What my car accident taught me about money

I was recently in a car accident.

In today’s episode I share what the accident has taught me about the power of money.

In this Episode:

01.34: Competition details
03.10: The car accident that has changed my world
05.04: How money has supported me in this situation
12.33: The importance of managing your money and being across your numbers
15.00: Acknowledging my privilege in this situation

Links:

Competition

Win a 90 minute Private Coaching Session valued at US$997!

Competition starts Monday 11th July 2022 and ends 6pm AEST Sunday 17th July 2022.

To enter:

  • Subscribe to The Clare Wood Podcast
  • Leave a review (be sure to include your business name in the review, so we can check your entry!)
  • Share your favourite podcast episode to Instagram and tag @clare_wood_coach. Search all podcasts HERE.

For full competition terms and conditions CLICK HERE.

Transcript

I was recently in a car accident. And in today’s episode, I wanted to share what my car accident has taught me about the power of money.

 

Hello and a welcome to The Clare Wood Podcast. This is your weekly dose of all things money to help you intentionally create a profitable business and a life you love. I have the difficult conversations about money, so you can make more money with ease. Each week I share how you can use mindset and the practical foundations of finance to elevate your earnings without sacrificing the things that are important to you, because you can and should be making more money.

 

Before I get started on the episode, you may have noticed that the podcast has a new intro and outro and also some new cover. And that is because the podcast has had a bit of a makeover. This is in line with my brand refresh that I have done recently. And if you haven’t checked out my new website yet, make sure you go and check it out at clarewood.com. And remember Clare is C-L-A-R-E, because I have some epic freebies that I have created if you want to go and get your hands on one of those. And feel free to drop me a DM on Instagram and let me know what you think about the new website.

 

Competition details

 

Anyway, I digress. I was saying that the podcast has also had a refresh and as part of that, I have decided to run a competition. Now, this competition, I wanted to create a really epic prize. So I am giving away a 90-minute private coaching session with me to one lucky winner. In a 90-minute call, we can sit down and have a look at two to three different areas of your business that you would really like some support with, or we could work out how you can have your next big income breakthrough. Another thing that we could do in that session is pull together a budget for you and talk about how you can hit your big business goals over the next year.

So to enter the competition:

  1. You need to make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast.
  2. Leave me a review at Apple Podcast and make sure that you leave your business name in the review as well, because quite often people’s Apple names are not related to their business. So please make sure that you do put your business name in there as well.
  3. And the third thing that you need to do is share an episode of The Clare Wood Podcast to your Instagram Stories and make sure that you tag me.

So, there’s three things that you need to do, and you could win a private coaching session with me to help you have your next big income breakthrough.

All the details and how you can enter are via a link in the show notes for today’s episode. So please make sure you go and enter right now. I would love to help you to have your next big income breakthrough.

 

The car accident that has changed my world

 

Okay, let’s have a chat about my car accident. Basically what happened is that I was driving along in my car, doing about a hundred kilometers an hour on the freeway, minding my own business. And then suddenly I felt this massive hit from behind and heard the sound of crunching metal. When I had a look in the rear-view mirror, I had been rear ended by a semi trailer truck. And you can imagine I was extremely shaken. I pulled the car over and got out. And after I sort of got through the shock, I realized, “Oh my gosh, I’m alive.” To have an accident with a massive truck of that size, I’m very, very lucky to be alive. I pretty quickly soon realized afterwards that I had whiplash. At that point in time, I didn’t have any idea how bad it would be. So anyway, my husband came and picked me up and I came home.

Over the last, nearly four weeks now, my life has been turned pretty much upside down. So at this point in my recovery journey, I am still not able to drive a car for multiple reasons. Firstly, I’m still quite shaken up about the accident, but also physically, I can’t actually turn my head. And I really don’t think that it would be safe for me to driving if I couldn’t turn my head quickly if I needed to, and also because I’m taking pretty heavy pain medication. As I shared, my life’s been turned upside down. I’m not able to work properly. I can’t do things that I used to be able to do. So I’m sort of finding that basically if I do something for an hour or two, if I go out, I then need to come home and sit down and I’m a real energizer-bunny. So it has been a very difficult, difficult journey for me.

