Can Spending Money be Life Changing?

One of the things that came to me while exercising yesterday morning was a question about money and in particular – in what way has money you have spent made a difference in your life?

Whether you knew it at the time or not, what money have you spent that has actually changed your life and how? I thought about it and quickly came up with five things that were life changing. After these five items, I had a harder time coming up with life changing money spends.

Chronologically, in 1994, we bought our first house. In 1999, I had Lasik done to restore my vision to 20/20. In 2001, I had a color consultant come go through my closet and give me a prescription for what to wear/not to wear. In 2004, I bought my beloved Mercedes Station Wagon. In 2015, I hired a coach to help me get through a divorce and pick up the pieces of my life. These seem like things everyone may do in their life, so what is so life changing about these purchases?

1994: Buying a House

Buying a house was supposed to be a no brainer. Invest in yourself. Pay yourself first. Forced savings plan. What better way to save money than building equity, especially here in the Bay Area where housing prices were crazy? Why rent and pay someone else’s mortgage. Yada, yada, yada! All those things and my husband still wasn’t convinced that we should buy a house. Our long discussions on house buying ended in a frustrating argument. I lost it. I left the house in a huff wearing my in-line skates.

I skated for hours around Los Altos and Mountain View, where we lived at the time. I finally came back to the house and wailed, “I’ve married the wrong man. How could you not want to buy a house?”

We bought a house. In October of 1994. In San Carlos. Because we couldn’t afford another $100,000 to get into a home in Los Altos or even Mountain View at the time. By hook or by crook – we got into a house and used every dime we had from my first bonus as a lawyer at Sega to buy that house. We did a 90/10 loan. (PM me for details and loan strategies, we’ve been through it all. Serial refinancers. Whatever works to own property!)

The peace of mind that I had having a mortgage instead of paying rent was priceless to me.

1999: Lasik

I was so nearsighted I couldn’t see the time on the digital alarm clock with the big numbers. I got glasses in 8thgrade because I couldn’t see the blackboard. I got contacts in 9thgrade because I was so desperate to keep playing sports. As an adult, I had grown to hate water sports and going into the water. I didn’t want to lose my contacts. I was truly afraid of going into the water – whether it involved swimming, water skiing, water aerobics, water slides, or just plain hanging out with friends at the beach. I dreaded being in or around the water. Fast forward to having kids and kids want to be in the water. All. The. Time.

I had just given birth to my second son and half the people in the legal department at Intuit had decided to have Lasik done after they discovered it was covered by our PPO medical insurance. I had Kaiser, so I knew it wasn’t covered by my insurance. I made a call to the same Doctor everyone else had used (FYI: It was Dr. Ed Manche at Stanford who had done the FDA trials to get the procedure approved in the first place – how awesome is that?!?) and proceeded to discuss insurance and coverage. They urged me to talk to my husband’s company and see what was covered under his insurance. Well, it turns out the Cisco medical coverage took care of a lot of the surgery costs and that my out of pocket cost to do Lasik on both eyes would be $2,500. Say what?!?

In 1999, two days before Thanksgiving and a few of months after I had actually given birth (because they wouldn’t do the surgery while my body was pregnant and full of baby hormones), I had Lasik done on both eyes. How stupid was that? All advice points to doing the surgery on one eye and then seeing how it goes. And then later, doing the second eye. Nope, I was all in. My husband kept sending me every scare article he could dig up. AFTER I had scheduled the surgery. All I could think of was – OMG, I will be able to see and I won’t be afraid of going into the ocean.

Thankfully, my assistant at the time had warned me to ask for two Valium, instead of the standard one that they would give you before going into surgery. Calmed my nerves for sure. I clung for dear life to that stuffed animal they handed me as they began the surgery. I waited nervously as they propped my eyes open with who knows what apparatus and I tried to breathe through the whole procedure (I had really just discovered yoga a year before and “breathing through” things other than my trombone was a novelty). I am sure somewhere in that time frame that I passed out or the Valium took effect because the next thing I remember is the nurses prying the stuffed animal out of my hands and saying, “You are ready to go home. Don’t rub your eyes. Don’t scratch them. We’ll see you tomorrow morning bright and early at 8 am.”

