Money and Snow: It's All Relative

Isn’t it amazing how two different people can look at the same exact thing and have a completely different opinion?

This winter, we’ve received over 70 inches of snow where I live… about four feet of that has come in just the last week. Where I live, you’d think that we had been attacked by aliens! The snow has completely shut everything down and they’ve had round the clock local news coverage. Do you know the kind I’m talking about? Where local networks actually interrupt regularly scheduled programming to have anchors sit there for hours on end finding almost interesting things to say and showing footage of crews “on assignment” in various neighborhoods reporting “news,” like Mrs. Johnson saying that she’s never shoveled so much snow off of her porch?

Now this certainly is snow accumulation worthy of note in almost any city, but it’s front page news… because I live in Baltimore, Maryland, where the average annual snowfall is around 20 inches. Worthy of note, however, is that our record breaking snowfall wouldn’t even be news in cities all over the country and to millions of inhabitants. Maybe you live in one of those cities. Even in our relatively small state, there is a county that averages over double our record shattering snowfall and occasionally logs years in excess of 200 inches!

So what does this tell us? We tend to be pretty self-focused and view life in relative terms—that is, relative to our own lives, not the broader reality.

This is especially true in our financial lives. That is why I know a couple who felt as though their world was crashing down when they had to reduce their monthly income from $25,000 to $20,000 per month… and why I know others who live quite comfortably with monthly cash flow of $4,000. But regardless of where you stand—whether you have comfortable margin in your budget or if you are stressed out every month—the good news is that you have control over your personal financial reality. Most of the stuff that we worry about in life falls outside of our control and therefore doesn’t even warrant anxiety. So instead of worrying about the stuff that we can change, we should just… change. I know—it’s not easy. But it is simple. $x comes in… $y goes out.

Your personal reality is not unimportant—even if you’re having trouble seeing the forest for the trees…or over the snow bank—and knowing that yours is not the only reality out there can help you do a better job of managing your own finances, and your own life.