 

How money has supported me in this situation

 

Anyway, as you can hear, I’m still quite emotional about it, but I thought it was important that you understood a little bit about what happened and about the journey that I’ve been on so far. But the reason that I wanted to share this is I wanted to talk to you about money and how money has been able to support me on the journey so far. And importantly, why money is important and why managing your money is really important as well.

The first thing I guess that I wanted to highlight about the privilege that money affords you is that the car that I was driving at the time of the accident was a BMW X5. And anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a massive car. And the way that the accident happened, I actually got clipped on one side of the car. So I think what happened was that the truck was changing lanes. I haven’t actually got the police report or any of the insurance details yet, but basically one side of the car got clipped. And the first thing my husband said to me was if you were in a small car, the car would’ve spun out and you would’ve spun into oncoming traffic. So the very fact that the car, it’s a unit of a car with a massive truck hitting it, didn’t spin out, is the first thing that I realized. Imagine if I wasn’t driving that car.

At the time that we bought our car, we were just about to have our first child, and I had said to my husband, “I want a safe car.” We’d been driving around in a little bomb. The windows didn’t even go down properly. And I said, “No, we’re having a baby. We need to get a really safe car.” That was my priority. And now many years later, I think, wow, I’m so glad that I made that decision. That’s kind of the first thing that I took away. Is I probably wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t been able to invest in a big, solid, safe car.

Then the next thing that I’ve literally realized is the fact that the treatment that I have been having is so expensive. I literally started my rehabilitation on the very day of my car accident. So within hours, my pain started to increase rapidly and I realized that my whiplash was quite bad. So I jumped online and had a look around and I found a physiotherapist who could actually come to my house. So I didn’t even have to go anywhere. So the very day of the accident, I was able to get a physio to come out to my house and he recognized straight away, he said, “I need to see you again tomorrow.”

So over the last, nearly four weeks now, I’ve been getting regular physiotherapy in my house. It’s weirdly not anymore expensive to get in-home physiotherapy than it is to go to a clinic, but the fact that I was able to access that has just been a… I want to say a game changer, but to be honest, I’m still struggling quite a lot health wise, but it’s such a privilege the fact that I have been able to pay out those costs. I’ve honestly been leaning into it so much and thinking how many people who went through an experience like that literally would not have been able to afford to get physio sessions. And I can’t even imagine how much worse I would be if I hadn’t been able to be getting those treatments right from the outset.

The more I’ve been reading about whiplash, the more I’m reading that people that get treatment, particularly treatment early on, are much more likely to get longterm positive outcomes. And I’ve really, really been leaning into feeling so, so grateful for the fact that we are able to afford to get this treatment. I am still, nearly four weeks later, waiting on the insurance company to actually reimburse me for these costs. And I imagine for a lot of people, it wouldn’t be an option to continue treatment while you’re sitting around waiting for paperwork and Ts to be crossed and Is to be dotted. So the fact that I’ve been able to access this help in the interim has been incredibly helpful for my recovery, but I’ve also just been incredibly grateful for the fact that I’ve been able to access it because I’ve recognized that a lot of people aren’t able to.

This is one of the things that really annoys me. It’s a story that I hear a lot about money, which is people saying money is not important. And I agree, like there are a lot more important things in life than money. However, as someone who is now feeling relatively comfortable, I have to say it does make such a difference. It makes your life easier. It gives you freedom. It gives you choices. It gives you options. And I know a lot of other people do not have options like that. So, as I mentioned earlier, there is quite a process to go through in terms of being reimbursed for your medical expenses. You need to fill in reams of paperwork and provide all of the documentation and whatnot to the insurance company.

In the goings on of this whole process, the other party’s insurance company contacted me and offered me what they termed a payout. And guess what the amount was that that they offered me, it was $500.

