This past week has been hot and humid in Maine—unbearably so.  Most of us live in Maine to avoid this kind of weather!  The heat is smothering us and we are grumpy because everything takes too much effort.  We just want it to go away and leave us alone.  We aren’t prepared for it—we don’t have the cool, calming breeze of air-conditioners because we rarely need it.  So, we have no choice but to live with the heat and try to ignore it.  We just keep waiting for the day when we’ll wake up and it will be gone! 

It reminds me of money problems.  When we haven’t prepared ourselves, the problems become hotter and heavier.  They begin to smother us and everything really does become too difficult.  We just want to stick our head in the sand and have it all go away.  We’d love to wake up some day and have it miraculously gone—just like the hot and humid weather.  Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.

 So, as difficult as it is, we need to pull our head out of the sand and face our money problems head on.  Ignoring them will only fuel them.  But, like operating in heavy heat and humidity, we need to move slowly—one step at a time.  If we go too fast we’ll melt away and lose our momentum. 

 So when money problems begin to close in on you, remember—slow and steady wins the race—both with heat and with money.

 Come on September—I know you’re just around the corner….

MSNBC’s financial headline today, “Unemployment rate takes surprise drop in July,” suggests that it is “welcome sign that the recession finally may be ending.”  We all want to heave a sigh of relief that, yes, it might be over.  All that talk about recessions is just downright depressing!  Money problems is not a topic we want to stay involved with too long.

But, why is that?  What is it about money problems that bring on the queasy stomach, the headaches or the blame and shame?  Money beliefs bring on these reactions.  And, those mostly unexamined beliefs are unexamined for a reason – we don’t like to go there.  We’d rather leave those beliefs unexamined.  It’s a hard place to go because to get to the bottom of things we have to go down into that deep, dark pit of feelings and emotions.  We’d rather stay above it all.

It’s easier to point our finger at “them.”  Those people who gave us bad advice or lead us down the garden path to today’s economic mess.  It’s not us – it’s them – those people just didn’t care and made stupid decisions.  “They” should have known better!

But if we make it all about them, we lose another financial growth opportunity.  We lose the opportunity to look at our role and more importantly, the beliefs that brought us to where we are today.  Like it or not, “we” are part of this recession.  It’s not only them.

This recession is about “us” taking responsibility and not using “them” for an excuse.  It’s about “us” becoming conscious of our beliefs.  It’s about us knowing how and why we make financial decisions.  It’s all about being in our own financial life with our eyes wide open.

 Maine weather – got to love it.  One minute sun, the next rain.  Change – you can always count on it!