Now that the holiday season is safely past us (well, almost, we just have New Years left), I thought it would be a prime time to pen out a couple of thoughts about money, gifting and showing your love.

Parents & Families

Many parents fall into the trap of thinking that the more they spend on their kids, the more their kids will love them.

It’s almost like substituting money for affection and time spent with them.

If you have ever watched the movie The Nanny Diaries with Scarlett Johansson, you will know exactly what I am talking about.

My family regularly falls into this trap.

Not my parents, but my brother and my sister-in-law.

They work so hard, to make so much money, only to use it buying toys that their kids don’t need, or play with for 10 minutes and then toss aside.

I thought back to the days when I was a kid. I rarely got anything. And if I did, I was so excited with my new toy, I spent YEARS playing with the same toy.

I was even thrilled to get a box and a couple bags of beads, because I would then pretend to cook by mixing the beads.

Their kids have so much stuff, so many clothes, lots of activities they’re constantly being shuffled off to and they live in a house filled with takeout, processed food, rotting vegetables and $10,000 pieces of furniture.

But all they really want, is their parents to play with them. I hear it all the time when I’m there.

“Daddy, can you play this board game with me?” .. “Sorry, not now.”

“Mommy, I want to go to the park with the dog with you.” …”I’m busy right now, can we do it later?”

It’s also not that they don’t want to spend time with their kids.

It’s that they’re so busy making all this money, and agreeing to all of these commitments to pay for all of this stuff, that they don’t even have the time.

We don’t need to give gifts, and clutter up our homes with the most expensive toys and furniture, to show that we love our kids.

In fact, the less you give them, the better:

• They’ll appreciate what they have
• They’ll develop a longer attention span for playing with less toys
• They will develop imagination from playing with less toys
• They’ll take care of what they own

And most importantly…

They will understand the importance of NOT filling their souls and the absence of love by purchasing physical objects.

What kids really want, is time.

Time with their parents and friends, and to have adults really listen to them.

You’d be surprised at how much they don’t care about having the latest gaming system, when they can spend time with their family instead.

And if you can bring them into the decisions of the family, it gives them a sense of autonomy, and a feeling that they are being taken into consideration instead of being brushed over just for being a kid.

Husbands, Wives & Life-Long Partners

Parents aren’t the only culprit. Couples are as much to blame as them.

On Valentine’s day, what do we do?

Guys run out and buy expensive chocolates, make reservations for a fancy dinner, and buy jewelery or other gifts to show how much they love their girls.

Girls run out and buy expensive perfumes, lingerie and new outfits for the anticipated dinner out.

When did spending money all the time to show our love for each other, become such an accepted, worldwide holiday?

The simplest gifts with the most thought, are not the ones that cost the most money.

Taking time to shop and cook a meal for someone, ranks #1 in my book, over taking me to the most expensive restaurant in the city.

Showing love should be an everyday thing

Why is it only one day a year that we go all out?

Why is it, that we can ignore our mothers all year, but on Mother’s Day, we take them out to a fancy restaurant, dust off our hands, get someone else to cook the meal, pay for the whole thing and say “there, mission accomplished for this year“?

Why is it that we can be thoughtless, rude, short and unhappy with our partners during the year, but on Valentine’s Day, it all magically changes for one day?

I’d rather celebrate NO holidays at all, and have love everyday during the year, rather than just on one day as a big spectacle of perfume, lingerie, gifts and expensive dinners.

10 ways you can show your partners everyday love without buying anything

(All inspirations from my own life)

Leave unexpected notes

• Write a short note and tuck it into their jacket.
• When the bathroom mirror is steamy, write a message in there for when she next takes a shower.
• Leave a post-it on the fridge where they’ll see it, if you get up earlier to go to work

Make something from scratch

• Cook something special
• Make their lunches for the week

Do small, thoughtful gestures

• Clean their car unexpectedly
• Do a chore that they have been neglecting for a while (laundry?)

Re-connect and talk

• Turn off the Blackberry, TV and computer & chat about anything: life, future, funny things
• If you must watch TV, then watch a TV series or a DVD together (every night, one episode!)

Show physical affection

• Hug them often and sincerely say you love them. Don’t do that automatic “I love you, too” nonsense.