Now, I know for a lot of people they’re thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of money.” And it is, but to get some context, I have already spent over two and a half thousand dollars on my treatment so far, and I am showing no signs of getting better anytime soon. It was kind of insulting to me that they would even offer that amount of money to me. I told my cleaner about it, and my cleaner said, “If someone offered me that much money, I would have to take it.” And it made me realize once again, how incredibly privileged I am that I can say no to a payout of money like that, because I know that I need more support and more help in my medical expenses. And I recognized that some people would take the money and probably suffer for months and even years. People say money isn’t important, but having gone through an experience like this, it’s really highlighted to me how much choices and freedom money really does give you.

Just to expand a little further on the costs that I’ve outlaid so far if you’re wondering, “How on earth have you spent so much money?” Well, as I mentioned, I am getting physio multiple times a week. I’ve been seeing a therapist to process the emotional and traumatic side of the accident because I’m still crying pretty much every day as a result of the fallout of the accident. I have also been paying for pain medication, doctor visits to get prescribed pain medication, and to obviously talk about the injury. I have also had to get a higher car because our car was right off, and I’ve had to have a neck X-ray. So, as you can see, when something like this happens, the bills can stack up pretty quickly.

 

The importance of managing your money and being across your numbers

 

The next big lesson I’ve learnt about money from this accident is how important it is to manage your money. So I spoke to my mother-in-law about this and said, “I’m keeping all of my receipts.” And she said, “Oh my gosh, I’m so bad at things like that, I probably would’ve lost them.” And I recognized if you have lost a receipt, you are not able to claim reimbursement for it. And so managing your money is a life skill that not only applies to your business, but is invaluable across many different areas of your life. With all of the various costs receipts and bits and pieces, I did what Clare Wood would always do. I created an Excel spreadsheet. So I have all of the costs in a spreadsheet. I have the date, I have the amount, I have what it was for, for ease of keeping an eye on things.

Now, when I got my first letter about my first lot of medical costs being reimbursed, I noticed that there was actually an error because the system is really broken. There’s not this streamlined way that you hand over all of the receipts. Basically you just email them to an email address and hope that they get them and hope that they reimburse them. But like I said, I’ve had a spreadsheet and I recognized that some of the costs that I had on my spreadsheet were actually missing from the reimbursement form. And I was thinking if I hadn’t tracked all of this, and if I didn’t have a spreadsheet, I never would’ve got that money back. And it really made me think about how many people are doing exactly this in their business or any other area of life, where they are letting go of their power around money. They’re leaving it to other people.

A lot of times I see people giving away their power to their bookkeeper or their accountant, or just trusting that other people will do the right thing. And while it’s great to have faith in other people, it really is important for you to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to your money, to be able to manage your money, to really understand and know what’s going on. And I can tell you, I personally would be a couple of hundred dollars out of pocket if I hadn’t had my spreadsheet and if I wasn’t right in the detail of all of the numbers.

 

Acknowledging my privilege in this situation

 

I know this has been a pretty deep episode, but this is my reality. This is where I’m at on my journey. And I really wanted to share it on the podcast today and also show you how my journey has been really bringing up a lot of money stuff for me, and really helping me to recognize my privilege and to be extremely grateful for the support that I am able to access that I know a lot of other people in my situation wouldn’t be able to.

 

So to sum up today, I believe that money is super important. And if you have a story that you don’t need more money or that money isn’t important to you, maybe you should revisit that. And the second thing is that money management or staying across your money is super important, both in your business and in your personal life.

 

Before I wrap up, I just wanted to remind you again about the competition that’s going on at the moment where you can win a private coaching session with me. All the details of how to enter are via a link in the show notes for today’s episode. So please make sure that you don’t forget to enter. Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode and for allowing me to share my story so far. I hope you have a wonderful week and look forward to chatting to you very soon.

 

I hope you are feeling inspired and excited about what is possible for you when it comes to money. It takes a lot of time and energy to create a podcast. So I’d be very grateful if you could take the time to hit subscribe, write me a review, and share any of your favorite episodes with your audience on social media. The more people that we can reach, the more people we can empower to earn more in their business, because you can and should be earning more money.

 

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