In this day and age, our culture is completely submersed in wastefulness! Consumerism and the need to have the latest and greatest is what is keeping many hard working people away from their financial goals and will continue to do so until they realize that they’re not any happier with MORE STUFF!
In fashion, most clothing companies have come up with a way to market every season with the latest styles (making the previous styles obsolete and out of date). Spending your money is a choice, just as much as earning it is. You have a right and a privelage to be financially independant and whether you choose to be so or not is entirely up to you. Likewise, if you choose not to be financially independant, it’s not society’s fault, or the economy’s fault that you’re not FI…. just your fault! The articles of clothing that you bought and won’t care much about a year from now aren’t to blame either…just you!
Nobody told you to go buy a new home right out of university, and nobody told you that you needed a brand new car with all the bells and whistles. But you did, didn’t you? And you leveraged yourself with student loans, lines of credit, credit card debt, and borrowed wherever you could because it was easy, right? I’m not mad at you… because I did the same thing along with 95% of the rest of you! Don’t forget the weekends…. it was normal to meet up with friends on a Friday after work and easily spend $100-$200 on dinner and drinks for the night. After all, I deserved it after a hard week’s work right?!
This way of thinking and behaving is a trap that we learn early on where often times we don’t even realize we’re lining ourselves up for failure. The journey to FI begins when you realize that your life and your financial success is up to you and once you understand and begin to reshape your thinking about money will you really begin to see major financial wins!!!
Realizing how important every hard earned dollar you earn is worth more to you than it is to some pish posh retailer that doesn’t give a rip about you is liberating…. personally and financially! Building towards FI means making choices every day that will give you more control over your life and more joy! Dave Ramsey has a saying that kids do what feels right, but adults devise a plan and follow it. This means that you must approach your financial goals with maturity. You’ll need to give up something today in order to achieve something later.
This doesn’t mean not having any joy now, but rather it’s the opposite when you know that every day you’re moving in the right direction towards FI! Having control over my life is my WHY! I seek to be financially independent so that I can have the freedom to experience life to the fullest for my family and I! This freedom is something only I can achieve for me!
In scripture, there is a saying that the borrower is slave to the lender. I believe this can be extended to the employee can be slave to the employer, or the homeowner can be slave to the bank! In other words you can be robbed of your joy by being plagued by interest bearing debt, chained to a desk all of your life, or house poor! Don’t get me wrong… I find work truly satisfying and I love being productive! But can you imagine how much more productive you’d be if you didn’t need to work for money and had the freedom to persue your true passions?!
Ask yourself this question? What is holding you back from being financially independent??? Chances are you already know what’s holding you back. Now take the first step into Financial independence and address the problem head on! Punch it square in the face and get started!!!! Do it now!!! LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!!
Check out my Blog on Budgeting, what it is, and why it’s so important!
