My addiction started when I was a teenager. It started with the 7 inch single Rat Trap by The Boomtown Rats, followed by Please Please Me by The Beatles.
My love of buying records began early.
The trouble with addictions is that they cost money. I therefore suspect my entrepreneurial streak was kickstarted by needing to buy XTC’s double album English Settlement!
I wasn’t however, overly keen on working too hard. I had a job collecting money for the Cancer & Polio Research Fund. Every month I took 60p from a list of people, and every month when I counted it at home it didn’t add up and I had to make up the difference from my wages. An inauspicious beginning for a future financial planner!!
So I sought other ways of making a bit of cash. My father was manager of a branch of Target Life, and pensions company. He would allow me to go into his stationery cupboard and take armfuls of writing pads, binders and decks of cards, all with the Target logo. I would then take these to school and sell them.
Now, a binder would cost £3 from the school shop, so I’d sell mine for £1.50. Unsurprisingly, they sold well.
I had a girlfriend at the time, Sarah. Oh, I was so in love with Sarah. Besotted I was. She could do no wrong in my 16 yr old eyes. Until one day, when Richard (the sort of kid who continued to wear school uniform in sixth form and took a briefcase to school) asked me if I had any binders for sale. Of course, said I. How much, he asked. £1.50 I replied.
Sarah, who had been listening to this exchange, could contain herself no more. Suddenly she blurted out “Don’t buy them, Richard! He gets them for free!”.
Richard thought about this for a moment. He then said “Well, they’ll cost me £3 in the school shop. So I’ll take two.”
The stark difference in our approaches to money still fascinates me today. Richard and I both understood that I was making a profit and he was saving money. Sarah, on the other hand, could not get past the fact that I was making a profit, even though this fixation was actually to her own detriment.
In coaching terms these are called ‘self limiting beliefs’. Believing in something so much that it becomes a fact. There are many examples of self limiting beliefs:
- I won’t be happy until I have more money
- I can’t earn more money
- I will retire at 65
- I don’t deserve to be happy
And my own personal favourite:
- Property prices will always go up.
Beliefs are not truths. Because we believe something does not mean it is real. Understanding this is key to creating more options. Here’s an exercise to try. First, write down something you hold to be true. Perhaps you think you’re rubbish at managing your money, for example.
How do you know this to be true (keep writing these down)? Could it be a belief, rather than a truth? What would be a more effective belief? Try living with that new belief for a while and see how it feels.
Sarah dumped me not long after this incident. I’d like to suggest it was because of a rift caused by her immature attitude to money. Actually it was because she started going out with John, who was taller, better looking and had less acne than me. But I had the last laugh. Because John didn’t have access to a limitless supply of Target Life branded binders…
Chris Budd is MD of Ovation Finance Ltd, a financial planning company. He is also an author, and The Financial Wellbeing Book is available (proceeds of which go to the charity Penny Brohn UK), as are his two novels. He also produces the Financial Wellbeing podcasts.