Category Archives: responsibility

Keep Calm and Carry On

We are all facing the restrictions and social distancing around the Covid -19 challenge.  As a reminder for myself, I decided to grab onto the “Keep Calm and Carry On” British slogan.  After feeling like this was the mantra for me, I discovered some fascinating information about “Keep Calm and Carry On” as I researched the history of the famous phrase.

As we are diligently trying to Keep Calm and Carry On let’s take a trip in the ‘Way Back Machine’ ala Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman (from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon hit) to England just as WWII is looming in the summer of 1939.  The Ministry of Information has been given the task of raising morale and inspiring public support for the war.  There were three posters designed:

  • Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory
  • Freedom Is in Peril / Defend It With All Your Might
  • Keep Calm and Carry On

Between August 23rd and September 3rd of 1939 2.45 million of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters were printed. Only a handful was ever used. The bulk of the posters were destroyed at the end of the war in 1945.

Today, we only know of 16 of the original posters still “Carryin’ On.”  One was found 60 years later by Stuart and Mary Manley, co-owners of Barter Books, Ltd. in Northumberland.  The other 15 showed up on the BBC version of Antiques Roadshow in February of 2012.

So what happened?   Why weren’t they used?  These two links have all the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On

https://history.blog.gov.uk/2014/06/27/keep-calm-and-carry-on-the-compromise-behind-the-slogan/

Suffice it to say that there were too many opinions presented at once. There were complaints about the costs.  There were arguments about the content.  Too many politicians in the mix — We can all relate to that, can’t we?

Winston Churchill managed to send out 14 million leaflets in June of 1941.  He used the phrases Stand Firm and Carry On but not together or even in the same sentence.  This leaflet started with the phrase:  “If invasion comes…” and included 14 questions and answers around ‘practical matters’ of the invasion.  By then he had enough pull to avoid the flurry of opinions from a committee.

As we know, Britain made it through the war.  There was an immense amount of cooperation, collaboration, and courage expressed by their citizens — everything from the Black Outs to rationing, to sending your children to live with strangers for their safety, and too many other challenges to mention.

I agree with France’s current President Macron:  “We are at war — in a health war”  and we have a choice as to how we react to the hardships and restrictions.  Let’s all do our best to Keep Calm and Carry On

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

The Mystery Bet

In September of 1943, at the tender age of 18, my dad was drafted. At that point, my Grandmother, Dossie, started a ‘Scrap Book‘.  She wrote about what was happening and gathered telegrams, letters, newspaper clippings—all sorts of information. Dossie was not exactly ‘organized’.  She was a dynamic, wonderful whirlwind of a woman, who had a quirky nature.  Often the description on the back of a family photo read something like “all of us“—which was true, but not necessarily helpful.

Even the book’s history is intriguing.  Apparently the book and all the accompanying bits of paper, photos, and such were in a cardboard box.  Early in my parents marriage, my mother started to throw out the box.  To ‘make up’ for this egregious error, she took the whole mess to be ‘laminated’.  That’s good news and bad news.  The laminator paid little attention to chronology and backs of pages.  I’ve tried several times to ‘fix’ it, and it’s determined to stay a bit chaotic… but then it is about the most chaotic thing to ever happen to my dad and his family.

He ended up in the Army Air Corps, serving as a tail gunner on a B17.  On December 7, 1944 his plane was shot down after a bombing run over Germany.  Parachuting out, he was eventually turned over by Hitler Youth who found him hiding in an elderly woman’s basement.  He ended up in the Stalag Luft 1 POW camp in Northern Germany.  The camp was liberated on May 1, 1945.  My dad weighed 110 lbs.

I’m just giving you the basics.  There are many stories to tell about his time in the war, and also about how it was for my family back home.  What I really wanted to write about today is this fascinating tidbit I recently found in the book.  And guess what?  It’s about money!

