One Month. 33 courageous souls. Baring their truth about money. One story at a time. We’re hosting a free, month-long gathering this October to bring our money stories out of the shadows and into the light. To enrich and connect this dear community. To spread a message of healing and love even farther. To bring more depth and intimacy to our money relationships than ever before. Grab a cuppa tea. Curl up with your favorite blanket. Bring your journal and make some time to connect with your own heart’s truth. Don’t miss a single story. Sign up here to subscribe to the October Money Memoirs Series and get them delivered fresh in your inbox.
I’m so happy to welcome another money therapist to this series! April’s work focuses on compulsive shopping: supporting individuals in recovery, training therapists, and raising awareness about the dangers of overspending. I appreciate the emotional depth she brings to this work, and recommend her books to anyone dealing with a shopping addiction.
In this multi-faceted Money Memoir, April shares the evolutionary ups and downs of her money journey: from immense childhood financial responsibility through wealth (and ensuing guilt) through huge loss and finally balance, alignment, and honesty.
April’s Money Memoir
1. How would you describe your relationship with money?
Money and I are now good friends, although it sure didn’t start out that way.
My father died when I was eight years old and because he didn’t have a will, my brother and I each got a quarter of his estate and my mother got half. Lots of complications ensued.
My mother was quite resentful and, from such a young age, money became a very charged issue between us. She was allowed to use some of “my money” to take care of expenses related to me, but if she wanted to use more of it, she had to petition the court.
If I wanted something, sometimes she’d tell me that I would have to use “my own money.” Of course we know that part of teaching fiscal responsibility is helping children make good purchasing decisions and giving children the experience of using their own money (i.e., money they get from allowance, gifts, and/or part-time jobs) deepens their understanding of money and how to use it.
In my case, though, paying for orthodontics or summer camp with “my own money” as an early adolescent felt as though I was taking on too much financial responsibility too young, which I resented.
All of this had a serious negative impact on my relationship with my mother, and hers with me.
Today, my relationship with money is much, much better. The fact that my husband freely shares with me the money that he’s made has helped to heal some of those childhood wounds.
I’m very happy to spend some of the money that I make on our children; I contribute to our joint expenses and have enough left over for to pay for many of my own expenses.
I try not to squander the money I have and use some of it to further causes I believe in, and occasionally to help a family member who needs some extra money. I keep enough of it so that I’ll be able to draw from what I’ve saved when I stop working, leave some to my children, and hopefully, one day, I’ll have grandchildren too.
Since I was very young, I’ve made money through part-time jobs and I feel proud of my earning power and really like the independence that making money affords me.
2. What are your strengths around your relationship to money? What really works for you in this area? Where do you rock with money? What are you proud of?
I’m confident about my own worth and my fees reflect that. Because I’m very well paid in one part of my business, my private practice, I can also afford to provide a good deal of pro bono help to people by offering free tele seminars, low cost courses, and taking the time to answer people’s questions about their own, or a loved one’s, compulsive buying behavior and how best to address it.
I like to use money to pay people to do some of the things that make me feel safe, secure, and well taken care of. For example, I use money to hire someone to help with cleaning and cooking and help me keep my surroundings conducive to feeling peaceful.
I’m an avid gardener and I enjoy using my money for trees and plants and for having people help me in the garden. I’m comfortable spending money on experiences like travel, music, art, dance, both as a participant and as an observer.
I’m particularly proud that my husband and I have raised two sons who are ambitious and take very good care of the money they have. They don’t want or need us to subsidize them financially.
3. I believe everyone has money shame. What is the Money Shame story you tell yourself? How does this show up in your life and business?
I tell myself that if it weren’t for having a husband who made very good money before he retired and provided for us very well financially, that I wouldn’t have been able to take care of myself financially because I spend more than I make myself. However, as a couple, we definitely do not overspend.
I also tell myself that I shouldn’t have relied on my husband as much as I did financially.
This shows up in my life in my not having taken good care of my retirement account, which is a by-product of having relied too much on my husband’s earnings.
