“I now see that money is a force for life: it shows up to make things happen and can offer the energy behind a project or an idea.” ~ Ann Lowe
Olivia talks to Lyn and Ann – a couple who are both employed in the creative fields and who have not followed the traditional route to building a wealth portfolio. Lyn and Ann kindly shared how investing in Olivia and Simon’s Financial Freedom Day and learning one another’s ‘Money Type’, has deepened their relationship and opened up a new and exciting future of financial freedom.
Olivia: How did you feel when you and your partner learned your Money Types?
Ann: Honestly, it all made so much sense; it was a relief for both of us. Lyn is an Architect, and I am a Magician/Angel. We just laughed when we read our scores and the associated character traits. Lyn fits the Architect perfectly: she’s organised, methodical, detail orientated and can immediately spot potential pitfalls in a situation. Whereas I struggle to ‘do detail’, and I’m always so focused on exciting big ideas that I forget to look at what could go wrong. In our marriage, we often joke that Lyn’s favourite phrase is: “The trouble is” because this is often what she will say when I come up with a new idea, whereas in many ways, I don’t worry about what could go wrong because I have a belief that things will mostly go right. I tend to think I’ll figure out the difficult stuff along the way, but I am learning this might not always be the best approach!
O: What’s your relationship with money?
Lyn: Until doing this work with Olivia and Simon, I would have said I have a pretty relaxed attitude towards money: it’s never been an ambition of mine to be mega-rich, and I would hold to the belief that ‘money can’t buy you happiness’. After digging a little deeper with Olivia, I realised I actually hold money at arm’s length, partly because I saw how hard my parents worked and what that did to their mental health and relationship. So, I’ve associated money with hard work and seen how it can compromise family life. When I realised all of this, I also realised that my parent’s story does not have to be my story: and while I still believe that money can’t necessarily buy happiness, it can open doors to fun, adventure, travel, and more importantly, time off with loved ones.
Ann: My relationship with money has changed so much over recent years: I’ve done a lot of inner work to try and address some of what I learned from my family growing up and also to work on accepting money into my life and feeling that I deserve it. My family definitely taught me that ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ and that money was for ‘other people’ (people who lived ‘down south!’, for example). I also held a belief that by having financial struggles in my past, I was being punished for being a ‘bad person’. I would then look at people who I perceived to be doing ‘bad’ things who were also wealthy and feel really resentful. I’ve woken up to the fact that money is there for everyone; you have to be open to it and willing to embrace it and allow it in. The people I was resenting were actually offering me a window into this lesson: money can flow to anyone, regardless of their past mistakes, and that includes me. This has been huge for me, and I can definitely see the transformation in my day-to-day life and how I feel about what I deserve. I also now see that money is a force for life: it shows up to make things happen and can offer the energy behind a project or an idea. This makes me feel very warm and friendly towards money.
O: How does your Money Type show up in your relationship?
Ann: Our different Money Types definitely make us a much stronger team: it would be frustrating, I imagine if we were both the same! As we’ve already mentioned, Lyn is much more cautious than me and will want to first look at everything that could go wrong, but then once she is fully invested in something, there is no stopping her. I love this as she can provide real energy behind an idea if she buys into it.
I also describe her as the drumbeat or bass guitar in our relationship, as she keeps the pace and keeps me grounded. Lyn’s work mostly comes from her regular employment, although she does have two days a week when she does graphic design work for her clients. This regular work offers us financial stability, and we always know the bills are covered each month. I am fully self-employed, and so my income varies depending on who I work with and for – I have some regular clients and then will pick up well-paid projects, which means I have a higher earning year than the one before. When we get bonus years, we invest in our home, such as lovely new furniture or landscaping the garden.
O: What are the benefits of your different Money Types in your relationship?
Lyn: As Ann mentioned, it makes us a better team to be different in some ways. We also have some similarities: both of us are keen to keep our savings account full, we don’t want to overspend on credit cards or get into debt, and we’d prefer to keep our outgoings as low as possible rather than over-commit.
In our Money Types quiz, we both came out with high Angel scores, which means we share a wish to do heartfelt work that benefits people, so underpinning our predominant Money Type, we hold very similar values. This has led me to work for a Deafness Support Charity and for Ann to be the co-founder of a therapy clinic, so interestingly, our Money Types give us a lot in common.
O: What are the challenges?
Ann: Before we took the Money Types quiz and met with Olivia and Simon, I would say our biggest challenge was my getting deflated when sharing an idea with Lyn, as I felt her focus on the problems was squashing my ideas and enthusiasm. I think perhaps I used also to drive Lyn crazy with all of my ‘magician’ ideas, perhaps because she thought I was going to go ahead without talking to her, or she worried I would not assess the risks properly. Now we understand one another a little better. Because we have the shared language of the Money Types, we can appreciate where the other person is coming from and find ways to communicate without freaking one another out or feeling like our ideas are not being heard. I have to say that most of the time when Lyn has been genuinely cautious about an idea of mine, she has been right, so I am learning to trust the caution coming from a really good place.
Lyn: I also recognise that the caution I bring sometimes can prevent growth and I can see that taking some calculated risks can bring new and exciting elements into my life that previously I wouldn’t have embraced. Olivia helped me to understand why my upbringing had led me to be so cautious, but ultimately that this has restricted me and doesn’t always serve my growth.
O: Would you recommend the Financial Freedom Day to others?
L&A: Absolutely, without a doubt, we have already been talking about our incredible experience on the day to friends, family and colleagues who we feel may benefit. We both left feeling like we are doing so much better than we actually thought we were, and that was reassuring to know and has left us both feeling able to breathe easier in the world. We’ve also got some great advice about what to do moving forward in terms of making our money work harder for us and what to do about investments, which we never considered before meeting with Olivia and Simon. For us, investments were something that ‘other people’ got involved in, certainly not people like us, and we’ve realised that, actually, investments ARE for us! This quick mindset shift has opened up so many possibilities and given us a little nest egg for our retirement.
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Photo credit
Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash
