Personal Finance Addict

It seems about once a month something does not go as planned in our budget. Either something unexpected comes up or we just spend more than we should in a particular category causing us to make less progress than anticipated. When this happens I can’t help but feel a little defeated and sometimes even feel like giving up. So how do I stay motivated to stay on track?

Review Progress Already Made

I know that just by keeping track of our spending alone goes a long way to help us financially. I can honestly say that since I found the perfect budgeting software for me, I have been keeping track of every penny and this really helps me to know where we stand at all times and also keeps us from spending uncontrollably. I always remind myself that we have already made great progress since rebooting our effort with the new software just two months ago. While our debt has not decreased drastically just yet, this is mostly due to the fact that we found a couple old debts we had forgotten about when we made our original list. We have drastically reduced our spending and are currently paying $800 a month towards debt. On top of that, we have starting saving monthly for things like gifts, Christmas, car maintenance and repairs, and our Amazon Prime membership to avoid having these expenses creep up on us. When our Amazon Prime membership comes due again, we will already have the money set aside for it. In fact, when something unexpected comes up, we think about whether that is something that we should also be setting money aside for each month to avoid the same thing happening again in the future. I think that if we keep adjusting our budget as we go, we will have less and less unexpected situations arise.

Remember Goals

I remind myself what our goals are and I know that if we give up, we will never reach these goals and we will be right back where we started. I remind myself of our goals every day and every time I consider making a purchase of any kind. I even have motivational pictures saved on my phone and my laptop to view whenever I need to remind myself of what we are working towards. This is not because I am depriving myself and hating life at that moment. It is more to keep myself on track and remember why it is silly to spend on items that are not meaningful to me. If you do not already have your goals written down somewhere, you need to do this now! Simply writing down your goals and reviewing them periodically is a great motivator. Be sure to break large goals down into smaller ones so that you can feel progress being made. Set goal dates as well so you will be pushing yourself to meet those deadlines.

Seek Support

This is a great time to post a little rant on your favorite forum to seek motivational support and guidance from others who are either in the same situation as you or, better yet, have previously been in your position and have already made great progress. I also find this to be a good time to read success stories on my favorite personal finance blogs and forums. There are always others out there who have started out in worse situations and worked their way out of it. I know if they can do it, so can we.

Prove Others Wrong and/or Make Others Proud

This might seem strange to some, but I want to prove to certain people in my life that we are strong enough to fight through this and come out on top. If you have any judgmental people in your life, you know where I’m coming from here. I try not to be around judgmental people, but sometimes it is unavoidable, especially when they are family. There are also certain people in our lives who I know will be very proud of us if we can accomplish this. I can’t wait for the day that we can tell everyone we know that we are retiring from our full time jobs to live our dream.

Set an Example

If we are able to retire at an early age, our kids will be young enough to learn from that and start saving much earlier than we did and retire at a very young age. I also want them to understand that living a normal lifestyle is not a smart lifestyle to live. Wasting money on eating out, fast food, soda from the gas station, coffee, etc. all adds up very quickly and takes away from things they would value much more. I want them to live a life full of wonderful experiences and memories that will last a lifetime. Whether that means traveling the world, skydiving (yikes!), mountain climbing, whatever their hearts desire is all that matters. The important thing is they will not be able to do any of this if they are wasting all of their money on meaningless things. It is hard to preach something like this if you are not living it yourself.

Accept Mistakes and Move On

So when I find myself feeling down because we aren't progressing quickly enough, I will do one or more of these things until I feel better again and understand there are going to be bumps in the road. At the end of the day, I just have to accept that and keep moving forward. We may not reach our goals in the perfect amount of time, but as long as we keep working at it, we will get there. If we give up, not only will we end up right back where we started, but our situation will likely get progressively worse. I have also found writing this blog has been a great source of therapy and helps me to stay on track. I should also mention that if you have a spouse, you should be on the same page and help motivate each other as well.

Labels: frugality, inspiration

I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called TINY: A Story About Living Small. It was a story about a couple who built their own tiny house on wheels. Watching this made me think about how much housing really costs and how much space and stuff we truly need. We currently live in a three bedroom, two and a half bath, 1,334 square foot town home with a one car garage and no basement. We have two adults and two teenagers living here. With two teenagers, I can’t imagine having less space than we currently do. But when they grow up and move out, I don’t see a need for a bunch of empty space. I also started to think about how much money we could save by downsizing to the bare minimum and how that savings could fund things that we really enjoy.

What are your dreams?

