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I have paid off about $12,000 in debt in the last 11 months. And when I really think about how proud I am of that.. I get a little emotional. I get asked a lot of questions as I share my debt free journey online, but I was thinking about this the other day…
What is the HARDEST part of this debt free journey?
I could easily answer with sticking to the budget is the hard. Or that making food at home again for the 1000th time this year even though we are only two months in is hard. Or just saying no to random online things when other people are buying them. Not redoing my house after an afternoon doom scroll of social media is hard.
There are a thousand little things that are “hard” because they are uncomfortable.
But in my personal opinion, the hardest thing to me is balance and knowing I am making the right decisions along the way.
Finding the balance between sacrifice and not worth it. Because it is easy to cut spending on things that you don’t need, but when it comes to the things we sort of need, but also kind of don’t.. I find that the gray area in between can be difficult to decipher.
I posted the other day about how I hire teenagers to mow my lawn in the summer and scoop snow in the winter, and it is one of those things that to me, I will do every single time. But every single time I post about it, I get push back.
And while I usually use the logical explanations like — as a single mom it was hard for me to leave my kid in the house where it was safe to get things like this done.– or I don’t have a lawn mower, and the math that it would take to make the sense to buy one. — or that I love being able to support teen entrepreneurs because I firmly believe that putting money in the hands of teenagers is how we build financial literacy, where we give them money and the safety net to mess up.
I think it is because we are taught that if we want to save money, then we have to work hard. Even when we don’t want to. Even when it is hard or uncomfortable. We are taught that there is no reason to pay for something that we could do ourselves, even if it requires buying tons of tools, taking time out of our day, and spending time away from our family.
We are often taught that paying for a service is lazy, even thought this wildly doesn’t take into consideration that different people have different capabilities when it comes to some things.
And really, this isn’t about the lawn. This isn’t about snow. Or hiring out services.
To me, it is finding the balance between “I don’t want to do that.” and “That money could go towards debt.
It is looking back months from now and wondering if I will regret the decision on a purchase instead of putting the money towards debt.
Or if in years, I will look back and see how much I truly sacrificed to get out of debt. Because while social media seems to think that I am spending on things that I shouldn’t.. I am really saying no to a lot of things that I could be saying yes.
The hardest part of finding the balance is understanding that personal finance is personal.
And that no two budgets would look exactly alike because while I may hire my snow to be scooped, you might be getting your nails done because it is the one or two times a month where no one needs you. Where you can just do something for YOU that benefits no one else.
Because sometimes we have to choose the things in our budget that make sense to us and our lives and we aren’t required to give a justification for the reason for that purchase.
But it is also the balance that, truly if you wanted to you could justify why you need every purchase and the
n you are back with no budget and overspending and trying to figure out where the money is coming from to hit your goals.
And ultimately I think that the biggest lesson here is that you have to get crystal clear with what YOU want. What YOUR life looks like.
You have to know what is worth it to YOU.
I think that the reason a lot of people don’t stick to their budgets is because they want to copy someone else’s budget and apply it to their life, and when that doesn’t work, they say “well, I have never been good with money.”
But it doesn’t work that way. You have to get super curious about why you spend money. You have to figure out what matters to you. What lights you up. And then you have to remove the crap in your budget that isn’t important to YOU.
People want a copy paste excel answer to a budget, but if you take a single thing away from this blog post, I hope you take away this.
You can budget for the things you love. And remove the excess you don’t. But no one is going to do that work for you.
It is creating a vision board that is for YOU. That excites you every single time that you see it and reminds you why you are doing this.
I created this little training to help YOU figure out YOUR dream life. Because while I can’t do the work for you, I can show you how I did mine and let you explore your own answers.
It gives you the questions to ask to start creating your debt free, dream life vision board.
Go check out What is my DREAM LIFE? Training right here.