On May 20, 1945 my dad wrote a letter home.  It was his first letter since being liberated, and most of it was a recap starting with his being shot down.  I think the reason for the rehash is that this was the first letter that he was able to write that was only censored by Americans, and not his captors.

At the end of the letter he wrote: “Deposit  $100.00 in the Wyoming Loan and Trust for I lost a bet and wrote a check on that bank.  All My Love, AC ‘Slug’ Stone”  My first response to this was to laugh out loud!  It’s so my dad.

Here he is, a young man of 20, who has only been ‘free’ nine days, and he wants to make sure he honors a debt!  Amazing, and yet perfect.

So back in those days you could literally write a check on a cocktail napkin.  Who knows, the one he wrote may have been on one!  He wanted to make sure that his check didn’t bounce.  It’s impressive.

And here’s the check.  It was actually cashed at the bank on July 12, 1945 so it took some time.  It’s a counter check.  Just a blank typed form with the information hand written in.  This is not the original check, it’s the bank making up a check for their records.  The signatures are also not original.

There is also an intriguing piece in the way he made the request.  It was a simple request, with little explanation.  Which tells me (of course I kinda know this about my dad) that him making a bet was not a remarkable thing. Yet this was a large bet.  $100 in 1945 was a major chunk of change.  I did a bit of exploring and discovered that it would be about a $1,395 bet today.  Yipes!

So here’s this 20-year-old kid, who has just been freed from a terrifying experience.  I’m sure there were times he thought he’d never make it out of the camp.  With all that, top of his list is honoring his bet?  I can’t think of a clearer representation of what I mean when I say that Money is Reflective.

And here’s the kicker.  There is no record as to what he bet on. It will forever remain a mystery.  Trust me, if I do end up in some future existence where I get to see him again, one of my first questions will now be:  “What DID you bet on, Dad?”  

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

How is your money reflective?  Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Seeking Balance

Maybe it’s just because I’m a Libra?  You know, born in October, the scales thing.  Maybe it’s deeper than that?  It seems like for me it’s always about seeking balance.  Notice I didn’t say finding balance, I said seeking it.  That’s because it’s illusive and fleeting.

One of the things that fascinates me in working with clients is our very human predilection to have black/white, on/off, good/bad thinking.  We are so driven in that direction that ALL this amazing computer stuff in our lives is based on zero and one.  Seems simple, seems practical.  In the context of actually living it makes for very narrow and restricted possibilities.

One of the ideas I latched on to long ago during my coach training is that you need more than two options.  I like the image of black at one end of the possibilities, white at the other, and all the multitudes of color in between.  Wow!  Bringing in the color really helps us find new solutions, experiences, and balance.

The fuel for this blog comes from an Anais Nin quote: “We don’t see things as they are: we see them as we are.”  It’s a stunning thought.  While noting our own view, it really asks us to look beyond our own perspective and see what else is there.

There is a dichotomy at work in this.  It is both always about us, and never about us, simultaneously.

One of my favorite coaches would ask me this very irritating question:  “What two percent of this is yours?”  It was irritating, because it was also on point.  All of us always have ownership in it somewhere.  As much as I’d want to be right about the other person, I had ownership in the exchange.

And to play with the Seeking Balance theme here, it is also often true that the ‘rant’ someone is turning on you isn’t really about you—it’s about some place where they are disappointed, frustrated, tied up.  Your question to yourself in these instances might be something like:  “What if this really isn’t about me?  What if it’s about something else?  How does that change my reaction to it?”

People seek coaching because they want something to be different.  They want something to change.  And above all else, change requires self observation.  As Dr. Phil puts it: “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.”  Acknowledge the extreme of both edges and the middle.

Getting clear is a crucial first step.  It gives you a way to seek balance.  If you try to skip it you just wander around bumping up against things.  Clarity doesn’t actually mean you have to go over and over and over things.  That’s actually counter productive because it keeps you literally stuck in the muck—you build up your neuropathways around the mess more and more.  The trick here is that by acknowledging what you don’t want you become more conscious and make better choices.

