In this episode I talk more about spreadsheets, I talk more about maths, and I also talk more about why understanding the relationship between your bank account and your spreadsheets can vastly improve your financial resilience.
Because if you don’t get in control of your finances, nothing else in your life will make sense!
I am going to talk through some key points to help you take control of your finances, because I know you like to put off dealing with it – we’ve all been there! But the right time to sort it out is right now.
Listen to this podcast and you will be equipped with the tools you need to turn your finances around and achieve your wealthy life.
Links & Resources:
Highlights from this episode:
(00:18) The language of maths
(04:15) Counting money gave me reassurance in tough times
(09:53) Money is NOT the root of all evil
(13:59) Revisit your spreadsheet
(18:28) Budgeting as a single parent
(21:49) What matters to you?
Has this podcast started you thinking about what A Wealthy Life might look and feel like for you? Why not spend another 3 minutes and take my online audit called Readiness to Retire Wealthy based on the five principles discussed in The Wealthy Retirement Plan book and episodes of this podcast? The assessment provides you with a personal score and report to help you take back control of your financial future – something business owners and employees both forget – but for different reasons.
Https://VickiWusche.com/Scorecard/
Connect with Vicki:
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Browse Books by Vicki:
Using Other People’s Money: How to invest in property 4th edition
Make More Money from Property: From investor thinking to a business mindset 2nd Edition
Property for the Next Generation: Securing your future in uncertain times 2nd Edition
The New Estate: Insights from the 22nd century
The Wealthy Retirement Plan: A revolutionary guide to living the rest of your in style
Or read the following Ebooks on VickiWusche.com:
9 Critical Property Principles
The De-Job Yourself Manual: Break your reliance on a monthly wage
The Values Manual: Understand what your values are and how they can be key to a successful business
The Goal Setting Manual: Create meaningful and practical goals then achieve them
Ep 011 Transcript – Why Money Maths Will Save Your Sanity
The language of maths
Welcome to Episode 11 of the Wealthy Life podcast. And this time we’re talking about why maths will save your sanity. Now, I know I talk a lot about the language of maths, or I talk in the language of maths a lot, but that’s just because we’re in this planning phase. And as I said in Episode Five, I firmly believe that goals only work with a spreadsheet.
And I’m sorry if you have beliefs that you’re not good at money, I promise you, you are. If you have beliefs that you’re not good at maths, I promise you, you are. It’s just that a past experience is causing you to think that you’re not. And if you stay with me, I know that maths will keep you alive and maths will keep you sane; it’s kept me alive and sane, although some might argue on the sanity point.
Counting money gave me reassurance in tough times
If I just explain when I was first a single mum on benefits, I had to count every penny, but I counted every penny in a positive way. It meant that my children never had to know how much I struggled for money.
There was no contribution from the birth father. All right, I lie. There was a 90-pound payment when forced via court, but over a 15-year period, that didn’t really count for much. And maybe there was a couple of five-pound notes in the early days for birthday presents, but all of the financial pressures were on me.
So, in Episode One and Two, I talked about how we can adopt these archetypes of the “financial provider” or the, the “home family nurturer.” I had to take on both of those roles and in order to cope, to be a mother to my children, but also to make sure that we had the money so that we could eat, that we could pay the commitments to keep a roof over our heads to stay warm.
I had to also be the financial provider and I had to be tough around money. And I do count, here’s a maths word again, I suppose really, but I do count myself lucky that I found maths easy that I didn’t have–and they’re called limiting beliefs in the coaching world–but I didn’t have beliefs that held me back; that I wasn’t good at maths, or that made me–where I hadn’t enjoyed the experience of maths at school–maybe avoid seeing it as a really useful tool.
I talk about these tools all the time. And maybe what I’ll do is I’ll do an episode–remind me–an episode on the tools that we need, but you know, your mind is an incredible tool to support you; leverage, as I spoke about, and will speak about again. Maths is a brilliant tool.
Money is effectively a tool as well. It’s a tool that can help you achieve what you want. And as you know, I don’t believe maths is something to be scared of. It’s something that is learnable. Gosh, honestly, it’s only when I speak out loud that I realize, I don’t know whether I’m making these words up.
