Shoes, Homeless and Your Finances
So last weekend my friend and I decided to rewatch Sex and the City again. She has all the episodes. We rewatched the series from beginning to end. When I sat down to watch the episodes all in a row, I began to understand why the show was such a game changer. Yes there are things about the show that I find problematic. And to be fair, this new perspective on the show comes with age.
I know many of us still think that the show revolved around the girls glamorous lives and constant shopping in New York. But when I watched it again, I realised that the main character, Carrie, was her financially overextended life in the heart of Manhattan. I also realised how they were talking about money in a way that most of us as women can relate to.
In one of the episodes, Carrie was taking a break from the pressures of trying to come up with a down payment to buy her apartment by doing what she does best, shoe shopping with her friend Miranda.
"Where did all my money go? I know I made some."
Holding up a pair of Manalo Blahnik shoes, Miranda replies, "At four hundred bucks a pop how many of these do you have? Fifty? One hundred?"
"Would that be wrong?"
"One hundred times four hundred, that's your down payment/'Miranda replies.
"Well, that's only ... four thousand."
"No, that's forty thousand/' corrects Miranda.
"I spent forty thousand dollars on shoes and have no place to live!"
Depsite being really savvy, Carrie was a financial disaster. She once famously said, “ I like my money right where I can see it—hanging in my closet.” This worked just fine until her wedding is called off and she finds herself, in her late thirties, homeless in the city.
Wow!
"Would that be wrong?"
"One hundred times four hundred, that's your down payment/'Miranda replies.
"Well, that's only ... four thousand."
"No, that's forty thousand/' corrects Miranda.
"I spent forty thousand dollars on shoes and have no place to live!"
Depsite being really savvy, Carrie was a financial disaster. She once famously said, “ I like my money right where I can see it—hanging in my closet.” This worked just fine until her wedding is called off and she finds herself, in her late thirties, homeless in the city.
Wow!
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Yes it's a tough market and many of us are overwhelmed by the current financial climate. But I would like to believe that whatever financial challenges you have is NOT because of your addiction to frivolous things like shoes, expensive coffee or even trying to keep up with the Kumalos.
Yes it's a tough market and many of us are overwhelmed by the current financial climate. But I would like to believe that whatever financial challenges you have is NOT because of your addiction to frivolous things like shoes, expensive coffee or even trying to keep up with the Kumalos.
That would be really sad.
So what am I saying to you today? Rarely anything happens without an action plan in life. It is like the Chinese Proverb that says, “Even when opportunity knocks, a man must still get off his seat and open the door.” So your financial security is definitely not going to happen without your attention. After all, you don't want to share Carrie's fate, who at the end of the Sex and the City scene lamented, "I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes."
P.S. If you are going to watch or rewatch the show again I hope you learn a different way to look at income, saving, money, and investing.
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