Frankly, part of why this is on my mind is our current political climate.  It’s all on/off, yes/no  —  oppositional.  The idea of seeking—let alone finding balance—has been lost in the fray.  To me the bigger goal is to create a country and culture that allows us to actually have differing views and seek balance and harmony.  That’s up to us, each of us.  And as we do that for ourselves  it ripples out to others.  All any of us can really do is be the change we want, right?

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want to chat about this idea of Seeking Balance? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Do Budgets Drive You Batty?

The typical answer to that question is an emphatic YES, THEY DO!  Many times in a presentation I have  asked: “How many of you have created a budget?” — most of the hands in the room go up.  Then I ask: “After you created the budget , how many of you actually ever looked at it again?” — almost all of the hands in the room go down!  My guess is that, as one of my ‘followers’, creating and using budgets isn’t your favorite method of managing your money?  Okay, maybe I understated that: You probably think of a budget as a form of torture, right?  You are not alone!

Before I get into exploring that, just in case you are worried that I’m going to end this blog suggesting that you use or create a traditional budget, have no fear!   What I’m actually going to do is explain why budgets don’t work for you, and suggest some other options.

Budgets can and do work… for analytical types.  You know them, they are those “logic first” people, the ones who create spread sheets and data bases for fun.  They are great people.  They are historians.  They like looking at all the data and coming to conclusions.  Good for them.  If you are one of them, you probably already have and enjoy using a budget.

If you aren’t one of those analytical types, all it means is that you are not happy crunching numbers.  You might be more ‘feeling’ oriented, more emotionally based.  Or you might be more ‘in the moment’ than interested in history and trends.  If that’s the case one of the biggest problems with a budget for you is that it’s after the fact.  What I mean is that you don’t have control in the moment.  You do what you do, spend what you spend.  Then you come home and as you load your spending into the budget spreadsheet you have either succeeded or failed.  By then you don’t really remember what your thoughts or emotions were when you were making the purchase, so you feel a bit lost.  Around this point is where most people feel shame, judgement, or even some bit of failure.

And there’s the rub, the thing that makes us batty.  It feels like something happened to you that you just couldn’t control because you are looking at the event before or after, instead of when it’s actually happening.  That’s why it feels so upsetting.  You are judging your action outside of the time when the actual choice was made.  At best you have a memory of what it felt like, not a clear vision of the choice.

If you are more of a big picture, emotional and/or an in the moment person, analysis after the fact won’t actually help you change your behavior.  It may make you feel bad about it, but it doesn’t give you any insights.

What will help you make better money choices is to find a way to be conscious of what you are spending—and why you are spending it—right in the moment that it is happening!  Make a list of things that often motivate your choices in the moment.  Things like:

  • Being tired, hungry
  • Feeling lonely, angry
  • Wanting something new, an emotional lift, some fun
  • Anxious to just get it done, settling for less than what you wanted

There are myriad possibilities, and you know what your go-to ones are.  Write them on a  card or note them on your phone. While you are standing in line to pay for your items, check if any of your purchases hit one of those spots?  and then make a choice to either buy it or not.  Understand what you are up to, make choices that truly work for you both in the moment and the long run.

A system like this, or my GOSH Model (which you can find on other blogs of mine) WILL help you be more conscious of your spending.  That’s what this whole budgeting thing is truly about — being conscious, aware, and purposeful in your spending.

Focus on having your spending and how you use your money reflect what you really care about. Your money will reflect your choices.

Ka’ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you’d like to explore just how you can let go of a budget and still have sound money practices give me a call at  503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.

Distracted from Your Talents

In North America we have been using the phrase: “Jack of all trades, master of none” since 1721.  That’s a long time.  Somehow during my lifetime it’s gotten worse.  For many of us it seems to have reached and gone beyond overload.  We are now wearing wayHATS too many hats.

