Posted by Annie Kaszina, Money Gym Coach

Strange things happen to people whose lives are touched by the Money Gym. I should know, I am one.

A Coach and Alternative Therapist by training, I recently went out to buy a first car for my daughter. (Not without the old scarcity mentality kicking in briefly and a little huffing and puffing about cost.) We test-drove a few cars, did the sums on the proverbial back of a fag packet and then I did something quite out of character: instead of buying one, I bought two. Cheerfully and confidently.

As I later said to Judith and Nicola: “It was a no-brainer”. The cars in question (the smart for four) are not only reliable, safe and cheap to run, they also have a great finance deal on them.

Now I grew up with all kinds of received wisdom and prejudices about all things financial (don’t we all?), one of which was:

“You must never, EVER, buy a car on finance”. I guess it goes back to the days when Hire Purchase (aka “The Never Never”) meant that you would be paying, several times over, for something that would have turned to dust by the time you finally paid it off.

It was the 11th commandment in our house. Mortgages were not frowned on, because they were perceived as a necessary evil. Nobody ever said that property is a good investment over time because it appreciates, while consumer goods are not, because of their limited lifespan. (Certainly nobody ever said that not all deals are the same and they need to be assessed individually).

This 11th commandment embodied many of the limiting beliefs people have around money matters. Like all limiting beliefs these figured the words “always” and “never” prominently: e.g. “You must never do X”, and “It will always turn out badly, if you don’t do it (the way I say/ the way we’ve always done it)”.

The phrase “ a no-brainer” is an interesting one suggesting not the domain of the brainless, but something that is so simple as to require little thought. Our habitual knee-jerk reaction, triggered by our prejudices is, actually, a response that short-circuits our rational brain entirely.

A “no-brainer”, on the other hand, is something we can evaluate quickly and simply; and we do evaluate it. In the case of my two car purchase, it only took a simple calculation to see that this was the best use of my resources.

The car I have been driving for the last 9+ years is beautiful, old and expensive to keep on the road. It’s running costs alone will easily cover the payments on the two new cars.

Then there is the hefty purchase price for a new car that I won’t be paying. If I invest that, instead of pouring it into something that can only depreciate, then that money can be making me money over the 44 months of the finance agreement.

Sure, my little fleet will still depreciate and I will still be paying monthly instalments for it, but doing it this way gives me the opportunity to leverage a not inconsiderable sum I would otherwise not have.

It’s not how I would have done it once upon a time. But then I lacked

awareness      of my beliefs around money
vision      of the various possibilities
knowledge      to make informed choice
capacity      to differentiate between assets (which appreciate) and liabilities (which,      enjoyable as they may be, inevitably depreciate)
Sadly, I don’t suppose I am alone in that. The biggest obstacle to achievement in any area is lack of knowledge. When you know that you know nothing, it’s easy to feel intimidated. A little knowledge will dispel the sense of overwhelm.

One of the precepts I grew up with was: “A little knowledge is a bad thing”. Interesting, that one. There’s nothing to suggest that no knowledge is better. A little knowledge, acquired in a spirit of openness and humility – and not confused with absolute knowledge – has to be a radical improvement on ignorance. (Perhaps that daft dictum had something to do with parents hanging on to control through an alleged monopoly on knowledge.)

The Money Gym is about providing people with sufficient knowledge to make informed choices. Through the Money Gym they can access the resources they need to develop that knowledge to whatever extent they choose. It’s also about giving people the tools to become financially free, as well as understanding precisely what “financially free” means for them.

The bottom line is that The Money Gym teaches you how to feel confident around your finances because you are in control of them; instead of feeling they are a herd of wild horses you are forever trying desperately to rein in. It can be quite life changing. It certainly has in my case. But then it was The Inimitable Ms Cairncross who first confronted me with the notion: “Money is fun.”