I also think that at an unconscious level it related to some unresolved feelings I had about the childhood money story that I talked about before.
As a result, I don’t have the amount of financial independence that I would have liked. My over-reliance on the money my husband made shows up in my business because I do a lot of work at a loss, i.e., I sometimes spend more money to put on events than I make doing them.
I don’t think enough of the bottom line when I hire consultants. I don’t always recoup the money I’ve spent on getting advice.
On the other hand, I know I’m providing a valuable service to thousands of overshoppers, many of whom have expressed a lot of gratitude, and I can afford to offer this help without total regard for the bottom line.
4. What was a really tough money experience you went through? Please share the gory details. What did you do to get yourself through this time? What did you learn from it, and what are you doing differently because of it?
Over thirty years ago, my husband began a retirement account for me and invested the money I was able to contribute each year.
He did extremely well in this account and a relatively small investment grew exponentially…before he made some speculative investments, the tech bubble burst, and I lost about 80% of those paper profits.
I got extremely angry and decided that I was going to put what was left into a hedge fund, without realizing how risky that kind of investment could be.
Long story short, within three years, the rest of my retirement account was gone. What I learned was that I either needed to totally trust my husband and let him invest the money or decide to do my due diligence, find a good money manager and not investment in anything as risky as a hedge fund.
So, I now have a conservatively managed investment account that I add to each month, but I have no retirement account any more.
5. Do you have a money practice? What does this look like for you? (e.g. Do you attend to your money relationship through a daily, weekly, monthly, and/or yearly practice? Do you have money dates? Do you use a bookkeeping system? Do you have a ‘budget-plan’?)
My money practice is to carefully record my income and my expenses. I balance my checkbook accounts once a month, make sure there is enough money in my checking accounts to pay my taxes and a variety of other bills. My husband and I discuss our financial situation regularly and have clear financial goals.
6. I believe our money relationship is never “handled”. We’re always evolving, upgrading, tweaking and expanding our money lives. What are you working on right now? What’s new for you emotionally, practically, or spiritually with money? What’s the next level for you? (e.g. Are you adding new financial support people to your team, Are you learning Quickbooks for the first time, are you working on receiving in a new way?)
What we’re working on right now is to see if we can generate enough dividend income that is reinvested so that in 7 years when his deferred bonus has all been paid out, there won’t be a very significant drop in our yearly income.
This will be the case if we don’t try to generate income to make up for what will disappear.
What’s new for me is the desire to find a charity with which I could become very involved, not just by donating money, but also by giving time and expertise.
Next winter, I’ll be visiting at least one charity in Uganda that might help me get a feel for whether it’s the type of organization and mission to which I’d want to devote resources.
I also want to begin the process of making a bequest to my college. I’m also donating more money to the three non-profit organizations where I have stepped up to be a Board member.
7. What’s the most important nugget of money wisdom that you would wish to pass on to young people? What is the Money Legacy you would wish to leave?
Enough makes life rich; too much leans toward misery…and less is sometimes more.
True wealth is leveraging your non-financial assets, different for each person, that vitalize and invigorate you. It might be relationships with family, friends, and animals, talents, hobbies, communion with nature, involvement in community, these are the things that truly make your heart sing.
And finally, you can never get enough of what you don’t really need.
About April
April Lane Benson, Ph.D., is a nationally known psychologist who specializes in the treatment of compulsive buying disorder. She has been in private practice in New York City for over 25 years. Dr. Benson graduated cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University, and has earned a Master of Science in Counseling Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Ferkauf Graduate School, Yeshiva University.
Dr. Benson has taught therapists at a number of postgraduate institutes and college counseling centers about compulsive buying and it’s treatment. Recently, she conducts 4-session didactic courses for therapist and 12-session trainings in the comprehensive treatment model that she and her colleagues have developed. For details, click here. Dr. Benson also teaches a course online, I Shop, Therefore I Am: Understanding and Treating Compulsive Buying. For details go to PsyBC.com.
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