Day 7

Money Magnets and Spending

To vibrate as a Money Magnet, it helps if we adopt some of the behaviors of wealthy people. Most wealthy people I know count the pennies and let the pounds look after themselves. Today our topic is Money Magnets and spending.

Did you hear about Duncan Bannatyne, the self-made millionaire and one of the stars of the TV series Dragons’ Den? Despite his incredible wealth and the success of his companies, Duncan once asked his staff not to purchase any paperclips—he reckoned they could save money by collecting paperclips from the morning’s post instead!

How do the wealthy approach spending? The answer is, creatively.

Exercise: Spending Creatively

Before we can get creative, we need to know how much we are playing with. Do you know how much money you actually spend? If you are not sure, carry out these initial steps first and start to spend time with your new friend, money:

• Carry a notepad with you for a week to monitor your spending.
• Transfer all your spending totals into a monthly expenditure chart (an Excel spreadsheet is a big help with this).
• Gather similar items into groups, such as: regular bills, entertainment, miscellaneous.
• Select a number of key items from the list, as it’s now time to get creative and to think like a Money Magnet.

When I looked at my various expenditure items, I soon realized where I was overspending in a few areas:

Expenditure Item	Small action	OK action	Significant action
Gas	Check prices on web	Share lifts to work	Buy a lower-emission car
Lunch	Take packed lunch	Eat less!	Change jobs for one with a canteen
Books	Use the library	Share books with friends	Donate books to charity shops (and maybe pick up one or two as well!)

For each of your expenditures, come up with a creative way of having the item but spending less, thereby leaving you more money in your bank account. Go on, be a little daring and venture outside your comfort zone—after all, it’s only an exercise! If you prefer, you could play a variation of this exercise with friends, where each one of you has to come up with a fresh idea for each item. You could even award bonus points for those with the most innovative or unusual ideas. The trick is to get those creative juices flowing!

Here are some ideas I had for cutting my expenditure:

• Supermarket food shop: I buy mostly perishable organic fruit and vegetables. The trouble was that I couldn’t resist a bargain! I would buy “two for the price of one” or a bag of oranges instead of the couple that would actually get eaten during the week. Of course, much of it perished before the end of the week. It was like throwing money down the drain!
• Books: I was a sucker for a good book. Bookshops were my equivalent of candy stores. I gradually became friends with my local library. I then started to let go of the books clogging up my home by lending them out to friends. If they came back, I reasoned that they were meant to stay with me.
• Seminars: Have you heard the expression “seminar junkie”? Well, I’d like to think that I wasn’t that bad. However, when I realized that I was going to workshops on how to write a book rather than actually writing a book, I knew something had to stop! I still go to workshops and retreats, as it’s my favorite way to learn something and to meet like-minded people. However, now I set myself goals to complete first!

OK, so we’ve looked at the amount of money you are currently attracting, and at some of your beliefs about money. Remember, the two are linked. Later we’ll look at transforming your old money beliefs so that you can start to attract more money.

Before we do that, though, let me ask you: “Are you clear about how much money you really want?”

“Yes, of course I am!” I hear you exclaim. If so, write down the exact figure on some paper, and include the date when you will have this money, like this:

By ............ (date), I expect to have $............ in my personal bank account.

• How did you reach that figure?
• Did you compare yourself with someone else?
• Did you simply pluck the figure out of “thin air”?
• If you are truly expecting a certain amount, don’t you think it may require a little more thought?
• What will that amount of money enable you to do with your life?
• How will it serve both you and others?
• How will it improve you as a person?

Vision

Many people talk of attracting $15 million on the lottery. What would you do differently with $15 million?

A part of you knows that if you won the lottery tomorrow, you could relax and take life easy. The problem is that you weren’t born on this earth to remain stagnant. We all yearn to grow and to become all that we can be. Sometimes the desire for money and security will push us to achieve much more than we initially think we can achieve. But then, what do we do once we’ve achieved it?

If we fully understand why we wish to achieve a certain amount of money and we feel that it is a deserving reason, we are more likely to attract the money we desire.

It’s important to maintain a vision at all times. By keeping a vision of where we are going we will keep moving forward and growing. Be clear about what you want from the beginning and this book will help you get there.

I am constantly amazed by the number of people who tell me that they want to have more money. Yet when I ask them, “How much money?” they have no answer. Sometimes they quickly grab a figure out of the air, maybe the amount announced on TV the night before or a number that reflects a friend’s ambition and is no reflection of what they really want.

If you want something in your life, you need to be clear about what it is, whether it’s money, winning a race, or publishing a book in 30 different languages. That means investing time in your dreams and getting your vision clear. Remember, it is you and nobody else who creates your life ... maybe it’s time to start mastering your thoughts on the subject of “Me and My Life”.

The money is already there. The only thing preventing you from being rich is you.