I’m already living the life I want

Sure, I have bumps in the road along the way, with not getting any income for months, and having to watch my expenditures, but I just take that free benched time to get other things done.

Or I’d like to be an American citizen living in Dallas right now and working, but that’ll come eventually — it’s in my life plan.

I just have to be patient.

People have told me to my face that my lifestyle is impossible

When others come over to my small studio apartment, ask me what films I’ve seen in the cinema or what restaurants I’ve been to recently, they find out pretty quickly that I don’t like going to the cinema and I don’t eat out — I cook at home most of the time.

That I’ll never keep up on it, and it’s just a phase.

That when I have kids, I am going to want a huge McMansion, private school tuition and all of the fancy trappings like them.

But I don’t think so.

I may want the best, but if I can’t afford it, I am not going to kill myself to give them something I don’t think is necessarily better.

A huge McMansion? Why? I grew up in a medium-sized home and turned out fine.

BF grew up in a small studio apartment with 2 siblings and turned out fine.

Sure, it was cramped and they occasionally had fights about space, but it just made them learn how to get along with each other, instead of having to intercom each other from their bedrooms.

It’s not even a question of money most of the time

My family thinks I’m such a hippie weirdo for sleeping on a futon on the floor, and I’ll bet it crossed their mind at least ONCE that they think I am too cheap to spring for a bed.

But they don’t understand that even if you gave me a choice between a bed and a futon, both free, no strings attached, I’d take the futon.

It’s my lifestyle.

It’s more of a question of lower expenses

With low expenses, you can live on what you earn and save, for much longer.

It’s just basic rationality.

If you only spend $1000 a month, and earn $4000 a month, then $3000 goes into savings, and is equivalent to 3 months of living.

But if you spend $3500 a month, and only save $500 a month, that’s less than half a month, and would take you 7 months to save for one emergency month.

For me, the biggest impact over a certain salaried threshold, is not so much earning more money, but watching your expenditures.

It isn’t worth it to me, to give up my life like a slave to work for money.

Money ends up controlling you and your life.

With lower expenses, you can also save more, and do more of the things you want with the free time you have.

Like travel (something I love to do).

There’s no need to always spend your money buying things.

Experiences are worth so much more because you can’t just buy a memory.

So, are you living the life you want?

This is how I started thinking about it.

Make a list of everything you think you want or need to make your life perfect.

It looked something like:

• Pay off debt
• Go on vacation
• Change jobs
• Buy that set of cooking pans

Those are all attainable goals.

I set up plans for each, after prioritizing the items, and started working towards the goal.

I just feel like if we made lists more often and analyzed what made us unhappy, and set a plan to go about fixing it, it would be easier to see the forest for the trees.

The basic tenet is a change in attitude and the way you see life.

In the past, whatever I wanted, I bought.

Each time I purchased something, the fast food high was getting shorter and shorter.

To keep up that continual high, I kept buying, trying to make those feelings last longer.

It was a vicious catch-22.

One day, I just stopped and analyzed my habits

I was walking home from a client site to my hotel, and my mind started wandering back to my budgeting sheet.

I had been tracking my daily expenses, and trying to figure out what I spent each month.

And the numbers and just the sheer amount of expenditures was shocking.

It was the trigger that my mind finally used to connect that I was showing signs of unhappiness by wanting to fill that empty void with stuff.

I knew that I was buying items that I didn’t need, just because I created a need in my head, and thought I was fulfilling that to create the perfect life.

There’s no such thing as a perfect life.

You know how people say:

• If I earned $10,000 more, I’d be happy and life would be perfect.
• If I bought that red coat, I’d be happy and life would be perfect.
• If I went on that vacation to Cuba, I’d be happy and life would be perfect.
• If I could just clear my debt, I’d be happy and life would be perfect.

The first thing I struggled to grasp was that there was no such thing as a perfect happy life with the perfectly decorated home, and the perfect wardrobe.

Every time I bought something I thought I wanted/needed, I had a new list of stuff cropping up to replace it.

When does it stop?

There are always going to be problems, pain and sadness.

But now, instead of covering those emotions with purchases, I found dealing with the emotion itself was more fulfilling.

It takes effort to really scrutinize yourself, and to find the triggers in your life that cause unhappiness.

