Family makes the best $$ TEAM!

I originally started the Wealthy Wilmas as a family book club for my three sisters, myself and my Mum. It dawned on me that we all financially sucked. We sucked because we never talked about money (unless to say we didn’t have any) and then the entire oxymoron of it all- that we were all smart, so why weren’t we financially smart? Oh, right. We didn’t like it. The term “financial ownership” was a topic that was foreign to us.

When I initially sent out my first Wealthy Wilma email to my family, it went something like this: “Guess what? I’ve started a financial book club thats a new family mandatory; you can’t get out of it. And I will relentlessly guilt trip you to read the financial books that I choose- which you’ll have two months time to read them. Then we’ll meet and talk about the financial strategies and figure them out together. The goal: Wealth”. You can imagine that email didn’t go over very well. I received a few “Hey Bern, shove it!” emails. A nice “That’s great dear, remove me from your email list” from my Mum and the other two sisters just ignored me. They did however, all agree that reading financial books was a good idea but they were all too busy to actually do it- but they’d try. As fate would have it, I had a few friends that liked the idea that I would guilt trip them to read financial books. They told their friends. And then their friends told their friends etc, et voila, ze Wealthy Wilmas was born.

What about my sisters and my Mum? Well, to date they’ve all read at least one book, OK maybe two books (of 8 books)...maybe even skimmed about three or four books (not bad, not bad). My Mum and sisters have even tried to host a Wealthy Wilma meeting or two. This December, I have one sister (Alex) hosting a meeting in Toronto (and she’s 8 months pregnant). I’m impressed! But it’s still a bit of an up hill battle to get them to understand that THEY control their financial future- and without having a financial strategy, or an ongoing financial plan- the same financial nightmares will repeat themselves. The idea of being wealthy will be nothing more than a dream; a lottery ticket. I myself would prefer to have a plan! And why not learn from those who are already wealthy, and hide their secrets in a book?

So- why does family make the best TEAM? Well, I went to Victoria this weekend to visit my Mum and my older sister Gaby (single Mum of two kids). I forced Mum to read my one blog entry called “Haunted Finances?” (which I had asked her to read three weeks earlier). Without much fuss (this time), she opened her laptop and started to read it. She laughed out loud (She’s very supportive) and said “Bern, you’re so funny”. Ahh, a mother’s affection. But when I said, “Mum, click on that link to get the excel sheet called “Personal Budget”… her response was “Oh honey, I don’t know how to use Excel, so I can’t”. I said, you don’t need to know excel Mum (which I wrote in the blog entry) - just try it. And guess what? She LOVED it. She spent the rest of the afternoon ignoring our catch up session to build her own Personal Budget on her laptop. And then guess what happened? I asked Gaby to read the same blog entry on Mum’s laptop. Gaby said “Oh Bern! Do I have to?”. Yes damn it! I said with a sisterly glare. So she started reading it- and only like a sister could say “You think you’re funny Bern, but you’re not. This is too long”. True. Then I said- click on the link. She replied “I don’t have time Bern…I have to make dinner”. My Mum then pipped up and said “Gaby for crying out loud, just open it. You’ll love it! It’ll make a huge difference to your life!”. She did. We spent the next hour building out Gaby’s Personal Budget (and growing hungry). Her eyes lit up. She was able to create financial goals. She could see her financial demons (income vs expenses)…and they weren’t even that scary. We built out her 2010 Personal Budget. It was easy! She was even having (dare I say) fun.

In my world- this is HUGE. Being a Wealthy Wilma works. It does take a team effort, but it works.

Two family members down, two to go!

B.

Ps
My family won’t read this, unless they know I’m publically talking about them, so shhh. I’ll keep you all updated on their progress. It’s my own personal payback for being called “most annoying in the family”. I am, but it works.