Shut Your Eyes and Think of...Anything Else

It's my quarterly "money meeting," and I'm seated in an office with my accountant and my financial planner. I suspect I am a cliché in this practice: a word nerd who hates math. I wonder what percentage of their clientele are made up of people like me; creatives that shine well enough in their respective professions to have resources to protect and invest, but not a clue as to how to make that happen. Thank goodness for all those kids I hated in grade school who aced their math classes. They are saving whole communities of poets and writers and painters from ramen noodles after 60. 

I show up dutifully for these meetings, I write the tax checks required, I listen to reports on how my SEP and my personal accounts are doing, I sit as my female accountant and my male financial planner talk over me and plan my future like parents over a child at dinner. A child who has her index fingers in her ears while saying "lalalalala." 

Sometimes they give me paperwork that needs signing, and I pose a few questions just so they know I’m sharp enough not to let them get away with tricking me into anything (I’m not). When they ask me, as a courtesy, whether I want my money to go in this fund or that one, I furrow my brow and say, “What would you do if you were me?” and then zone out and think about what to get at the grocery store on my way home as they are answering.

Luckily, this works for all of us, and my trusty team of two has done a good job for me over the years. And when I'm feeling particularly unintelligent on my side of the table, or my head starts to hurt from too many numbers, I comfort myself with the knowledge that if they had to write an article or develop a communications strategy, they would be the ones feeling as if their brain was plugged with cotton balls, and they were surely going to fail the test. 
 
© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie