What do you value? The answer is where you spend your money and time. Be honest about how much you spend on the things in your life. How much do you spend on your car vs.your children's education? How much do you spend on your clothes vs. your gym membership? These are easy questions and easy solutions. Many people fail these simple ones. Don't feel bad if you are one of them. Fix it.
How much time do you spend with your wife vs. your kids? Family vs. work? Wherever you spend more time or money, you value that more than the things you spend less time and money on. It's not hard to understand. It's hard to accept. We all need to make a certain amount of money to provide for our family. The issue is how much money is required to accomplish our goals. More importantly, what are our goals? Why do these goals matter? We are constantly barraged by the consumer mentality so that we become the willing participants in the very system we despise.
It has been very insightful for me to realize that I have options leaving the military. I could move to a big city and buy a nice/large house that I have to work a job for 40-60 hours a week to afford. I could move to a small town and have the same house with more land without working that job. The difference is status. If you are buying crap to impress people you don't care about, you have a status issue.
I have had a very interesting life in making money. I have had a business partner steal a quarter million dollars from me and decided to not sue him. However, I have had an incredible run of financial success since then. God is cool that way. I've lived with and seen how rich people live. I've lived in squalor as well. We had cockroaches all over our newborn son's walls and been horrified. The advantage of having lived such a varied life is that you find out what really matters. The truth is that you can tell what people value based on what they spend their money and time on. Simple, not easy.
Serendipitous.
ReplyDeleteI was just reevaluating the amount of time I put in things, especially work, while neglecting other aspects of my life.
When you know how to abound and abase it is one less firey arrow the enemy has against you and one major tool in your toolbox. I have been very, very poor and I have been not poor. I can do well, live well, in both.
ReplyDeleteI would say that the most important skill I learned growing up was to do well poor. Then to do well not poor. The fear of poverty drives a lot of people to worship the wrong God. From God all blessings flow. Sometimes He lets you pay with your bank, sometimes He makes sure you know it came from Him and Him alone.
It will be interesting to see in a few years what this is all about. In the future you are going to go "Ah, that is why God had us go through that. I am so grateful He did!" And I will rejoice along with you friends.
BTW, I grew up as the poorest person in an insanely rich town. At least that is what I thought. Then I found out about debt and realized we were nowhere near the poorest in the town. We just were not enslaved so we could look rich. It takes about five years time in knowing someone to realize this. Spending habits always catch up and debt slowly strangles. Where as someone with no debt, or very little, builds and gets stronger and stronger.
ReplyDeleteI always found it interesting before debit/credit cards. If you didn't have to put a night at the movies on credit, could pay cash for anything, it was obvious. Now, not so much.
People who are able to buy things second hand, usually ok financially. Watch and learn from them my friend, they are usually buying the Mercedes that is two years old for cash from the guy who can no longer make the payments :)
Our house, garage, and yard are full of things we purchased from other people's fire sales, that and from friends who upgraded their things. This leaves a lot of money left over to live life. It's awesome!
DeleteGo ahead then girl, who am I telling! I used to love me the PCS sales :)
DeletePreach on!
ReplyDeleteI really wish I had learned proper budgeting of both time and money when I was younger. Much harder to change habits than develop them correctly from the start. That is something I am still working on, much later in life than I should.
ReplyDeleteBrad you have to find your rush. For me, I need freedom. So I get that by not spending time and money on other things. Or finding other ways to get them. Find what you like then find a way to get it on your budget. Pray. I tell ya I could write a book on it. If you have a question feel free to ask .....if our blog hosts dont mind ;)
DeleteIf I could do all again,
DeleteSo many thing's I'd change!
So many pieces of my life,
I'd like to rearrange.
I'd love to sit my past self down
And give said self a chat.
Gentle persuasion with a smile,
Some duct-tape and a bat.
But since I can't go back in time
And set my whole life free,
Instead I make my future self
Come back to lecture me.
I have no specific needs Carlotta except just being more disciplined, which oftentimes goes against my nature. I figure I will get what I ultimately need in the next life, so I just keep striving to do the best in this life and to persist no matter the number of failures.
DeleteI have the same problem around chocolate :) Keep striving and pray.
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