad and the ugly side of your money

The psychology of money has a few secrets that the majority don’t know.

And these little secrets are the key to winning the money game.

Learn them once and the game is yours for the rest of your life.

Having worked with hundreds of people to help them take control of their personal finances, I’ve discovered that there are a few sparkly moments when they light up at something I say.

1. When they discover they don’t have to manage their money and that the system will do it for them.
2. When they realise that they will have money to invest in things like shares, bullion, crypto or even property eventually (this usually means they will have to study these things before they can invest, but even that is an exciting prospect)
3. And when they realise that they must spend their play money to reward themselves for the good work they are doing with their savings!

In this article, I want to delve deep into point #3.

In the system I teach, this strategy is the relationship between the Play and Savings To Keep accounts. 

They are built on the psychology of money and teach a powerful lesson that for most, is a secret they have never been told...

So let me explain the good, the bad and the ugly of the money I get to see in people's personal lives. 

Good Money:

This is the money that you save to invest. This is the money that makes people rich, financially free, wealthy, or whatever other name you want to give it.

Good money is actually saved. And kept!

Good money is money that works for you while you sleep. It’s invested in solid assets and things that either go up in value or that pay you a return (or preferably both).

^{Good money is the angel side of your personality}

Bad Money:

Strangely enough this is my favorite money of all!

This is the money that I get to reward myself with for all the good money savings I do.

It pays for my festivals, massages, fun toys and whatever else I choose to buy when I’m feeling playful or in need of a reward.

And you might be surprised to hear that it’s actually the second most important part of my entire money system that has made me financially free. And it’s money that has to be spent every month or so!

^{Bad money is the devil side of your personality}

Ugly Money:

On the flip side of the good and bad money, is ugly money. Unorganised money that sits around in piles like dirty dishes or smelly laundry.

This to me is when all of your money is piled into one or two accounts and is impossible to manage. It’s all mixed in together:

• Your fun money
• Your savings (or an attempt at savings at least)
• Your regular spending
• And all of those things that pop up and kick your money between the legs on an annoyingly regular basis

This to me would be a nightmare. Always having to think about if I had enough and constantly wondering where it all goes.

Yuk. That would be such a waste of brain power!

^{That feeling of all your money festering in an unorganised pile}

To un-ugly your money, you need to organise it and manage it (or have a system manage it for you of course)

The secrets of money psychology:

1. You have to know the difference between savings to invest and savings to spend.
2. You can have your cake and eat it too, as long as you have a structure and balance in place.
3. Those who manage their money, master their money.

Let me explain…

Savings to spend

Most people I work with have savings to spend. They save for a car, a holiday, an expensive piece of technology or for their education and so on.

This is a kind of savings, but is also earmarked for spending the whole time. So it’s not really savings as such, as it is intended to be spent at some time in the future.

This is the main version of savings for poor people. They can feel good about it, for a short time, but it always goes away and leaves them feeling bad again eventually.

Savings to invest

On the flip side there’s savings to invest. This is money that you never intend to spend. You want to keep it, forever. 

This is the money that you invest in shares, property, bullion or whatever else you happen to be wise about and can make sound judgments on when you buy in.

This money is invested into these things mostly as a way to do 3 things:

• Keep it to be spent at retirement
• To produce a return / income for you
• To build a family estate for future generations

This kind of saving has a totally different energy and discipline to it. And this is the secret that most people don’t know about.

Most people see their savings to spend as a great achievement. They are proud that they have saved a few grand in their bank accounts and they can’t wait for that quick fix feeling they love when they get to SPEND it.

And then they are back to zero, again.

And then they start that save-to-spend cycle all over, again.

This is what poor people do.

Rich people on the other hand… they do both.

They know the difference between savings to be spent and savings that they will not spend. Ever.

Saving to invest is a secret that most people don’t know.

Often for one simple reason…

Even if they had money to invest, they wouldn’t know where to put it!

So the secret is to choose one or a few things that you’d love to invest in and actually commit your money into those things! 

Even if it’s only a few hundred per month. It’s the act of committing the money to the idea and starting that plan to build long term wealth that will be the paradigm shift in your life.

Now I know that you might not feel confident in making the choice of what to invest in. That's normal and everyone has to go through that phase.

So do some research, read blogs and ask your wealthy friends. Start small and keep on going.

At the start it’s not so much about getting it right. It’s more about getting started!

So back to the play and savings to keep strategy:

The key to keeping some of your money is to split the savings up into at least these 3 categories:

1. Savings to keep and invest
2. Savings that are earmarked to spend on big things
3. And savings that you have to spend to reward you for the good work you’re doing with 1 and 2 above.

I find that if you do this strategy, then it seems to work long term.

I suggest 10% for Invest and 10% for Play. Usually 5% for savings to spend is enough.

Maybe you could try this for yourself and let me know how it goes?

I’d love to hear if you have any other strategies that have worked for you. We’re all in the middle of a tough financial time and the more we help and support each other, the better it is for all of us.

Much love,

Stacy