The good news about me writing here is that it keeps me accountable, and I feel like I’ve learned a ton about personal finance in the past year. The bad news is that, well, actually there isn’t really any bad news about writing here.
The bad news is how much priority I’ve given to money in my life. For the past 12 months pretty much 24/7 my brain is always thinking about two things:
1. How can I make more money
and
2. How can I spend less money
While those are both very healthy financial thoughts to be having….I’ve been having them all the time for 12 months straight. It really started to wear on me. It’s still wearing on me. I need to change some of my thoughts about where I spend my time. Lately it seems like I run every activity I do through a filter that only includes the above two issues.
That’s not life! And it’s not me either.
In church on Sunday, the whole service I was only half there. Half my brain was planning activities and work stuff for this week. Not cool. I forced myself to socialize a bit, and even though I’m sure to the whole world I looked fine, I felt awkward. I’m not used to feeling awkward around people.
It’s good for me to be motivated to pay off my debts, and be excited about saving and investing. It’s not good for me to be consumed by it.
When I was growing up, I never thought about money. I had a job, and had some minor bills….but crap, I wanted to be a military officer for the rest of my life (a large part of me still does). Money was never a big factor in my life, and now it consumes me. Lame, lame, lame.
So here’s what I’m planning to do:
1. Slow Down – I’m always going a hundred miles an hour. My business is slow right now (which is OK, revenue is still steady), I don’t need to rush around like a chicken without it’s head
2. Play Solitaire More – I know it sounds silly, but this relates to #1 above. Not on the computer either….I’m talking real cards solitaire.
3. Exercise More – I’ve made more room for this, and have a plan. I start to get pretty anxious if I don’t exercise for a few days
4. Church more – I really would love to get in a Men’s small group at my church. Also, a mentor (with whom I could share all this crap with) would be nice as well. Working on this…
5. Love more – Sounds cliche, but I feel so emotionally dead sometimes, I worry I can’t love. This has actually gotten better the last 2 months or so. For awhile I felt like a complete zombie. Lately I’ve been able to feel compassion and care about others more which means I’m still human, yay.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Slowing down is he best thing you can do. And you can achieve it without losing effectiveness.
Apply the 80/20 rule. About 20% of what you do generates 80% of your results.
Slow down on the (largely) irrelevant 80% and invert it. Instead spend 20% of your work time on the less important, and 80% on the stuff that generates the best results.
The thing is, by doing this and getting more of the better results, you find it begins to naturally eradicate the unimportant stuff.
For example, if you generated more income, the stress and hassle of the admin and unimportant stuff is eased if you have the extra income to stop juggling debts and payments with the increased freedom to pay more people on time or earlier.
Funny, I find myself doing the same thing lately, even though my debt situation is almost nil. (I should be non-mortgage debt-free within the next 3 months and all credit card debt is 0%.) Even so, I notice that I am consumed by the same 2 thoughts that you describe. Logging in to check my accounts and balances, tracking my spending to the penny and dreaming of ways to increase my income seems to be the highlight of my days. I guess it’s just impatience wanting to achieve the goal of being debt-free NOW. I just discovered your blog a few days ago and I must say I am so impressed with your maturity and how you are handling things. Your experience is also very eye-opening…I have a son just a few months younger than you who has just recently started “trading” and he seems to be getting a bit consumed with it. Thankfully he has very little money and some debt of his own (and not-very-good credit) so hopefully he will be limited by his own resources. I pointed out your blog to him, so perhaps he is reading it too. Anyway, while I don’t have any real suggestions to add, I just wanted to de-lurk to say that I enjoy your writing and I wish you all the best. With where you are with your business and your knowledge of personal finance and investing, believe it or not you are light-years ahead of me! (I’m 44 and finally making 6-figures, but boy did I get a late start saving…)
Keep up the good work!
Wow…you sound a lot like me! I’m constantly thinking about money – how to make more, how to save more, how to pay off debts faster to get to my goals, etc.
I gave you the link to my blog – feel free to read, comment and give me a shoutout from time to time.
MoneyChick
Glad to see I’m not alone in the “thinking about money/debt all the time” camp! I just think I’ve crossed a line from a healthy obsession into an unhealthy one. Even with my situation, I don’t think my life should revolve around this issue for years…it just can’t…