The Garden Metaphor of Finance

What’s the strangest thing you’ve done for money? I’ll share an answer most have done, but didn’t realize: "I took out a loan to go to school so I could get a job to pay off my school loans.”

Far too many of us have certifications, Bachelor, Masters, and even PhD level education and with all this scholastic status, many find themselves in a quicksand-type of debt, slowly sinking deeper.

This is the kind of reality we all face yet do our best to ignore until our late 40s when we realize we have a few “good” employment years left and suddenly think about what retirement looks like. The challenge is, these days, tenure is no longer a luxury. The shift in the global economy has caused millions of jobs to be lost… and this is before Covid-19!

Let me ask three questions:

1. What would be the first thing you think of if you showed up to work on a Monday or about to leave on a Friday and were told you were being let go?
2. Do you live paycheck to paycheck? if so, do you have more than 6 months savings?
3. Have you ever said, "I really can’t complain. At least I have a job.”? If so, refer back to question #1.

Here’s a reality check: your employer is not obligated to pay you for the rest of your life. One day you will either be laid-off, fired, or—if lucky—retire. This affects monies you use to sustain yourself and family.

The chances you will retire at your current job is unlikely. The Bureau of Labor Statistic’s reports the average span a worker stays at their job is 4.2 years. By 65, you may have had 10 different jobs! And while it’s a professional courtesy to give our employer two weeks notice, they on the other hand, can let you go at a moments notice.

What are you doing to prevent this? Many believe investing in 401k’s, stocks, and savings accounts are all that’s needed to take care of financial emergencies and retirement. If you have your savings tied up in traditional money markets, the nature of its volatility puts your future in jeopardy!

Recessions, pandemics, and even presidential illnesses, factor in to the value of commodities in markets we gamble our futures on. And because we don’t watch it, we’re unaware of deficits. Case in point, millions had steep losses last March when the quarantine was announced. The last recession of 2008-10 saw post-retired seniors lose $2.4 Trillion in 401k and IRAs.

This model is designed to fail and most don’t realize until they're too old to do something about it. But it doesn’t have to be your design.

What’s a garden to you? What do you visualize? Dirt, flowers, and vegetables. If you cultivate the soil with the right conditions for growth it will sustain you. Planted seeds are hard to see before sprouting, but if you tend to it, it will bear fruit.

Metaphorically, the same can be applied to finance. Money, the root of attainability and sustainability, if provided with proper nourishment—in this case in the form of education—will enable a greater ability to provide for yourself and family.

But in order to do so requires a will to forgo what you’ve been taught. I invite you to join the Cryptowoke Financial Sustainability Movement where I show you ways to live off your savings and investments without falling victim to job loss nor being taken advantage of in money markets rigged to fail.

>> Join the Cryptowoke Financial Sustainability Movement Today! <<