I returned at 8 am the next morning with 20/20 vision. How cool is that?!? That $2,500 (which I thought as an enormous amount of money at the time) was money well spent. And 20/20 vision without glasses or contacts was definitely life changing.

2001: A Closet Intervention

It was October 2001, just after 9/11. I had just returned from driving across country with my brother and my third child, McKinley, who was almost three months old. Every day I was dressing in jeans, white wife beater undershirts. For real. Plaid Ralph Lauren shirts, which were hand-me-downs from my brother. And steel toed work boots. I am not making this up. All super sexy.

I recently had joined this women’s networking group to meet new people and build my Creative Memories business. One of the women in the networking group was a color consultant – Mary Lou Manlove. I hired her to help me do an intervention. She came to my house to go through my entire closet and to tell me what color and style to wear to flatter my body type, which, at that point, was post 3 C-Sections.

She had me start by taking everything out of my closet and piling things onto the bed. Wow – that took a lot of effort. Then she had me try everything on. I mean everything! That took a lot more effort and about 4 hours of time. Mary Lou took notes on what colors, shapes and styles looked good and which ones didn’t.

When we were done, I had a huge pile of stuff to pass on to someone else. I had a directive for what to buy and not buy (no more black). I had a directive to accept gifts or hand me downs graciously and not to wear them if they did not fit or flatter. She especially meant “do not take any more clothes from your brother, no matter how much you would like to look like you just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad.” I had a directive to go to a department store and try on different styles, especially ones that I didn’t own, to see what fit and flattered my body type.

I can hear you saying – “Now, how was that life changing other than to make room in your closet for more shoes?!?” Well, I started wearing dresses – no more looking like a lumberjack for me. I started wearing teals and blues and not as much black. I started wearing styles that were flattering to my body type and shape. I started wearing more bling. I started holding on to every shred of femininity possible with the three boys… In short – it changed how I looked to the outside world and it changed how I felt inside about myself in clothes.

I spent $450 to have this “Closet” intervention and it was worth every penny to change how I looked in and thought about clothes.

2004: A Car That Fits

In 1999, I leased a new station wagon after Mercedes started making a wagon model again after a few years hiatus. I had had Mercedes since I passed my driver’s license in 1984 and this one was just the next one in a long line of beautiful, driver centric cars. Call me arrogant. Call me a princess. Whatever, I like to drive. (And PS, I have already been called every name listed here, plus some, so it won’t hurt my feelings to hear it from you!)

When I chose that car, I had gone shopping for a bigger trunk. I had a trombone, golf clubs, and a double stroller to fit into my trunk. Oh, and a diaper bag the size of Texas. All of it had to fit into my trunk. The Baby Benz from 1986 wasn’t gettin’ the job done any longer with the addition of the double stroller! So, in 1999 when I went in search of a car with a bigger trunk, I found that one. Navy blue with a grey interior. It was a big, beautiful car with room for miles in the back.

When the lease was up for that wagon in 2003, and I no longer needed a business expense to deduct, I went searching for a replacement car. I needed to find a car with adequate space for our growing family of 5. I didn’t really want to lease another car. I wanted to own one. I didn’t want to feel like I was sending money down the river each month.

I turned in my leased car and bought a used Eddie Bauer outfitted Volvo station wagon. My friends who had Volvos raved about this new style wagon. Not me! Holy crap, I hated that car from minute one. From the second the driver’s door clocked me and almost took me out when it hit my temple. From the shit turning radius when you tried to make a U-turn. From the small back seat door opening that wouldn’t fit whatever I wanted to haul around. From the small cargo space in back when we wanted to go skiing with five of us. And on and on. I hated that car.

