Navigating personal income, tax preparation, and changing spending behaviors resembles more of a dream state in which the dollaryou have, and the dollars you have for food, are constantly warring with each other, as opposed to having a manual that you can reference to, like a car repair book. With no clear separation between the annual income analysis and the expenses of the family, it is as if a lack of financial clarity was at play, with the unknown element of whose shoes it was all about.
By comparing income verifications to dreams about a market that consists of mirrors, I am left to wonder; if I tracked my income today, what application(s) would it fall under? On the one hand, I am thinking of flexible budgeting models that will work for our modern family, and on the other hand, I have to find an interpretation of the balancing act between what I think, and how my balance sheet grows or shrinks every time I exhale. In the same vein, there are many times that people don’t realize until they look back on a tax-related choice or transaction, and see how those choices alter, or change, whether they received the tax deduction they were not expecting.
A person will subconsciously enter into an internal dialogue about how to plan for financial security before they are even aware of it. The subject matter will shift without notice, and the mood will be similar to a distant musical video that has been flipped upside down and oscillated in a manner in which its colours will become moments of musical bliss…and also a constant reminder to not leave your groceries in your car. The word “sustainability” becomes a blurry, cloudy fog hovering over the brain about personal finance, with no clear understanding or direction on what it means or where to go to obtain, or get, the skills that create sustainable spending behaviour.
They will likely also recall some of their best friends discussing passive income ideas as if they are rare, elusive beasts residing in the woods of adulthood. And then before they even get the opportunity to develop a very solid understanding of these concepts, they will be inundated with information and distractions, equating their finances from one month to the next like balloons (i.e., they are continuously increasing), and asking themselves—why do my tax documents feel like they have been chiselled into the Earth on a rock 3,000 years ago?
There was perhaps a moment, either at the inception of each new opportunity, or a moment waiting to emerge in the future, when the idea of personal finance would be held in such high regard and reverence that it would feel sacred. A symbol — a glimmering object that, although you could get closer to, you could never touch. Most likely, that moment will pass quickly and before you realise it, you will have wandered into the vague notion of the “American Dream” of homeownership, a recurring theme throughout this bizarre landscape. Your imagined house will change it’s colour(s), walls, purposes, and may one day live in a different zip code due to the ebb and flow of income as your career expands and evolves.
While this transient experience does not offer you the slightest inkling of an answer, you do know that budgeting for real-life goals should not feel like an oversized creature lying under your bed — yet they sometimes do feel like that. You may feel as though “managing expenses” is a language only your receipts understand. But throughout all of these layers and levels of experience, your day-to-day budgeting for your financial future is a subconscious rhythm and should be treated as such, not a rule or mandate. The rhythm of your budget creates the echoes in the hallways of your life, memories and monthly statements intertwined together to help shape the future you envision.
Understanding how much money you have available to spend on a daily basis can become like a compass that helps guide you through the fog of unpredictable spending patterns, as well as help you to identify the emotional triggers that lie beneath your expenditures. It will provide you with a guiding light in a world of chaos and uncertainty where the future might seem dark and unknown.
As you learn more about money, the perception of it will begin to take shape in the mirror of self-discovery. You will see your choices reflected back at you, your decisions based on what you want to accomplish, and your fears and small successes and failures reflected back at you. You will be able to see how your relationship with money changes over time, and how your confidence in yourself and your finances grows amid an era of uncertainty and volatility, as illustrated in this article.
The conclusion of this article is that your relationship with money is continually evolving, and while you may not always know where to start, it will continue to be unpredictable, and in some cases, it may even be poetic in unexpected ways. However, if you remember to pay attention to the subtle signals that your income and spending habits provide you with, you will have a road map to find both the normal places of income and expenditure and develop a solid relationship with your own finances.