When I started working back in the early 70s the internal structure of businesses was more hierarchical.  There were layers.  It mirrored the thousands of years of class structure.  An executive had a secretary (yep, that’s what they were called) who managed all the administrivia so the executives could do what they did best.  That might have been managing people or product.  It might have been negotiating deals.  Whatever it was, they were given the room to do it.

Somewhere in the 90’s when computers became more accessible and “user friendly” the Organization Chart “flattened out”.  What that meant was that very few people had an individual assistant (the new name for the secretarial function).  Most people were on their own.  They did all their own correspondence, appointment setting, supply ordering, etc.  Great. (It certainly improved the possibilities for women in the workforce and I am ALL for that. As women we were and are generally more successful than most men at multitasking.  We’ve literally been doing it for ages.)

Now we have all sorts of whizzy programs and apps to help.  That seems efficient at first glance.  And for those of us that like to exercise some control, it allows us to do that.  We do it all.  And at what cost?

Sure, we know we aren’t as good at some things as others.  Maybe we even find resources to help with those.  Personally, I could not function without my marketing and tech support.  But and however, instead of being able to really immerse myself in my true talents I am constantly distracted by needing to learn how to handle something new.  I’m stopped dead in my tracks to find someone to fix something that is way beyond my skill level while the techno wizard is stopped dead in their tracks when it comes to some non-techo thing.

The result of all this is that we all get distracted and pulled away from our real talent, the thing that is our unique gift, what we alone can do.  Our true talents get lost and we hardly have time for them.  Instead of exercising our gift, we are busy doing the work of wearing many hats at the same time.

The fundamental problem is that if we try to learn how to do better at things that we are fundamentally not good at we can go from being crappy to being adequate.  If, however, we can improve the places where we already have talent we can go from being good to being stellar.  The real trick to this is finding ways to get support from people who have talent in the areas you don’t so you have time to improve and use your talent.

What can you do to give yourself more room for your talent?

If you’d like to explore how to have your money support your talent rather than distract you from it give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at  www.sensiblecoaching.com

Ka’ching,

Shell Tain, The Untangler

Money’s Job

Most of us have an odd idea of what money’s job is.  We treat it as if it was a sentient being.  It’s amazing how much this abstract construct has become a force that we presume acts on its own.  We wait for money to give us signals before we act.  We blame money for our not being where we want to be in life.  We refuse to look at our money because we are sure that it will lecture us or shame us.  Money is doing its job, it’s just different than what we expect.

Many of us are waiting for something from money.  Some sign that we are okay or have “arriveMoney-Talksd”.  I’ve talked with people who feel that they can’t actually pursue the life they “really” want until they have somehow earned enough money to deserve it.  At the same time others feel that not having amassed “enough” money is a fatal character flaw that they must hide.   Others tend to spend what they don’t have.

These and other similar ideas come from not really understanding what money’s job is.  All money is doing trying to tell you what you are doing.  Money doesn’t tell you what you wish you were doing, it tells you what you are actually doing.  It has no judgement, it just reports and reflects.  As a matter of fact, it reflects very clearly.

Remember that old thing about “Try to pick up a pencil?”  It was one of those things I experienced in a Personal Growth training years ago.  You can’t actually “try”… you either pick it up or you don’t.   There is similar way that we “try” with money.  We want money to be there before we take a step or make a choice but money can’t do that.  All money does is show what we are up to.  So what it shows is that we are “trying” to have money do for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

There is more truth than we know in the “Do what you love, the money will follow,” statement, because that’s all the money can do.  It follows or reflects what you are doing.  It shows that you are waiting.  It shows that you are accepting things that are contrary to your dreams, hopes and desires. It shows whether or not you are doing “what you love.”