It isn’t easy to be objective about yourself.

I found a lot of excuses about why I did what I did.

Why I purchased things I didn’t really want or need, and justifying my purchases.

But instead of beating myself up of my past mistakes, I cleaned the slate and started anew.

The first thing, was to figure out the unhappy areas of my life.

It didn’t have to be anything serious, but just things that made me sad or upset each time I thought about it.

I needed to look for the triggers of that sadness.

One of those areas, was family.

I was trying too hard to change them, and ONLY just recently, after 6 years, I’ve only just understood the situation.

I realized that the trigger with my family, was hearing the complaints,  and then feeling frustrated that they wouldn’t do anything about it.

My new rule was that they had a right to let out the frustrations and complaints, but if they weren’t willing to listen to what I was going to say, then I didn’t want to hear their complaints.

And I’ve been pretty blunt with that lately, having let them steamroll over me for so long, out of a sense of filial guilt.

If they aren’t ready to make changes, then I am just wasting my breath trying to help them.

It still sorts of frustrates me thinking about it, but then I just tell myself:

Hey, they chose to do that.

No one forced them into those decisions.

And while they may complain about it, they’re still doing it.

So I just have to assume that they’re actually happy, because why would you do something that makes you unhappy?

Now I use that same methodology for everything

The second area was my job.

And I came to that solution/revelation a lot sooner than with my family.

I went over all the scenarios: the boss, the manager, co-workers, the actual tasks themselves.

Then figured out a way to cope with it, or change it.

I realized it was the bosses/managers and the company itself that I detested with their sly, sneaky tricks, and I just couldn’t work with such liars.

But I really loved my job, and the tasks involved.

So I reviewed my options for what I could do without working for such a company.

And left just as soon as I had enough experience in my area to become my own boss.

And now…?

I am still working towards this new attitude in life.

It isn’t a deadline or a project, and it gets easier with practice and time, once it becomes a habit.

I’m working on not putting so much emphasis on stuff, which has started to become a natural attitude and feeling just in the past year.

When I see something I want, I think: Do I really want that? Or do I want it because I’m bored?

I am focusing on getting the best from my life, emotionally.

It’s hard to explain, but for instance, I am making peace with my family’s unusual behaviour and actions (BF has confirmed my feelings and validated that I am not weird or wrong for believing what I do about my family.)

I can’t control everything, and letting go of that control is helpful.

Sometimes it’s best just to let them go and remember that they are HAPPY doing what they’re doing, not unhappy — because if they weren’t happy, they’d stop.

I want to live in the moment, not in the future.

I am focusing on what I want first, and then figuring out what I need to do to get it.

For example, I may want to retire early, and I am not planning on living it up with champagne and strawberries in retirement, so I may not need as much as I originally thought.

Yes, I want to be safe and conservative, but now I can tell myself: Who cares? Go on that vacation to Europe for a month — seriously, it’s what you’ve wanted for a while, and FORGET about the money you could be earning and saving for that month.

Money isn’t everything! And living in the moment now, rather than excessively worrying about the future is what I am focusing on.

Other points made in the discussion were:

• You cannot buy or earn happiness
• Happiness is love
• Poorer people are happier
• Being Unhappy is not a bad thing

You cannot buy happiness

Research, not funny comics has proven that.

When people win lotteries, for example, Layard said, “initially there is a big increase in happiness, but then it reverts to its original level.

So why do people want to win lotteries? . . .

They have a rather short-term focus, and they don’t seem to grasp long-term ways their own feelings work.”

“People grossly exaggerate the impact that higher incomes would have on their subjective well-being,”

The problem is that once people get past the level of poverty, money does not play a significant role in day-to-day happiness.

It certainly can buy things, but things do not usually address most of the troubles people experience in daily life — concerns about their children, problems in intimate relationships and stressful aspects of their jobs.

When people daydream about winning big, Krueger said, “they focus on all the things they would buy, without recognizing that does not contribute all that much to their well-being.”

Source: Washington Post – London School of Economics Study

You cannot earn happiness either

If you think that earning twice as much money will make you twice as much happy, you are wrong.

There are diminishing returns at play here.

I read a survey somewhere that if you earned $60,000 or less, you were generally happier than those who earned more.