Maybe there’s a learnable…learnable… I don’t know. We’ll keep with learnable. Anyway. Maths is learning. You can learn about maths. There you go, that’s a better way of putting it. And later on, so when I got through that first phase of being a single mom and literally counting 10p, when I was made redundant, it was maths that took away the fear of the unknown.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s in an instant, it wasn’t an instant. I knew that I was going to be made redundant. I made my team redundant first. I made six people redundant, then when I was the last one left, I was made redundant. So, I knew it was coming. But I prioritized them. I didn’t appreciate the emotions that that would bring up, and the vulnerabilities that that would bring up, and how I would feel with no income, very little savings, how vulnerable I was.
And it was by counting my money–and I mean, I mean, by that working out what could come in, what had to go out–that it was soothing. It was reassuring. And that’s why I say worrying about money is no help. You can worry about money, and I speak to a lot of people. So, I’ll meet people networking, and they’re not in a position where they’re going to be clients, but we’ll have a conversation about where they are financially. And frequently, where they are is about worrying about money.
A lot of my clients are beyond that position. They are successful, they’re making their most and what they’re worrying about is time. But it’s interesting if we don’t master this first piece, then we’re in a position where we’re always going to be worrying about something. So recently in 2022, at home, we embarked on this crazy idea to double the floor space of our home with this eco-wrap-round extension.
And you guessed it: spreadsheets again, both for the budget and the timelines, are keeping me–I would say on the edge of sane. I think Bob would say I am positively crazy, but I feel like I’ve just about got a hold of it and that I’m keeping it together because of a spreadsheet. And here we go again, there’s the spreadsheet. And you’re just going to have to get over it.
If you’re listening to this podcast, I am going to keep talking about spreadsheets and you know, if you really don’t want to use Excel, just get out a pen and paper. All a spreadsheet is, is an online version of keeping a record of numbers. And that’s what I want you to do. I want you to see numbers as your friend.
I want you to see that money is just numbers that we trade with one another. And once you can get over that, once you can get through this and I think–oh gosh, here we go, school again. It’s just so important for you to understand that money is maths, maths is money. And if you can just master this, it will literally open the door to you no matter how financially secure you are already. If you’ve got a hang-up around numbers, it is going to be holding you back. And actually, once we get through that, this is just the most incredible propellant down your journey towards A Wealthy Life.
Money is NOT the root of all evil
And I think what I should do now is get back to focusing on the point of this episode is about Control, one of the Five Principles of a Wealthy Life. And as I said, the title is “Maths Will Keep You Sane.” And what I’m going to do is ask you to hold my hand, enjoy the ride of this episode, and let me take you through some key points that I want you to understand, to take on board to apply. And where I said before that these principles you’ll take them on when the time’s right for you, I’d like to just add in the message that it’s always the right time to be in control of your finances. It’s now.
You know, some of the other things–whether you want to think about your Legacy, which we’ll come to later, whether you’re ready to Leverage your resources, which we’ll come to later–now is the right time to be in Control. Because if you don’t get in control of your finances, then nothing else is going to make sense for you.
And I was almost tempted to make this the first Principle, but I think that by putting, looking at your money front and forward, it would give a different flavour to what A Wealthy Life is about. A Wealthy Life is very much about how you want to spend your time, about you making that decision and making your life the best life you want it to be.
This is now the way that you do it. The art of adding and subtracting, the art of noting and noticing your income, and noting and noticing your expenses. And why is this so important? I hinted at this before. It’s about removing uncertainty. It’s about freeing your mind, really, to think about more important things.
If you’re worrying about money–we’ve talked about, there’s no point worrying about something–but if you’re worrying about your money, how can you be thinking about the life that you want to have in the future when you actually don’t know whether you should be opening the letters coming through the post?
So that’s a one end of stuff, but at the other end of stuff, you’re busy running your business. You’re busy going to work. You’re busy commuting or struggling, working at home and a home office. And you’re so far into–let’s call it “the daily grind,” you know–you’re so far into that rhythm of working and the fact that you need to provide an income for your family, that you’re too worried to actually look at a spreadsheet to see how well you’re doing.
And I know again, I can tell you you’re doing well because you’ve got time and the money to buy the device to listen to a podcast. So, I know that you’re okay, whatever position you might think you’re in, I know that you are alright. And the proof of that is when you start doing some adding and subtracting and making it clear to yourself that you’re okay.
We sometimes talk about money as the root of all evil. And this is just really a historical myth, I feel, shared out of ignorance, perpetuated even to keep you stuck in a position. We hear maybe our grandparents, or heard our grandparents or our parents, have maybe negative values about money. Maybe you were brought up in a family where there wasn’t a lot of money.