Okay, I can feel your inner critic voice rising up and saying, “That’s nuts, I can’t just ignore all the responsibilities I have!”  That’s absolutely true.  And is it at all possible that you could honor your responsibilities in a way that has you also honoring your dreams and desires?  What if you stop waiting for money to tell you when? What if you changed to you telling money, by how you use and earn it, what is truly important to you?   It’s your job after all, not money’s.  Money is doing its job.  It’s reflecting what you are really up to.  It will show you if you look.   Money isn’t designed to generate something on its own.  It’s designed to convert your energy into your wishes.  That’s what it’s doing.   If you want something different it’s up to you to change your actions, then money will reflect those changes.

If you’d like to explore this tangle give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at  www.sensiblecoaching.com

Ka’ching,

Shell Tain, The Untangler

Distractions

What happens when we are distracted?  Mostly we end up missing things. Lately, I have had first hand experience with the need to minimize distractions.  I had to have a tooth pulled (yipes!) and, as a result, ended up with a cast in my mouth.  It was sort of like this giant wad of silly putty over half of my lower jaw.  And wouldn’t you know it, I had a talk to do three days later.

I knew that I had to address this big glob in my mouth.  If I didn’t, no one would actually hear anything I said.  Instead, they’d be wondering about the wad of white over my teeth.

I learned about this years ago.  I was taking a philosophy class.  The professor, let’s call her Marjorie, distractionshad this thing going on that totally distracted me.  She had a piece of lint caught on the inside of her panty hose on her calf.  Now in those days of pantyhose, that kind of thing happened to the best of us.  The thing that got really distracting was that it was there, in the same spot for about 5 days.  My mind just fixated on it.  What was going on?  Did she not wash them?  Did she never take them off?

While in her class I just kept pondering this, and being distracted.  I have no idea what philosophical things she talked about.  I wasn’t actually present.

I used this story of Marjorie’s Lint as I busted my tooth thing so people could actually pay attention during my talk.  It was an even better story than the ‘bar fight’ one I had been tempted to make up.

And then, as I often do, I started thinking about how we distract ourselves from looking at our money.  Many of us let any little thing substitute as something to give our attention to.

It takes attention to do well with your money.  It takes focus.  It takes actually noticing.

More and more credit card companies do their best to keep us distracted.  One of the more recent techniques is to go ‘paper free’. I’m all for not cutting down trees and conserving…but when I choose to not get a receipt, I’m also choosing to not register in my brain, or anywhere else, the purchase I just made.

There is a cost we incur when we are distracted.  We miss stuff.  Around money, what we miss the most is allowing money to do what I think is its most important job: Telling us what we are doing with our assets. Money’s main job is to show us what we are up to.  Are we spending on things we care about, or just spending?  Are we truly honoring ourselves through our money, or not?

Money has all sorts of information to give us…AND…it won’t chase us to do it.  It will only give you the information if you ask for it, look at it, demand it.  So money information is even more prone to being missed by our being distracted than other things are.

How do you distract yourself from looking at or managing your money?  What would it take for you to actually look?  What do you make up would happen if you did? Let me know at shell@sensiblecoaching.com

Ka-ching

Shell

The Right Percentages

How much should you spend for housing?  What’s the right amount to save?  Are you percentagesspending too much on your hobby?  What about charity?  How much should you give to charity?  People are always asking me those questions.

The ‘standard’ amount for each of those kinds of questions are at best an average and, at worst, a SWAG (Scientific Wild Assed Guess).

Sure, I realize that people ask because they are bewildered by this money stuff and are trying to make some sense of it.  Since money is such a taboo topic, and no on talks about it, maybe getting some percentages of what you should spend on different categories would help you make sense of it, righty.  However, fundamentally it’s like asking something like “how many pairs of shoes should I have?”  Personally I know for some of my friends there is no limit on ‘necessary’ shoes.  It all depends on what is important to you.

