Back in December of last year, Xander, Jenny and I sat down to plan out all of our monthly topics for 2020.

We decided to challenge ourselves to address some new topics that we’ve never covered before, and we were particularly excited about what we chose for April. 

But we had no freaking clue that the topic we picked would be front and center on everyone’s minds right now.

Want to know what we chose?

MONEY

Did you know that money is one of the top 3 issues couples fight about or even break up over? (Along with sex and kids.)

And with April being tax month, we originally thought it would be the perfect time to discuss the role money plays in our relationships.

But with the COVID-19 crisis, our relationships with money have taken on a totally different meaning. 

Unemployment is higher than it has ever been. The stock market has been an insane roller coaster. Entire industries are completely shut down.

Xander and I haven’t been immune to this money stress either. 

We’ve had anxiety over declining sales, payroll for our team, and how long the financial impacts of this crisis will last. We’re in the trenches with you. 

But at the same time, we’ve also spent years working on being a team when it comes to our finances, so we have resources and tools that we can fall back on when we start stressing out. 

And we’re really excited to share some of these tools with you!

To kick off this month, you first need to understand your relationship with money. 

Most of us don’t ever take the time to think about our relationship with money, but this is a big mistake! You need to understand your history in order to make good financial decisions and be a solid team with your partner.

So I want to encourage you to dig into your history with money.

Here are some important questions to consider, on your own. 

• What were you taught to believe about money?
• How did your parents handle money when you were growing up? What direct or indirect messages did you learn?
• Did you feel like you could talk about money growing up?
• What are some of your money milestones? Do you have any major money accomplishments or challenges?
• How does it feel to spend money?
• How does it feel to save money?
• What was your pre-crisis relationship with money? What’s your relationship with money like now?

And this is perhaps the most important question of all: what does money mean to you?

Money means incredibly different things to different people. It can mean:

• Power
• Safety
• Abundance
• Independence
• Avoidance
• Greed
• Control or manipulation
• Fear
• Entitlement
• Excitement
• Unworthiness

See, that’s a lot, right? 

These questions can bring up some big feelings, so I’d also encourage you to think about what kind of relationship you want to have with money. Just because you have a certain relationship with it now doesn’t mean it always has to be this way.