Those who earned up to $100,000 (I think), were only marginally happier, and it didn’t seem that it would be worth the extra stress, lack of time and pressure just to earn more money.

And the return on money = happiness, came to a definite 0 after $100,000.

It’s all relative to those around you.

When a group of MBAs were asked whether they’d rather make $100,000 when everyone around them made $120,000, or make $90,000 when everyone around them made $70,000, a majority opted for the lesser salary if everyone at the company knew about the discrepancy, Schwarz said.

But if the salary discrepancies were kept confidential, about half said they’d opt for the $100,000 job.

Source: CNN Money

And this is perhaps where we run into problems, seeing all of these fabulous lives on TV, with people who are supposed to earn peanuts (Umm.. Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City?) but running around on high octane lifestyles.

We compare ourselves to what we think is reality, but is in fact, manufactured TV reality.

Happiness is love

And by love, they mean strong family bonds, a sense of a support system, spending time with each other (getting hugs, smiles, kisses), and having a great partner in life also helped.

People who are in love are happy people.

I find that when you aren’t with or around people you love, who care and support you, you feel unhappy.

And you project that dissatisfaction onto others.

Every time I see someone really grumpy at work, I just wonder if they’re happy at home.

When they are being forced to work long hours, and give up time with their family, I find that people get grumpier.

It may be because they need to earn more money to pay down their debt from their high-octane lifestyle, or just don’t want to be at home and use work as a substitute.

Poorer People are Happier

If anyone has ever traveled or known people who have traveled to very poor countries — they’re generally happy.

They don’t stress out about anything except the basics: Food, Clothing, Shelter and Warmth.

Other than that, the rest doesn’t even exist in their word — there’s no TV set or advertising Mad Men to tell them otherwise.

They have no manufactured dissatisfaction, or others in their village sporting iPods to make them feeling jealous at not having what others have.

Envy is what I believe to be the core of retail therapy.

We are so envious of what others have, that we try to level the playing field in our minds, by buying our way up to their “status”.

Being unhappy is also not a bad thing

Being unhappy or depressed once in a while is a good thing.

Trying to be happy all the time is a surefire way to fail at something.

It’s where permanent unhappiness begins — because no one can be happy ALL THE TIME.

I don’t think that anyone can be totally happy and politically correct all the damn time.

Some people may seem like that all the time, but once in a while, even they put on a mask to cover what they really feel inside.

Without unhappiness, we wouldn’t have a concept of the emotion of happiness.

Bad things are going to happen, and it’s just how you bounce back from them that makes the difference.

Plus, I read that tears (even ones you get from watching sad movies or reading sad stories), help cleanse your emotional blockages, and afterwards, you generally ALWAYS feel happier.

(At least, it my case I do).

Next: How I am attaining bellyful happiness

In a discussion the other day, “happiness” as a topic came up.

Everyone brought up great points about how poorer people seem to be happy and that being happy had nothing to do with owning anything.

But I couldn’t help but wonder:

So why is it that we feel SOME happiness when we own or buy things?

If happiness is all about not owning much or anything, why do I feel happier WITH stuff than without?

Like buying a new car, creates happiness.

Or going on a vacation, makes people happy.

And of course, the ever popular “retail therapy” to make anyone feel better.

I believe we have two different versions of happiness:

The fast food version and the long lasting belly filling one.

The Fast Food Version

Similar to fast food, it delivers an immediate satisfaction very quickly, but after a really high rush… you crash and feel depressed or hungry an hour later.

Think: sugar rushes, or takeout Chinese food.

• It’s short-lived.
• It’s more of an “emotional high” than actual happiness.
• It feels awesome, and you get this rush through the middle of your core.
• You can’t stop smiling during that period.

The Long-Lasting, Bellyful Version

Similar to home-cooked meals, or eating in a good restaurant, it keeps you satisfied and content for the whole day, rather than hungry an hour later.

Plus, the good nutrients are absorbed into your body to nourish it.

• It’s present in our daily lives.
• It’s as a result of a change in our attitudes and emotions.
• It can be difficult to achieve at first, as it requires attention & scrutiny.

So while having a little bit of Fast Food Happiness once in a while can be a lot of fun,it isn’t as good as working towards something that will last forever.

Next: Discussing Happiness and how to Attain it