:::: MENU ::::

Jan 29, 2013    |       19 comments

Post Office Woes

by

After yesterday’s thoughts on incentives and rewards, I want to share a small funny. I went to the post office to mail the items I sold on ebay.  It had been quite some time since I used the services of the post office.  I walked up to the counter and presented my already packaged item and asked that it be shipped by priority mail.  On cue, the postal worker went into a laundry list of extra services I could pay for all related to making sure the item arrived.  75 cents for this, $1.50 for that–and yes, I know the postal service is in a bad, bad financial place–but inside my brain (and okay, maybe a little out loud too. If the postal worker heard me, she didn’t respond), I said “how about you do what you are supposed to do without my giving you more money?  You provide a service of getting things to their destination so why do I need to pay more money to guarantee that the postal system do its job?  I don’t know why that rubbed me in such a weird way.  I envisioned a client having to pay me more money to make sure I file the appropriate documents in their cases.  “For an extra $200, I’ll make sure to do this by the correct deadline.”  Backwards thinking to me it seems! I didn’t spend a lot of time bickering in my own mind over this but it DID remind me of this new mentality of our culture.  Give more “stuff” to people for doing what they should already be doing and that all relates to the financial difficulties we now face.

Jan 28, 2013    |       4 comments

Incentives

by

This weekend we celebrated the end of DD’s basketball season.  The girls had no wins out of their 14 games but had a genuinely good time.  Every time we have one of these celebrations I reflect on what we are teaching this next generation of kids about rewards and incentives because, yes, every girl gets a trophy.  I try to find a way to give my kids the lesson that life isn’t all about winning.  You will lose in this life and you will win in this life and sometimes you won’t get a trophy.  You should always do your best even if you aren’t guaranteed a big party at the end.  Doing our best is what we are called to do, period. These parties send me into soapbox moments with the kids although I have recently been better about finding the balance and not overdosing them on this kind of info.

Now when I visit with them, I am sure to draw connections to finances because I know part of the reason I got to the bad money place I am in is because I had a reward based mentality for myself and couldn’t delay the gratification when it came to spending.  Interesting when you think about the fact that I had no issue delaying the reward of earning my degrees and even in my late teens I had this strong work ethic with my studies that I wish I had a shred of regarding money.  Study hard, work hard and you get the benefit…later.  But with money I never had that same attitude.  With money it was always “spend what you want now, don’t wait for the reward because you DESERVE this.”  I want my kids to have more balance in the money realm and know that the better choice is to try to spend less, save and enjoy the benefits later. 

And that concludes your overdose of food for thought for today!

1 … 1,147 1,148 1,149 1,150 1,151 … 1,951