I have a favorite uncle. I consider him a mentor and the father that I never had. When I tell him that I love him, the other end of the phone goes quiet. I know he is blushing. That’s just how Caribbean old school men do. I love and I understand it. Well, one day, I called him to tell him how I was progressing in life, especially when it came to my  finances. I was trying to impress my uncle by telling him how much I had saved in the bank. I was shocked when he told me that I shouldn’t be saving so much money in the bank. I was wasting it.

I did not understand.

As a successful business man, he told me (my brother, too, who is also my hero) that once you save a certain amount of money to cover you in the case of an emergency, you should be thinking of ways to maximize the value of your dollar. As you know, you get PALTRY interest on savings accounts because it’s safe.  Aint’s no money maximizing at the bank.

My brother and uncle were aptly instructing me to take more risks with my money by investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and index funds. I had to get it through my penny pinching mind, you can’t SAVE your way into being a MILLIONAIRE. I mean, I guess you could, but it would take longer and you may have to sacrifice the simplest of pleasures for it. And who wants to walk around looking ashy and crazy just to save a buck? Not me.

So, my goal for the last year and this year has been to aggressively INVEST my money instead of save it. I have always had a financial advisor but the funny thing was that I was allocating more to saving than I was to investing, even though the returns on the money invested left the money that I saved in the bank in the dust.

At the GET RADICAL conference, which is March 21st to March 23rd, I am looking forward to hearing what Jean Chatzky has to say about the savings vs. investing conversation. If you are there, please shout me out. I would love to see you. Register here to get your financial life in order.

“I will be receiving a free ticket to the Get RADICAL Conference in exchange for being a part of the media/blogger team. However, all opinions/views shared are my own.”

If you need deeper work around healing your relationship with money or overcoming your blocks and fears, maybe it’s time for some money therapy.