My husband took pity on me and was watching the auction lists, the Hemmings list, and the car dealers nearby for any acceptable replacement – which, at that point, was a list that was growing by the minute for every mile I drove that Volvo! In March of 2004, he said a 2001 wagon had come on the scene and was available at Autobahn Motors in Belmont. Thank the Lord (and I am not even religious)!! I went over there the next day, which happened to be Good Friday. 6 hours later, I had cleaned out every nook and cranny of that Volvo and left it behind, minus the kid car seats, which were actually great. I drove off the lot with a new to me car and I’ve loved it ever since.

Fast forward to now. My car is 18 years old. It has over 205,000 miles on it. We have driven all over the United States. It fits 5 people and all their stuff – for camping, for field trips, for vacation, for music, for three football teams, for three baseball teams, for wrestling, for basketball, for soccer. Golf Clubs. Archery. Rifle. You name it – those sports items have all been in my car. Sometimes, all at the same time.

I had originally planned to send it off to college with my last kid. But he is now a senior in high school. And I am not ready to part with my beloved car. No matter how loudly that cranberry red Tesla sedan is calling!!!

My car has a cruising speed of 87. Drive, lose track of things, and look down at the speedometer. Yep, you’ll be going 87. On the dot. No – I’m not ready to part with it!

In my mind, $40,000 was a ridiculous price for a car, on any level. But, it was peace of mind that took over. It was a sense of relief to get rid of that piece of crap Volvo. I don’t regret a single dollar that went into this car. For this car, I took out the one and only car loan I’ve had in my life and took 5 years to pay it off.

Shhhh, don’t tell my son, but I don’t think he will be seeing that car when he heads to college in a year. I’m thinking of keeping it until I hit at least 300,000 miles.

2015: Save Me from Myself

I had moved out in 2013 to get divorced and start over. Let’s just say I had a lot of work to do to keep me from swirling down into a black hole of despair and depression. I had been doing a lot of reading, journaling, exercising, and self-work, but it wasn’t enough. I had rebuilt a peaceful and calm household for my three boys, but it wasn’t enough. I needed reinforcements.

In early 2015, a former colleague and fellow lawyer had sent me a message that he was just completing his coaching certification program and did I know of anyone who needed coaching. And, was I willing to do a practice session with him to help him complete that last part of his certification requirement. Sure. I’ll help. I’m always up for helping others.

I did a practice session with Harry and thought. “Oh, I could probably use this kind of help right now.” Next thing I know, he sent my information to his fellow classmates with a description of my situation and a few people responded.

I did a practice session with three coaches and felt like I had walked on to the set of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The first coach was not a match at all for me – he was way too timid to coach me. The second one was a woman from LA who had her own TV show and she flat out told me, “I don’t think you are ready. I don’t think you want to change.” Yikes! The third one was like, “You have some work to do and I know I can help you.” Yay! Help is on the way!

Hiring Coach Kristen was life saving for me. Over the last three years, we have worked through some little things and some big things, you know, like a divorce, two kids going off to college, a remarriage, a change in job focus, friends and family moving away, basically, a ton of stuff.

Coach Kristen and I have bi-weekly calls for an hour and we work through issues I bring up or I start to tell her an update for the last two weeks and something will naturally come up in that conversation. I’ve tried weekly calls for 30 minutes each and that doesn’t work well for me. In August, it will be three years and I am just now feeling like I can let my grip loosen on that security blanket and not need the bi-weekly help to work through issues. The issues are minor now, and the work is more of an adjustment rather than a complete shift in behavior or thinking.

The monthly retainer I pay Coach Kristen is money I spent that has truly been life changing. I can’t even begin to tell you how life-changing working with Kristen has been.

Now that you’ve read stories with a tiny view into my life – tell me about money you have spent that has been life changing for you and how.