Maybe you were brought up in a family–whether there was or wasn’t a lot of money–where one or more of your parents had beliefs about other people and how they spent money. They said that because somebody else was spending money and enjoying it, that they were wasting money. Is it wasting money to enjoy yourself?
I was listening to someone saying they were talking to their great-grandmother or their grandmother, you know, the elder member of the family who was very well off. And they were saying to her, “what do you want? What, why don’t you spend some of your money on you?” And she went, “oh, no, I couldn’t do that!”
And that’s classic of this sort of historic thinking that doesn’t serve us now; there was nothing evil about money. We could have a whole podcast on some of the evil of humanity. We can see that just by turning on the news, but that’s not money. I think people who know how to use money will use money to get what they want, and that includes riding rough shod over other people’s beliefs, over other people’s homes, over other people’s values. But that’s not money’s fault. That’s how some people use it. And that’s not how you have to use it.
You are going to use maths to prove that you are in a sound financial position. You’re going to use maths to create the financial resilience to give you that security that you need to remove uncertainty in your life. And then, with the focus that you have from the first principle of Clarity, you’re going to move forward down this path, creating for yourself a wonderful life, a wealthy life in which you can pursue your passions. And maybe one of those passions is about being in a position where you can use some of your time to give back to your community, or maybe it’s supporting your family.
Maybe it’s taking a skill that you have in business and working in your company four days a week and doing something charitable one day a week. I say I work three days a week, I also spend about one day a week–sometimes only half a day a week, it depends–working with people who are not able to afford my services; people who need the sort of advice, if you like, insights that I’m sharing with you through this podcast. And that’s in part why I set the podcast up, because there will be messages in here for people who don’t have a lot of money equally. There are messages in here to remove some of these historical myths that you can move forward, if you are already in a financially secure position, move forward to creating your wealthy life.
Make money a value, see it as a tool. And then what we can do is work out together that you have enough. Maybe you have more than enough. Maybe you have much more than enough, and I’ll get around to explaining those terms to you a bit later.
Revisit your spreadsheet
So, I’m going to keep this quite a brief one because I’ve already laid the seeds. If you like, back in Episode Five and using a spreadsheet as your friend to create goals, I’ve talked to you a lot about money already. And what I want to do this time is to give you homework and to focus on that. So, in the early episodes, I shared the link to the wealth tracker.
I’d like you to go back to that spreadsheet. I’d like you to enter in your numbers. I’d like you to keep on top of those numbers. I’d like you to enter your expenses and your income for a good three-month period. And if you started this a few weeks ago and you’ve been filling it out, make sure that you fill it in accurately, that you do it for the month that you take out your bank statements and your credit card statements at the end of the month, and you tick them off to make sure that you have entered everything into your spreadsheet.
And then what we can start to do is we can start to look at these three words. “Enough,” “more than enough,” or “much more than enough.” And what do I mean by that? So, if you have enough money and you’re working on your spreadsheet, what you’ll find is that you have income on a monthly basis and that income will be spent on stuff that you need for your life, the way it is now. And so, you will be left with basically zero. I do hope that you don’t fill the spreadsheet in and find that you are left with a negative number, because if you are, that’s a problem you need to fix immediately. That’s not sustainable. For most people in my experience, they’re usually around the zero mark.
There might be a time when there’s something unforeseen, an unforeseen expense, and that trips them over and that trips them up. And that’s why you need to be resilient, but mostly they’re around enough. Okay. That’s great. What you can start to do is then make your own judgements about how you spend your money and whether that is contributing to the focus that you discovered when we talked about the Clarity principle, and if the way you’re spending your money is leading you towards the life you want, superb. Carry on. Maybe see if you can build in some financial resilience.
For more of my clients and more of the people that I speak to, they have more than enough money. And more than enough means that all of their basic bills are taken care of. And actually, they’re living a pretty good life and they have surplus that they can spend on treats, whether that’s luxury purchases or holidays or whatever else they want. They’ve got more than enough money. I suppose another way of thinking is they’re comfortable.
And then, of course, there are the clients that have got much more than enough. And at that point, not only are they covering all their bills, they’ve got plenty of money to have the occasional meal out, or maybe have a holiday, but they now have sufficient money in their spreadsheet or in their lives that they can start to build up cash reserves. And once you get to the stage where you’re building cash reserves and you’ve got your financial resilience buffer, then you’re in a position where you can take that next step and make that money a resource that you leverage to work harder for you. So, there are three levels that you can take your finances to.
