Money worries got you down?

Lori Bamber speaks to Breakfast TV about using the energy created by anxiety to align your money behind your values. 

Full Figure Women and Money Forum Discussion

Were you at the VPL Forum last night? Would you like to continue the discussion? Please register and leave your comments here — I’d love to hear from you!

If you’re in Vancouver…

Please join us for the Full Figure Theatre Women and Money Forum (Where did I spend it all?) at the Central Branch of the Vancouver Library on Wednesday, May 6 at 7 pm. It’s free, and there will be a panel discussion (I’m one of the panel) on women and their relationships with money.

Sharing

When it comes to living more richly with less, one thing seems clear: it’s going to require that we share.

That may manifest as more renting, borrowing or reclying versus buying (car co-ops and libraries), more co-housing (see cohousing.ca for more on that) or on more active participation in our communities. Whatever it looks like, the more we share, the higher our collective quality of life will be.

On the weekend, I received an email from my administrator at Freecycle, which I love, with a message I did not. The administrator advised us that some of us had been using the term Freecycle wrong. From this point forward, we were informed, we were to use Freecycle as a noun, not as a verb or adjective.

And today on one of my favourite blogs, Zen Habits, blogger Leo Babauta wrote that he’d received a letter from a law firm asking him to change his use of the term “Feel the fear and do it anyway,” which apparently has been registered as a trademark by the author Susan Jeffers. He refused.

Cue the language police. Please. (The idea that someone would have the nerve to register an old chestnut like ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ is in itself a head-shaker.)

Later in the day, when I checked back on Zen Habits (yes, I am mildly OCD about my favourite bloggers), Mr. Babauta announced a new, free poster of his best tips, here. 

While reading about the poster, I also learned that Mr. Babauta has an ‘uncopyright’ on all his work. Yes, that’s right — he wants to share, because he understands that the benefit of doing so will ultimately bring him a greater audience, sell more of his books, and make him a happier, more successful guy.

Post-financial crisis, the idea of hoarding our ideas, our phrases and our stuff behind closed doors is no longer tenable. It’s impossible, and it makes us look foolish. So … I applaud Mr. Babuata, and Goddess Leonie, and I hereby uncopyright my work, too. Take it — share it. I’d be flattered.

The wisest thinking on debt I’ve EVER come across…

It’s about how we think.

Kiva.org – Loans That Change Lives

$25 — the minimum loan — makes so little difference in our Western lives: a movie for two (without popcorn), half a tank of gas. But in the developing world, it can be the capital required to escape poverty, build a life and educate a family. Kiva works with experience micro-lenders on site, and the results have been remarkable.

What a privilege it is to be able to contribute — so simply — to real change in the world!

Importants lessons shared by someone who has learned them the hard way …

Bernie Madoff, economy, scandal, investments | Salon Life

I was fleeced by Madoff

The financial guru’s Ponzi scheme cost me 30 years of retirement savings. How could he do this to me — and why did I let him?

By Geneen Roth

An interesting and valuable perspective on our flagging economy

What Americans don’t need, says the author, is another made-in-China television.

About Lori Bamber

Lori Bamber is a freelance writer, an inspirational personal finance coach and speaker, and a communications advisor to not-for-profit organizations.

Chatelaine Magazine’s Money Expert from 2004 to February 2007, her articles now appear regularly in special reports within the Globe and Mail and Report on Business. Formerly a regular contributor to Alberta Venture Magazine and BCBusiness Magazine, Lori is widely quoted in publications such as Canadian Living and Today’s Parent as a personal finance coach. She also works behind the scenes as a writer and communications advisor for not-for-profit organizations, in both consulting and volunteer roles.

Lori co-hosted CKNW’s daily Moneyline, guest-hosted Money Talks on the Corus Radio Network, and has been a guest of radio and television programs across the country, including Marketplace, The Gill Deacon Show and CBC NewsWorld.

The author of seven books on personal finance and investment, she is an inspiring keynote speaker and workshop facilitator.

The desire to help people achieve financial well-being contributed to Lori’s rapid climb through the ranks of the financial industry, where she worked in many areas of financial services, including tax, RRSP, RRIFs, estates, investments and financial planning. In 1995, after serving as vice president of operations and manager of trust services, she became the only executive vice president of Vantage Securities, a financial services firm with 170 advisers in Alberta and British Columbia and more than $1 billion in assets under administration.

In 1996, struggling to balance the demands of career with the needs of a growing family, she concluded that “having it all could, in fact, be too much.”

“I found I wasn’t alone,” says Lori. “As a society, we’re wealthier than ever before, but depression, obesity and chronic disease rates are skyrocketing. We’re staying too long in jobs that aren’t satisfying, and working more than is sustainable for our health and our families. No matter how much money we manage to accumulate, we worry it won’t be enough. We are always hungry for more. At the same time, we’re starved for meaning, for time – and for rich relationships with family, friends, community and the astonishing planet we inhabit.”

“We can change all of that, by changing our relationship to money.”

After resigning from “the job of a lifetime” in 1996, Lori began writing her first book, Financial Serenity, and working directly with clients as a financial adviser. In 2000, she left active practice to focus on freelance writing and communications.

“The exploration that resulted in the Financial Serenity process, which I mapped in my book of the same name, became my way of life: the means that allowed me to transition from an unsatisfying, stressful struggle to balance work and life, to the realization of my lifelong dreams and purpose. By aligning work, meaning and money, we can achieve our richest possible life – a life that lights us up, is a source of inspiration and energy to those around us, and contributes greatly to healing our broken world.”

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