Financial Freedom Isn’t All or Nothing
A few days ago I was prepping dinner in the pink kitchen of our rental when I received one of the greatest texts of my mid-life.
A very good, very old friend let me know that she was ready to learn, take charge and master her finances. Her exact words were, “I’m too smart not to figure this out.”
Did your heart just explode with love and excitement? Mine too.
She had some specific questions AND she was hoping I had some recs for learning more.
Dinner forgotten, I flung myself to my laptop after asking how she learned best (podcasts? books? blogs?) and fired off a few of my faves.
PS: I have an entire resources page with all of this info too- check it out!
We chatted a bit more and before signing off I left the door open for more questions, however large or small. Not just because she’s my friend, but because I freaking LOVE talking about money.
I used to be a little ashamed of that, to be honest.
There’s a lot wrapped up in money for a lot of us. It doesn’t feel like what it actually is- a neutral tool. Because of how we were raised, because of what our parents learned about money and passed on to us, because of (sweeps arm around dramatically) capitalism, money can feel like any host of things.
It can feel like fear, or guilt, or shame. It can look like avoidance, or control.
But if we can step outside of these negative beliefs, even for the briefest of moments- we might catch a different side of money.
What if money felt like a steady, solid ground beneath your feet? What if it felt like empowerment, or autonomy? Agency?
What if money felt like joy?
My one-time walking partner.
Here’s what I’ve come to realize, perhaps later than I should have- feeling joy around money does not require you to be 100% financially independent.
That’s because financial independence is not a binary! (Were any of those ever real anyway?) Financial independence is a SPECTRUM, friends!
Here’s what I mean:
When you go from having no idea where your money is going every month to having a solid, easy-to-execute automated budget, you gain the freedom that comes from honesty, knowledge, and a firm starting place.
When you move from living paycheck to paycheck to saving your first month’s worth of spending in a savings account, you can exhale. Immediate financial emergencies can now be taken care of without going into debt.
When you create a debt payoff plan and know exactly the month and year you will be debt-free, your financial life can finally start to take a real shape instead of falling into the nebulous category of “someday.”
And so on.
You don’t have to wait until you have millions in the bank- small steps along the way fill your freedom bucket by giving you options.
And here’s the truth: you deserve options. You deserve the autonomy and power that comes with knowing your numbers and having a plan. You deserve to sleep well at night, knowing the plan is running in the background while you live your glorious life.
The full moon, refusing to be captured in a photograph.
When I felt shame around talking about money so much, it was because I still bought into the negative narrative of money.
The shame is all bogus, friends!
How could I not feel joy for my friend who wants to take control of her life? Who wants to feel that steady ground of stability under her feet, knowing that she’ll be ok as she moves through mid-life and beyond?
I want that feeling of agency for everyone, admittedly maybe sometimes a bit too desperately.
So I’ll continue sharing my love of personal finance- how understanding it has been an empowering force in my life, has given me options and a safe ground to walk on.
I deserve that, and so do you.
As always, if you’re ready to get started and have questions, send them my way here or check out the Resources page. Find a voice there that you click with, and dive down that beautiful financial rabbit hole!