Let me tell you about Bill.  Bill was a great guy that I dated in the 80’s.  He was a car guy.  To be more specific a ‘Vette’, as in Corvette, guy.  He’d already had several in his life by the time we were dating, and while we were dating he bought a brand new one.  To me, the color was ‘Taco Sauce’ (a rusty red).  He had it pinstriped.  He loved it.  He washed it every week.  (It deserves its one photo spot…so here you go!)vette

His family thought it was irresponsible of him to buy a $40,000 car (yep, that’s what it cost).  He was not a wealthy guy.  He worked as the manager of an Auto Parts store.  He had a 2 bedroom condo with a mortgage.  He rented out the 2nd bedroom to help pay for the condo.  His car payment was easily more than his mortgage.

To my thinking, he was both happy and responsible.  He wasn’t in debt.  His credit was good.  And he was honoring what was important to him (his car) while spending less on other things so he could still be responsible with all his other money choices.  His percentages were really working for him.  He was honoring what he loved, while taking good care of everything else.  He just made different choices than other people.

So here’s an idea.  Why not figure out what percentage you are spending now on Housing, Saving, Hobbies, and Charity and see how they feel?  Do you feel good about them?  Are they working for you?  Do you want to tweak them?

After all, if you were to follow the guidelines of the people who publish the ‘Should Stats’, whoever they are, you’d be honoring their values, not your own.  Maybe the percentages that the experts come up with are really meaningful only in how they make you feel.  What if that was true?

It’s not about someone else’s standard, it’s about what works for you.  Can you do both things at the same time?  Can you honor what you love, while making good choices about how to balance that so you take responsibility for yourself?

Try the idea out and see where it leads you.

Ka-ching

Shell

The Tax Scrabble

It’s tax time, again!  We are all caught up in the scrabble and scramble of taxes.  Sorting and assembling all those papers and numbers for our tax preparers.  It’s a time when your actual relationship with money becomes apparent. If you want to see it, that is.

We have all sorts of ways of responding to this ‘opportunity’.

Some people still practice the “put all the receipts in a shopping bag” method, much to the chagrin of their tax person!  That’s the extreme end of the spectrum.  It’s the total Ostrich scrabblestrategy.  The message is “I’m not looking, not at all!”  And, if that’s what you do, then it is going on all year long between you and money.  Not just at tax time.  In terms of the Scrabble game, you get no points because you don’t even look at the tiles.

Most of us do, however, do some sorting and compiling.  The question here then becomes are you actually noticing what is going on as you do that?  How much did you make last year?  Did you track all the deductible expenses so you could actually take advantage of them?  It’s our individual task to get the numbers to the tax preparer.

Taxes are an obligation, and we want our money obligations to be as low as is reasonable.  When it comes to taxes, that means taking full advantage of all the allowable deductions.  Sometimes it seems silly in the moment.  What does the mileage on this trip to a business meeting matter?  It matters in terms of money (57.5 cents per mile for 2015) and in terms of your relationship with money.  Are you paying attention, are you honoring what you are doing with this stuff you have worked so hard to get?  Are you paying attention?  Are you keeping the obligation part as low as is reasonable, so that you have more to fund the fun stuff?  That’s what it’s really about, isn’t it?

In our Scrabble analogy, if we aren’t taking advantage of all the deductions it would be like not replenishing our tiles before the next hand.

Can you go too far in this?  Can it become an obsession?   Well, yes, of course it can.  Anything can, even Scrabble.  🙂  It’s up to you to know when you have fallen into the other extreme.  Do you try to control every aspect or your money?  Or maybe you try to control how your partner spends?  It’s all very telling.  We just have to be willing to see what money is telling us.  If you just couldn’t tear yourself away from the Scrabble board you’d know you were in trouble.  What would that signal look like for you around money?

I’ve got one more new clue in the Tax Scrabble game.  It’s to review your return.  In our Scrabble analogy, it’s like looking for misspelled words.  No, you can’t figure out the actual taxes. What you can do instead is make sure the right numbers were used.  Okay, I know, I’m a recovering accountant.  I actually do this.  I look at the return and make sure the numbers jive back to the W2, 1099’s, and whatever else I know.  And, unfortunately, the truth is that I have often found mistakes.  The irony is that finding these mistakes has always saved me money.  This is a step no one wants to do, and yet it is very important.  Your tax preparer may support you in an audit, but they won’t be paying the additional tax, penalty or interest.  You will.

