Stop with the denial and the excuses
One thing I’ve noticed in common with people who are perpetually falling back into debt, or unable to climb out of the hole they’ve dug themselves in, is that they are always full of crap.
They have plenty of extremely creative excuses as to why they can’t change their situation for the better, and it’s always something or someone else.
- But we’ve been paying the balance on our credit cards…. (yeah, but with your line of credit!)
- I’m going back to work now, so it looks a lot more manageable…. (only if you made 2X as much!!)
- I’m in debt because my parents didn’t pay for my tuition… (mine didn’t either!!*)
- That was just a one-off thing, it won’t happen again… (hence why you have to budget for it)
- I’m too skilled to deserve that kind of work, I should be paid more… (perhaps in your head!!)
- I can’t work full-time, who would watch the dog/baby/home?…..(OMG!!)
* The only thing I bitch about my parents not paying for my tuition is that when I was young, they promised me that they had saved $10,000 for each of our education funds when they won the small jackpot.
Turns out, my parents gambled/wasted all of that money away, and then lied by pretending they never said that when I got into a college I wanted.
So I took on $60,000 of student debt and worked 2 full-time jobs during college, and cleared every penny in 18 months after I graduated, which ended up being a better education for me in the end.
I watch a lot of debt shows like Princess and ‘Til Debt Do Us Part along with reading plenty of PF blogs online.
I was stupid once. VERY stupid. But I basically learned from my mistakes for the most part, and the only stupid mistakes I make now are in impulse purchases and impulse decisions (banking fees are a b*tch).
On the show, some couples fight with Gail like it’s their life’s mission to prove her wrong.
Some PF bloggers continually go back into credit card debt even when they themselves have written how stupid that is.
Or they refuse to take jobs ‘beneath them’ when they clearly need the money, and are sinking in debt.
That’s where I get really annoyed.
Frankly, it makes me sort of frustrated when I hear or read such REPEATED stupidity, because I actually want people to do the best so that they can and be successful and lead happy, financially stable lives.
Saving instead of spending on whatever you want is not fun.
Living on less is not fun.
Working a lot is not always fun.
What is fun, is that when you’re 65 and about to retire, you don’t have to wake up at 6 a.m. to commute 2 hours to work, work 8 hours, come home and crack open a can of cat food for dinner, only do it all over again, every day until the day you die.
It’s pretty simple, folks, and if you don’t want to help yourself succeed, then you can’t blame anyone but yourself:
- Make a budget and track your spending
- Spend less than what you earn
- Save as much as you can
- If you don’t have enough money to live, then make more money
Done.
I don’t want to hear any more excuses. If you know you’re full of denial, you’re probably full of it.
9 Comments
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sherry@savespendsplurge.com
Christina, this is the nicest comment I have read all day! THANK YOU.
I do speak French. 🙂 I’m also very happy you love the budget tracker.
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Christina
Aww thanks! Seriously Sherry, your tracker is the bomb. It clearly showed me what is my biggest money drain: spending waaaay too much on clothes. I know that if I can cut this by half, I can save an extra 10% of income or pay off more debt. I realise that I’m not one of these people who can shop without spending, so I’ll have to avoid the mall/online shopping for a while until I can rewire this habit.
I’m happy to read you also speak French. I’m finalising a pitch for a project about minimalism, and if the pitch is accepted, I’d love to interview as part of this project. More to come I hope 🙂 thank you!
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Christina
Looks like Millenials are catching on to your train of thoughts and are avoiding credit cards altoghether: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/business/dealbook/why-millennials-are-in-no-hurry-to-take-on-debt.html
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Finance Solver
Man this is so impressive and I got chills just reading about you paying off 60k in loans. I was fortunate to have my parents pay for my living situation and scholarships paying for my tuition but I worked my ass off to end college with a 40k net worth but it’s a much more impressive story to hear someone who hasn’t had any help in getting to where they are today. Thank you for sharing and you’ve inspired me to get off my butt and make things happen again.
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Lindsay
Yes. I’ve been struggling a little lately with saving even more. I’m debt free and have been disciplined for a long time and hit a certain threshold and sometimes it’s hard to not take your foot off of the gas sometimes. But no excuses! Thanks for the reminder.
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Christina
Thank you Sherry for this reminder and your blog in general. What you seek is seeking you, and finding your blog has been such a BLESSING. Love articles like this one to slap me back to reality.
Your blog is helping me stay focused on being debt-free, learning to love saving money and becoming more mindful on how, on what and why I spend my (hard-earned) money. I will be forever grateful for the level of self-awareness, self-honestly and self-control your blog has helped me develop over the last 3 months.
Since I`ve started reading your blog, I bought your budget tracker (I LOVE IT because it is incredibly easy to use, shows my progress/regression in real time and keeps me honest at all times!!!!!!!!!), paid off my CC in full and increased my savings % of income from 15% to 25%. Next up is getting rid of the LOC that’s been hanging over my head for too long now. I love the idea of setting a Debt Free Day to take place in less than 3 years as motivation/ focus to get rid of debt once and for all.
THANK YOU for all of your hard wor and, time investment putting together your blog, it is priceless 🙂
PS: Do you speak French by any chance?