You can have enough to cover your basics and be happy with that. You can review your spending so that you can shift what you spend on to the point where you have more than enough money so you can cover all your bills and you can have fun. And then again, you can think about what you’re spending on and get to the point where you may be spend on less of some items so that you have much more cash left over at the end of the month.
And then what can you do? In the way of your spending habits? What can you change to support you achieving that focus that you wanted from the Clarity principle? Is your spending supporting your goal? Hey, that’s Episode Five for you. Doing it the other way round with Episode Five; writing your goal, and then making sure that the spreadsheet works for you.
Budgeting as a single parent
Now we’re starting with the spreadsheet going “okay, well, I have this goal in mind. I’m now detailing things into my spreadsheet. And then I’m going to see whether my spreadsheet is telling me that I am on track, that I’m on the path to the focus that I want.” And if not, then I can find a way that I can alter how I spend, how I earn even, how I use my time to support me to achieve what I want.
And that’s exactly what I did when I was first a single parent. Oh, I get to the stage where after this, I don’t know what I’ve told you and what I’ve not told you. Sorry if I’m repeating myself. But I had this notepad that was positioned as I walked in the door. So, we were in rental accommodation, I was on benefits, I was a student. I knew I didn’t have a lot of money. The responsibility was on me as both the financial provider and the family nurturer. And I had that notepad and that pen. And as I walked in and put my bag down, put my keys down, I would make a note of all the money I spent–even spending the 10p in the phone box.
And that matters. You know, those 10p added up. I would buy my food on a daily basis as we came home, because I picked the children up from nursery and we headed towards home. We would pass a co-op, I would go into the co-op and if, for example, there was a piece of chicken that was reduced, we would eat chicken that night.
If we didn’t have reduced chicken or something else that was within my budget for an evening meal–because I knew my budget for an evening meal–my fallback was a tin of frankfurters, of hot dogs in a tin in slightly salty water. I drained that off, and I would heat them up in a pan, chop them up and cook rice and a tin of tomatoes and make a sort of hot dog risotto.
And that that’s what we would eat, if there was nothing reduced and affordable, that was our fallback meal. And that got us through. You know, I got through university without increasing my debt. And I was focused on what I wanted; at that point, when I was at university, I wanted to move forward and go to work and have a job.
And then when I got a job, I realized that I’m vulnerable in the job because somebody made me redundant. So, you learn lessons all the way along. And that’s what I said to you as part of the initial introduction. And when I was talking to you about how property helped me retire at 48, it’s that focus. It crystallizes. I started off thinking that I wanted a job because that’s what we’re taught at school. And then when I got the job, I realized that I was still vulnerable, someone could make me redundant. So then I got to the next bit, as I was in that position of a job or recently facing redundancy, I could then see the rest of the path in front of me more clearly.
And that’s what I want for you. And so, now the third step. So number one, go back to your spreadsheet, look at the link for the Wealthy Life Tracker, and make sure that you fill that out, preferably over a three month period. Start to think about your spending habits. Do you have enough? Do you have more than enough? Do you have much more than enough? And now let’s have a look at how you can make money a value and get ready to use it as a tool, really.
What matters to you?
So, what I want you to do here for this exercise is I want you to make a list of your values. And I’m going to share how to do this more in the Fan Club. So, if you can join the Fan Club, I will put a resource in there for you, but make a list of your values.
And so basically what you do, take a sheet of paper and ask yourself: “in my life, what is important to me? What matters to me?” And we’re not looking for things like “oh, well my children.” Yes, it is children, but maybe the general word there is family matters to you. So family is a value for you.
And then we’re not looking for things like “my car or my phone matters.” You’re looking for things like companionship, trust loyalty, or you’re looking for freedom, routine, control or maybe you’re looking for variety. Maybe you’re looking for excitement or adventure. Maybe you’re looking for peace and stillness. Maybe looking for quiet. Maybe you’re looking for company. So, those are the sorts of words that you’re looking at.
When you’ve written your list, you’ll come to a point where you stop, I’d like you to go back up to the top of the list. Read the list. And as you work down the list, then ask yourself again, as you get to the bottom, “what else matters to me?” and write some more, more will come to you. And what you should get is a good list of words, a good 20 or 30 words.
And when you’ve got those words, pause for a bit. Maybe you go get yourself a cup of tea or coffee or a glass of water, and then come back and next to that list, start putting them in order. And the way you do that, as you say to yourself, “is control more important to me than freedom? Is freedom more important to me than family? Is family more important to me than loyalty? Is loyalty more important to me than love?” And as you ask those questions about each path, you’ll be able to get them down into the right order. And what you’ll end up with is a list of your values.