What does winning this game look like to me?  It looks like owing or getting back less than $1,000.  That means I’ve been using my money effectively, not letting the IRS hold it for me.  It means really being clear on what the earnings and deductions are.  Taking advantage of all that is allowed.  Honoring my money, and being clear on what I’m choosing to do with it, and paying attention to what it’s telling me.

Tax time is a great time to do that.  What you learn from last year, can still be applied to this year.  Who knows, you may land on a Triple Word Score if you are paying attention!

Ka-ching

Shell

It’s Just Like On TV

…um, not really.  Although justice on TV, or in the movies, can be gritty, we still think that somehow the truth will out and the good guys will win.  In real life, it’s actually more like the good guys will sorta win.  Usually.tv

It has been said that a contract is nothing more than an agreement to agree.  I agree!

I encourage everyone to write down agreements, mostly because humans have this tendency to reframe and restructure their memories and agreements.  If we write down what we agreed upon, the odds are much more likely that we can agree in the future.  Writing it down and agreeing to it in writing doesn’t actually mean people will stick to it.  It just gives us all a better chance.

Think for the moment of judge shows on TV.  I personally have a few that capture me as ‘guilty pleasures’.  These shows guarantee one thing to the litigants that you may not have even considered.  They guarantee that if you win, you’ll get paid, because the judgment is paid out of your stipend for doing the show.  At least that’s what the disclaimer says.  That’s a pretty good deal.

In real life that doesn’t happen.  Let me give you a couple of real life examples:

·        A client’s ex-husband is supposed to be paying support while the divorce trial is going on.  Each time he has to be prodded and reminded.  The money comes not on the first, as stipulated, but on the 15th, 22nd or some other random date.  Now the divorce has been finalized and he is ordered to pay support every month for the next three years.  So there was justice, right?  But wait!  If he wasn’t paying on time before, why would he do so now?  She now gets the joy of having to chase the money each month for three years.

·        A friend loaned his sister in-law money to help with attorney fees.  There was an agreement in writing for pay back.  One payment was made, then there was a 2 ½ year no payment zone.  Then 6 months of small payments each month, then the no payment zone shows up again.  The balance on the loan is still 2/3 of the original debt.  How would getting a court judgment for payment induce this person to pay, when the agreement, and the relationship, don’t?

I can go on and on with these stories.  We all have them, or know someone that has them.  Sometimes there is a written agreement, sometimes there isn’t.

The thing I’m really wanting you to notice is that when an agreement about money goes bad, the resolution is never smooth or easy.  Even if you are in the right and absolutely due the money, there will be a price to pay in time, energy, emotion, and maybe even money, to get your money back.

We are back to the contract being an agreement to agree.  As long as we both agree, all is good.  When we don’t, it gets messy.  You can go to court and get a judgment and never collect a dime.  You can go to court and get a judgment and have the money dribble in with each dribble precipitated by your having to call and press for the money.  You can make agreements and have people just not keep them.  The person who owes you can have a myriad of reasons for not paying, even if it’s a legitimate debt.

It can all be pretty messy. Nope, it’s not going to be like on the TV unless it is on the TV.  So maybe the real trick here is to pick your favorite TV judge, and when you set up the agreement with the person, agree to have any hassles handled there on the show.  But oh, wait a minute; that would mean an agreement was possible to begin with.  Ah, the Catch 22 syndrome is still in play.

We can’t avoid all these money messes.  But we can be aware of them and more thoughtful about the ones we do get into.  Ironically it looks like the best way to go is with a TV judge.  They’ve already collected the money, so if you win, you’ll actually get your money!

Ka-ching

Shell