Ten Money Questions for Colleen Wainwright

In this week’s Ten Money Questions we speak with Colleen Wainwright. Colleen is the Communicatrix and she helps clients translate words and pictures so the rest of the world will “get” it. Her blog filters random thoughts and her off-kilter consciousness and every so often she tosses in a post about consumption and the emotions of spending. I’m always blown away at these glimpses into her financial soul. Enjoy!

1. I know from reading your blog that you have trimmed down your possessions to the point where everything has a place. Is excess in America just a lingering by-product of the 1980’s or is it inevitable that humanity will over-consume until we usher in the apocalypse?
Oh, I think our love of glorious excess well pre-dates the ’80s, don’t you? As a nation, we’ve always benefited/suffered from a history-free existence, an abundance of natural resources and a location that's an ocean away from handy attack by a significant force.

Of course, the people who settled the land (or, um, took it from the people who were already here) were frugal and thoughtful out of necessity: it’s 1692, you’re out of soap, you can’t just run to the Wal-Mart in the Bronco and pick up a flat of Safeguard. And during the Great Depression or war rationing, where pretty much everyone was going through the same thing, people hunkered down and got with the program.

Doomsayers (or realists, depending on your viewpoint) like James Kunstler date the real decline of civilization from the end of WWII, when suburban life as American ideal really took root: a tiny country manse with a garage full of crap for every man, woman and 1.2 children. By the way, I think every citizen should read Kunstler and watch “The Corporation.” And buy them from their local retailers, where possible. Or hell, bust out the library card. Be the dream.

As for predicting the apocalypse, we as a country have so much invested in the cycle of consumption, it’s hard to see where it ends. Well, that’s not true. I’m pretty sure it ends with us hitting the wall hard, if we don’t wake the f**k up, probably sooner than we think.

2. What is your most significant memory about money?
Ha! I can’t think of an *insignificant* one, which is doubtless why I have such a gothically godawful, future-self-as-bag-lady relationship with money.

Seriously, when I was around 12, my mom and I got into a heated argument over whether or not “Sleeping Beauty” had been made as a Disney animated movie. I knew it had, because while I’d never actually seen it (this was pre-home video, when Disney movies were only brought back into theatrical release every seven years), I’d once owned a Viewmaster reel of it.

But Mom was *sure* it hadn’t, and, as the putative adult in this relationship, was hell-bent on teaching me some Valuable Lesson. When I wouldn’t back down, she bet me fifty bucks I was wrong, which in 1973 dollars was enough for a sizable down payment on a house.

I believe the NY Public Library’s reference desk, a.k.a. The Resource for Winning Disputes before the interwebs, finally won me the bet. To her credit (I think), Mom paid. But I’m still not sure if she proved anything, outside of “don't make bets with your children you aren’t 100% sure you can win or you will look like an ass and mess with their heads.”

3. What is your worst habit around finances?
Definitely keeping it vague. Which is to say, I have no idea how much money I have, and I’m not just talking about my checkbook, which I’ve not balanced since 1997.

I’m a bizarre mix of “responsible” and “idiot”: I never bounce checks, but I’m forever getting dinged with that cursed overdraft fee (an example of what I’ve named “a**hole tax”) because I forget to transfer the money *which I have* from savings to checking. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

If anyone has any brilliant ideas about how to stop this, please let me know.

4. You once wrote, “Taken too far, or course, thrift veers into tightwaddery, its dingy, B.O.-stained cousin.” How do you balance frugal living without skimping too much on life’s indulgences?
Well, I start with really examining what an indulgence is (I mean the luxurious variety, not the papal one).

I was fortunate enough to learn early on that “stuff” was not the road to happiness. In my 20s, I had a moderately successful career in advertising, with corresponding compensation. I ate out all the time, bought a lot of expensive crap and was miserable. So I got that for me, true luxury was choice: when I work and what I work on, not stuff.

I’m fortunate, too, in that I have fairly modest tastes, except when it comes to computers, whisky and coffee. And that I loathe exotic beach vacations.