Now, what would be really interesting is to see in there whether any words related to money and financial position come up. For some of you, it will come up. It will be really important for you. And I bet if we had a conversation about your spreadsheet and your financial position, that you would be in a very good financial position, because if you have it as a value, whether you knew this consciously or not, you will be doing things that support your goals in a financial way.
If you make a list and nothing to do with money, wealth, rich, finances–any of that–is on your list, then I would like you to find a way that you can add this word, or this–not word so much, but concept–in. And one of the ways that I did this is, for me, I have a sentence that is about wealth and success. So, my first few values are: I focus on creating wealth and then success, so I can enjoy–enjoyment’s important–fun and adventure–they’re important–with family and friends while maintaining my health, and so on.
So, I’ve made it a little sentence and I would recite that sentence to me. And when you get really good at this, you can make it your screensaver. You can stick it on a note and have it on your fridge, on your, on your mirror in the morning, you can share it with your family. You can do this exercise with your family. But I used the word wealth and success to encompass the concept of living the life I wanted because I had all the time I needed, I had all the money and more than I needed. So, for me, those two words came together. So, do you have a word like success or achievement on there?
And if you dug into it, what does success or successful and achievement mean to you? And if you don’t have those words, can you find–and maybe you’ll have to do sort of one of these Google searches to find a word that, that resonates with you. Search for a word that when you get that word, it means for you, well, what it will be like when you have your Wealthy Life. Will you feel successful, will you feel wealthy? Will you feel that you’ve achieved something? What is the word that would signify how you felt when you reached that point that we’ve been focusing on? Or maybe even beyond that point that we’ve been focusing on, and then let’s add that word into your list.
And as you look at your list of words, I want you to go through them and it will have a natural fit in there. For me, it’s so important that I focus first because the focus is that long-term vision of bringing forward my future into now. That’s what focus does for me. I can see what I want and I can grab hold of it, and through my actions, I can bring it into my life. And when I have done that, I will feel wealthy and successful, And I feel, I do feel, wealthy and successful. And because of that, I’m able to have and enjoy fun and adventures with my family and friends. And what that means for me is the lifestyle that sits underneath this.
So, start looking at whether you can add in the word money, finances, wealth, success, achievement, something like that. And then morph this into this really powerful word with all of this meaning packed for you and make sure that it’s there in your value list. And keep that list somewhere handy and come back to it periodically.
Maybe in the first few, you know, times let’s come back to it once a week. And then maybe come back to it once a month, and ask yourself again the same question: is this more important than this? Is this more important than this? Is this more important than this?
And maybe shuffle that order again, because remember what I said to you is when you focus on something you want, you can see it the best you can now. The closer you move towards it, the crisper the image becomes. What you might see is something that lies beyond it. And as you see the thing that lies beyond the initial thing that you thought you wanted; you may find new words that you want to add into your values list. You may find some of your old values are less important. They’re still there, always are, but they’re less important than the key words that you originally had.
Conclusion
So that’s quite a bit of homework. There’s some maths in there. Obviously, this is the episode around the Control principle. There’s understanding how you feel about your position. Do you have enough money? Do you have more than enough? Do you have much more than enough? And why and how are your spending habits supporting the Clarity principle of focus that you have? And then let’s look at how you can get money as a value into your values list so that it becomes a tool for you to use. And I’ve given you an exercise on how to do that.
So, the purpose of this episode was to plant that second seedling “Control.” I’d love you to, obviously. subscribe to the podcast, follow the podcast; but also come along and join the podcast Fan Club. You’ve got links in the bottom of this so that you can go there. And I will see you on the next episode, when we are going to be talking about Resources, it will be released next Thursday.
So, make sure that you’ve got that date in your diary. And we’re going to start to talk about Resources, which also includes an element of gratitude. So, thank you very much for your precious time and listening to A Wealthy Life podcast. My name’s Vicki Wusche, and I hope that this episode has brought you some much needed “Whoosh” into your life.
You’ve been listening to Vicki Wusche – wealth strategist, author, and property investor. With a name like Wusche, spelt W-U-S-C-H-E, I’m easy to find on all the usual social media channels. Do come and connect. Been loving the podcast? Then join the listener Fan Club, where I will share extra insights and host webinars. Links to this and more of my story are both in the show notes and on my website: vickiwusche.com. See you on the next episode!