One of my biggest dreams is to travel the country and I am fortunate enough to have a husband who also shares this dream with me. We would love to actually live in an RV and travel until we either get tired of it or find a place that we just can’t leave. My youngest child will leave for college in four years. This means we need to knock out $60,000 in debt and save a lot of money in the next four years. We also need to find other income streams so that we can afford to quit our full time jobs when the time comes. We’ve come up with some goals to help accomplish this.

Goals for Reaching our Dream of Traveling

Pay off all debt in the next year. This is going to be a major challenge that will require us cutting out all wasteful spending and applying every dime we can towards debt. We know this may not be entirely possible, but we will keep at it even if it takes longer. The key is to not give up when things take longer than you hope. If you give up, you will never get there.
Develop other income streams that can be done from anywhere. I’m hoping this blog will be one of those income streams, especially since I love helping other people save money and accomplish their dreams. We may start other blogs and possibly even try to write a book. I love photography and am thinking we will probably add a travel blog once we are on the road. I think the most important part of this goal is to actually enjoy what we do.
After paying off all debt, we will apply every possible dime into savings for our RV, travel, and living expenses. We also need to research where to store this money where it will earn the most interest, but not charge a penalty for withdrawing before a certain age. I’m sure Mr. Money Mustache has some good articles on this subject on his blog.
Find a lower cost home between now and then. We currently rent and our rent isn’t outrageously high. In fact, it is the lowest rent for 3 bedroom apartments (or homes) in our school district (except for the low income housing, which we do not qualify for). However, I still think we could probably find something cheaper if we keep looking.
Don’t fall into the eating out trap. We have been doing pretty well at not eating out lately, but it takes discipline and planning ahead to stick with it. We have to keep it up if we want to accomplish our goals in a reasonable amount of time. The good news is I have a small garden this summer so that is motivation to try to use up those vegetables.
Cut out more unnecessary wasteful spending. We have already cut back a lot in the last few months, but I know we still have a ways to go. I still smoke cigarettes (although I figured out how to reduce this cost by 65%) and we still drink a lot of soda. I think I’m going to start cutting out my soda by drinking from the free water cooler at work instead of hitting up the vending machine. I also will try to start exercising, which will cause me to drink more water, even if it just means doing some sit-ups or going for a walk each day. This is something I need to be doing anyway and I think it will help my water intake as well.
We need to start decluttering. We have a lot of junk in boxes in the garage that we don’t ever use. I will be taking a week off of work in a few weeks and that will be my goal for that week. We need to sell what we can and donate the rest. We can’t take all this crap on the road with us when we go and we could apply the money we make towards our debt.

This will be a post that I will refer back to often as we try to accomplish each of these goals. Think about what your ultimate dreams are and discuss them with your spouse. If you can find common goals, you will find a way to work together to accomplish those goals. It took my husband and I several years to find a common goal to work towards and that was mainly because we weren't looking at the big picture and communicating about it. I kept trying to say I needed to go back to school so that I could earn more money, but going back to school would put us even deeper into debt and I wasn't thinking about what would really make me happy. Making more money isn't always the answer. The answer can simply be to only spend your money on things you truly value. Stop thinking about what normal society spends money on and think only about what you want out of life and you will be much happier. If my husband and I want to accomplish our dream of living on the road, going back to school is pointless and wasteful spending. If you have been dreaming of owning a large home, why do you want to own a large home? Is it just the idea of having it or is that what you truly want? Sure I would like a large house, but I wouldn't want to do all the upkeep myself and I definitely don’t want to pay someone else to do it. If I really want to travel and I don’t want to be home much anyway, what is the point of having a large house? I would just spend more money trying to fill it up with things I don’t really need and I would probably have to work the rest of my life to pay for it. That does not sound like fun to me!

Follow These Steps to Accomplish Your Dreams

Think about your ultimate life goals and discuss them with your significant other if you have one.
Make a plan and stick with it. Put it in writing in a place you can refer to often as a constant reminder.
Break your big goals down into smaller goals. When you set smaller goals, you can accomplish them one at a time in a reasonable amount of time and each one of these you accomplish is a step closer to meeting your larger goals. Celebrate every goal you accomplish (in a cheap way of course).
Remind yourself of your biggest goals every time you consider purchasing something that isn’t a necessity. You would be surprised how often you will put things back when you do this and you will feel good about it!
Track your spending and use a budget. This is probably the most important task of all. If you don’t track your spending, it becomes hard to reduce your spending and keep track of your goals efficiently. See my post about my favorite budgeting software, YNAB.