5. One of your dirty little secrets has to do with money. Can you elaborate on this fear?
You mean my bag-lady fantasy or that thing about not balancing my checkbook since 1997? Clearly, I think that: (a) money turns people into foaming, evil beasts; and/or (b) I do not deserve to have money. I think a lot of people feel like me.

On the other hand, clearly a lot of the wrong people do *not*. In many ways, this scares me more than the thought of my ending up on the business end of a shopping cart.

6. What are your plans for retirement?
Honestly, I don’t plan on it. I really enjoy working, as long as it’s work that I like. I do worry about what happens if my earning power dips below what it costs me to live, or that my IRA will expire before I do, and I’ll have to work at McDonald’s, but hey, I worry about whether the sun will come up. Worrying is a part of me.

My dream is to create what I want, when I want full-time. I’m using design as a means to that end. Everything else I’ve worked at advertising, acting, even design is a young person’s game. Unless you end up one of the rare few at the top, you’re either viewed with suspicion past a certain age, or there are simply no jobs. Provided I keep my mind sharp, I can probably write until I keel over.

I do plan to leave L.A. for a smaller, quieter burg in the next five years. This is not fun place to grow old. Or to greet the apocalypse, whichever comes first.

7. Do you and your boyfriend see eye-to-eye on money? How has finances played a role in past relationships?
We’re both very responsible in the same ways working like maniacs, putting aside for retirement, paying our credit cards off in full each month, stuff like that.

The BF is definitely a bigger spender, and more into having a nice car and a big house. While I think it might be nice to have a larger place, or at least one I could work in during the summer without sitting in a wet bathing suit between strategically placed fans, I’m happy with my bachelorette pad. Ditto my Corolla, which I own outright and which never gives me problems.

We both have crappy money management habits, which is a shame. I was the most organized with my ex-husband, and credit any skillz I have in that area to him. He was unbelievably cheaper, frugal. No, cheap. We laugh about it now, thank god. Back then... not so much.

8. What is more important: how much money you make, how you spend it or where you live?
Truthfully, I’ve never much cared how much I made... not as a benchmark of success, anyway. I make way less than I used to when I was a copywriter, or even than I did for a few of my bigger years as an actor, yet I consider myself more successful now, since I’m doing what I love and on my own terms.

Geographically speaking, where I live does matter to me. I loathe the suburbs, for example, because I’m convinced they bring on brain death. Also, having lived in some dodgy neighborhoods, I appreciate the peace of mind that living in a relative safe place buys you. But if you gave me enough books and writing paper and utensils and a bodyguard, I guess I could probably live almost anywhere.

I guess that leaves “how I spend it”, which makes sense. If I’m making $200K a year and blowing it on crap, I might as well be making $20K. Plus there’s that thing of bigger money, bigger problems. After establishing a baseline level of comfort, more money is really a complication, not an enhancement.

That said, I’d still love to be living my same, modest-by-American-aspirations lifestyle fully on passive income, so I was truly free to choose whatever work I wanted every minute of every day. Who wouldn’t?

9. Financial experts say that driving too much car is a net-worth killer. Do you agree with this statement?
If you’re driving more than you can afford to pay for outright, you need a sharp thwack across the head with a cluestick. Next!

10. If you could buy one thing right now what would it be?
A compound in Bloomington, Indiana, with a house for my boyfriend, a house for myself, and a house for his kids and their mom. What can I say? I’m weird. Also, my parents split when I was 8, and I never got over it. I mean, I did, but it messed me up. Kids need both their parents. Unfortunately, they also need things like shoes and food and healthcare, and he hasn’t figured out how to do that outside of Hollywood.

Wait can I change my mind? Can I buy leadership to this country that would actually provide adequate healthcare to all its citizens? Or can I just buy up all of the insurance companies, sh*t can everyone and call it a day?

Or maybe a pony. Yeah, maybe I just want to buy a pony....

-------------
Read other interviews in Nina’s Ten Money Questions series at Queercents.