sorting out money and meaning

Yesterday we hosted a fundraising voice recital featuring our tenor friend Trey Costerisan, our friend Kali Wilson, soprano as his special guest, and the pianist Allen Perriello.

The above video captures the last part of the program: Kali singing “Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß” from Giuditta – Franz Lehár, and 5 minutes and 15 seconds (5:15) into the video, Kali and Trey singing the duet “Pie Jesu” from Requiem – Andrew Lloyd Webber.

the living room rearranged for a recital

Unfortunately our camera, a Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS, stopped just before they finished the Webber duet. Drat! Also, the audio quality isn’t as good as it could be. They sounded much more rich and clear in person, but it’s pretty good!

tulip poplar tree tulips blooming

The weather was warm enough for people to enjoy wine and appetizers in the gardens before the show and during intermission.

food and wine setup

We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day for a recital.

There aren’t many dressy clothing options for warm weather in my closet at this point, but this TravelSmith blouse, Chicos microfiber slacks and Aerosoles sandals worked well.

these bathroom shots are badly lit -- need to get another mirror

The day before, on Saturday, I finished reading The Power of Style by Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins, a loan from a neighbor, and loved it so much I ordered a copy for future reference. Of the twentieth century style icons profiled in the book, I related most to Millicent Rogers and Diana Vreeland, Millicent for her love of aesthetics and appreciation of Native American arts and crafts, and Diana for her wit and simple elegance.

At the end of the book, the authors speak of the women profiled in general terms, noting that all of them used style as a way of concealing flaws and tragedies in their lives. This idea of style as a way of maintaining private dignity in public does not seem to be an obvious feature of contemporary American culture. Previously, in considering lack of style as a possible sign of loss of self respect, I thought only of individuals, like me for example, but maybe it’s a wider cultural phenomenon?

In revisiting thoughts of a change in blog direction, I’ve decided to rename the blog Financial Organizing Dreams – sorting out money and meaning. Not just money and meaning in retirement, as Anna suggested, but money and meaning in general, because although it’s true that I am a retired software engineer, it’s not clear that my days of participating in the economy are 100% over. The financial consulting business is still a part-time endeavor and if I can manage to guide it in a different direction, it might take on new life in the future.

Also, many retirees will be seeking engagement in the economy in the form of part-time businesses, so the process of developing a consulting business around an area of expertise is relevant to that demographic.

The direction I would like to take the consulting business is upward, out of the details of small business and personal finance to the level of sorting out the big picture of balancing values and desires in making financial decisions in alignment with one’s true self. Not as so-called financial coaches do – they tend to be motivational as do many career and life coaches.

The model I have in mind is closer to the older Roman Catholic practice of spiritual direction, in which the individual works with a spiritual companion or guide to discern God’s unique plan for that person, except that my own model won’t be religious at all beyond the point of acknowledging that the individual adheres to some sort of system of values that informs personal decisions, financial and otherwise.

I’ll probably start by refining new-client questionnaires designed to tease out an individual or a couple’s personal financial picture and all of its thorny issues and bundle those into a free ebook, similar to what Anna did with her ebook on selling advertising on your blog. The ebook helped establish Anna as a blog consultant.

As I noted in an earlier post, individuals and business owners I’ve worked with are easily overwhelmed with the details involved in pulling together a coherent financial picture, and the difficulty seems to stem not from lack of motivation – people work really hard! – but from the complexity involved in sorting out one’s values and desires. In short, setting priorities and making decisions. It’s hard because our values and desires conflict with other, we have opposing desires, and sometimes we’re not clear on what our values really are or have opposing values. Add another person to the mix and complexity grows exponentially as the couple struggles to agree on shared values and desires.

As this diagram shows, some expenses are non-discretionary: at a minimum we need food, shelter, clothing, some household furnishings, transportation and insurance to manage major risks. We also agree to pay taxes (how much is the correct amount is beyond the scope of this blog.) And most people understand the need to save for the future.

What gets tricky is managing the pink discretionary wedge and also being honest with ourselves about how much of the non-discretionary items reflect what I call discretionary creep, e.g., yes, we all need shelter, but that doesn’t mean we all need a 4,000 square foot house!

Our values play off of our desires and vice versa.

Values reinforce elements of our social contractual commitment, i.e., stuff like:

• individual responsibility,
• public manners (style?), and
• family/community responsibility.

Desires fuel our drive for

• power/status (style?)
• individual creativity (style?)
• aesthetics/culture/knowledge (style?)

We need desires to attract partners, have families, engage in the economy and pursue artistic, academic and other cultural endeavors.

Personal style seems to be a culmination of many different aspects of both values and desires. In that sense I finally see how important it is in reflecting who we really are, just as our financial decisions do, or ought to.

At the recital I mentioned to my style-oriented neighbor that many of the profiles of the women in The Power of Style had a common thread of bringing together interesting and talented people as one element of their unique style. I would rather be known for this aspect of style than for anything I might drape on my body :-).

Dress update: the back extension on Miss R.’s dress fit perfectly!

Wrapping it up, life dreams are made of a combination of values and desires, and dreams inform our financial decisions, hence the new primary blog title Financial Organizing Dreams and a new focus on sorting out money and meaning in life, including fun activities like sewing and music.

What is your own process for sorting out priorities? Is it effective for you?

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