“I am so proud of you.”
The memory of those words from my beloved mentor and guide Pauline, bring tears to my eyes. We had just finished reviewing my budget and savings plan after years of meeting over this topic. Even now, almost a decade later, my heart flutters with warmth and I send her a quick prayer to wherever she is beyond the veil.
Pauline and I met at a book study while I was still in college. As our friendship progressed and I found myself struggling with money, Pauline offered to help my boyfriend and I create a budget.
Pauline was 50 years my senior, a daughter of Lebanese immigrants, a quintessential millionaire next door, and hilarious! From when we met in 2010 till she passed in 2018 we were close friends.
The Benefits of Mentorship
When you are growing into a new area of your life it’s important to have mentors and guides. We often know what we don’t want – that’s exactly what brought us to this dead end!
But how can we envision what we do want when we’re feeling stuck?
You can start with really clear questions on what you want, and break it down into manageable pieces. It is also important to have a money mentor.
Dr. Sarah Newcomb, behavioral economist at Morningstar, states that while most social comparison leaves us feeling like we’re falling behind, comparing our path to that of a mentor’s helps us.
What is a Money Mentor?
Think of someone who’s way of being with money you admire.
- They seem happy and content with how they earn, spend, save, give and invest.
- They are pursuing things they love and use money as a tool.
- They live in a way that feels aligned with their values, be it prioritizing fair trade everything, having a low carbon footprint, supporting BIPOC businesses, or whatever it is that makes THEIR heart sing.
What can you do when don’t know anyone who’s relationship with money you admire? Or more likely, what if you don’t enough about people’s relationship with money to even determine whether you admire it?
If that’s the case, let me share with you my mentor Pauline while you meet your own.
A Match Made in Heaven
After graduating from college, I was stressed out about money and honestly, I was stressed out about everything. Between my unemployment check and my boyfriend’s disability income we were barely making enough to cover rent and food in Costa Mesa, California – an area with a high cost of living.
I shared some of the stress I was going through with Pauline and she offered to help us create a budget. After my boyfriend and I began tracking expenses we met with her to review. She told me I was barely making a dent on my student loans and that without an emergency fund I was about to get into a debt trap: borrowing from tomorrow to cover today and digging ourselves a deeper hole each month.
A part of me already knew this, but seeing it in numbers and her loving delivery fully woke us up. From there, I used a promotional 0% credit card to roll over our balance to give us a bit of breathing room. We created a debt pay-off plan and began meeting with Pauline monthly.
This period of my money life was so stressful. My boyfriend and I barely made it through because we had such different money styles. I was a hoarder and automatically always said no to myself, while my boyfriend was used to a high income and was having a hard time adjusting to the reality of being on disability. Eventually our income did increase once I began working, but thankfully that was AFTER we had learned what it meant to be satisfied regardless of the dollars involved.
We met monthly with Pauline for a bit, and as our finances became more automated we talked about money less and less and talked about life more and more.
Pauline’s Money Journey
As I learned about Pauline’s way of being with money I realized it was also possible for me. Pauline’s husband was an airplane mechanic thanks to his army training, and Pauline was the office manager. They had bought land to for their repair shop next to the growing John Wayne Airport in Orange County, CA. As the airport expanded they were able to sell and were left with a sizeable profit – more than they’d ever imagined!
They didn’t set out to make a ton of money, but yet here it was. Pauline was a diligent administrator and followed her intuition. She shared the story of seeing a magazine at a grocery store check-out counter on real estate opportunities in Oklahoma and calling up the person who was being interviewed.
Pauline and her husband knew nothing about rental real estate, but because they owned their own tiny plane, they could fly to Oklahoma and start learning. That’s how they got started, with luck, hard work, closely administering their revenue and expenses, and a simple phone call. A few decades later they owned rental property not only in Oklahoma, but also in Orange County, CA.
Towards the end of her life, and especially after her husband passed, Pauline began to outgrow her earlier frugality and made upgrades to her home, her travel style, and prioritized aging gracefully. She hired a driver for longer drives, especially after dark. She prioritized having friend get-togethers. She traveled internationally even more often, and even told me “I just bought my first class plane ticket!!” at the tender age of 78.
Finding Your Own Money Mentor
According to Dr. Sarah Newcomb’s research on having money mentors or role models, “The people who chose a role model were significantly more likely to report being confident about their ability to reach their financial goals than those who made normal social comparisons. They were also more determined to reach those goals and reported feeling more in control of their financial future than those who did not choose a role model.”
My own personal experience strongly supports their findings!
I am so grateful for the sweet memory of Pauline saying she was proud of me.
I am grateful she told me where I was headed (into a debt trap) with clarity and kindness.
I am grateful I now get to do for others what Pauline did for me: remind them that there’s always options and that they have what it takes to live well, no matter what’s going on.
Did you find this post helpful? Sign up for my newsletter to stay in touch or learn about my 6-month Group Coaching Program.