PENNY-WISE AND DOLLAR FOOLISH JUST DOESN'T MEAN MONEY

Penny-wise and dollar foolish 

just doesn't mean money

I recently had a long discussion with a friend about having to provide for our families and the amount of money we need to earn in order to sustain ourselves and provide for our families. The conversation then turned to attending our children's programs in school during working hours.

It took me a long time to be able to distinguish between what's really important and what is secondarily important. I never thought that I would leave work in the middle of the day to be in my preschooler’s graduation into kindergarten.

Yet I do.

I never thought that I would spend the early morning listening to my daughter’s presentation instead of being at work,

yet I go.

I never thought that I would derail my disciplined and organized schedule of production in order to drive my son to school so that he doesn't have to carry a project that he worked so hard on, that might have gotten ruined on the bus,

yet I did. 

I'm not patting myself on the back for doing these things that for right now my kids take for granted and hopefully years from now will appreciate - for I do these things out of love for them.

As a mortgage professional we have to generate deal flow for as they say "we reap what we sow."

It takes a lot of thinking and managing stress in order to mitigate the "making a living - worry" and a conscientious effort to put family in the forefront in terms of our personal and/or business time.  Sometimes we rationalize to ourselves that we have to make money for them and that money is important to buy them what they need.

We know that money is important for their future so we can pay for the school that they may attend, so that we can retire in comfort and not be a burden to our children. I will not deny, that practically speaking I always think about this, rumination is the term, and it is not easy to subjugate those thoughts. I know many times I should be in my office producing so I can pay the bills and sleep at night. Then all of a sudden I get ready to leave the house and my four-year-old turns and says to me "can you come to see me in my play daddy?"

What can I do? My practical thoughts disappear and my unbounding love for my child surfaces and I say to myself "What will he remember - that I closed another mortgage deal or that I was at his play?” (He may remember that I didn't close another mortgage deal if I can't buy him what he wants!).

I am not the Carl Guzman I used to know and love - the analytical careful calculator brain able to make practical intelligent bottom line monetary decisions. I have become dollar foolish so to speak, but in the context of family I have learned it's better than being "penny wise."