Stuck in Neutral | brokeGIRLrich
Earlier this week I read a post at Mr. Money Mustache calling his blog Advanced personal finance. And I can agree.
I feel like when I read a lot of posts at places like Get Rich Slowly or Wisebread, they’re already things I’m doing (not that they’re not awesome sites).
I feel like when I read debt blogs, that’s where I’ve been, but I’m past that.
So lately, it feels like I’m stuck in neutral.
Partly, because I often think Mr. Money Mustache is totally nuts (although fascinating to read and yes, always mathematically correct because, duh, biking 20 miles will save you $4.00 in gas). Partly because as soon as I got out of debt, money lost a lot of it’s urgency to me.
Debt feels like drowning. It’s like a partner who cheated on you and even though you kicked him to the curb, you signed a lease together so you’re stuck living with him until the lease is up. Debt sucks.
If I were still in debt, I would not be living in New York City. I would probably still be on a circus train, or back on a boat, or I would’ve found some other job that covered all my living expenses and still paid me at least halfway decently.
As soon as my debt number hit zero, it was like a switch flipped in my brain. It was kind of an awesome freedom switch. I relaxed. I felt like I could breathe deeper. I bought some pudding.
And all that awesome urgency that had fueled my debt payoff left me.
Suddenly I had rent and utilities to pay. And they eat up a pretty good chunk of what I make. Debt Mel would never have let that happen.
Now I feel a little stuck in neutral. What I’ve got going on right now doesn’t feel like nearly enough to achieve the goals I want to achieve.
I think I know what you mean. I do have a small car loan but I don’t feel weighed down by it and in retrospect it was VERY good to take a loan instead of pay with cash (because I now need that cash). But I think I’m with you on the neutral. Barely any debt but my cash flow is still small where it feel frustrating to get ahead. Is that what you meant?
Tonya@Budget and the Beach recently posted…Falling for Fall
Definitely what I meant.
I don’t doubt we all experience times when it feels like we are spinning our wheels, even the insane Mr. Money Mustache.
On the finance side of things I definitely haven’t been cracking down on things as much as I could (or should). While I don’t have things near in order as you (or anywhere close the savings) I also don’t have a huge mountain of debt (aside from the mortgage) to use as motivation.
I look at my life as a whole, with money being one aspect of it. At this very moment my focus is directed more to things like getting work that needs to be done before winter, strengthening the bonds and having a greater understanding between my brothers and myself, finding that lady with whom I can plan the rest of my life with, fixing up my house and doing more of what needs to be done on the farm.
By looking only at my finances it may feel as if I’m sitting idle. When I take in to account what I mentioned above then my life as a whole has been taking a huge jump forward lately. Money does have value in my life, just not the only or most important thing of value.
This all said, we are here in the world of personal finance. Posts like these can be all that’s needed to push us out of a rut. If we stop and think there’s no doubt many things which can come to mind we can improve upon. For me, here’s some things I know I could do.
– Finish tallying and collect money owed by my brothers for rent and other living expenses.
– Figure out what I want to do with my $1080 GIC that matures October 31 and the other $5000 I have in mutual funds at CIBC.
– Switch to a no fee online bank account.
– Send out the bill for a plumbing job I did months ago.
One final motivator, for the past five or so years I have mentally visualized a line graph of my accomplishments. It started out slow and small but much like investing the power of compounding kicks in and things accelerate. Now that I’ve read into investing this graph now looks more like an actually long term investment portfolio. To parallel, my finances are just one of many companies I’ve invested in my overall life portfolio. At any given time the performance of these companies may raise or fall. Despite the dips the line continually trends upward over the long term. That, right there, is awesome.
ThriftyHamster recently posted…Taking The Reigns Of My Life, Lets Get Farming.
Ha, ha. With my above comment I probably wrote enough text to make a worthy post on my own blog. I really should get back to writing there. 😉
ThriftyHamster recently posted…Taking The Reigns Of My Life, Lets Get Farming.
It’s one of he things I’m trying to avoid being newly debt free. I don’t want to get caught up with too much life style inflation with the budget surplus we now have. Need to try and keep the focus we had going during our debt repayment on to the things like investing and savings.
Brian @ Debt Discipline recently posted…Week End Round Up #52
Yeah, I’ve done mostly ok with the lifestyle inflation other than paying rent – but honestly, my life before was so weird, clearly that wasn’t going to work forever.
As someone who’s still neck-deep in debt, I read a lot of get-out-of-the-debt blogs and find yours to be a pretty common sentiment. I guess that’s why I treat my own debt — enormous as it is — as a logistical concern rather than a goal in and of itself.
Funny thing is that all my time on the road happened before the debt (and helped contribute to the debt to be sure). Being in debt makes me MORE likely to stay put in New York
Mario recently posted…Not smoking could save me over $5,000 a year — wish me luck
I think being in debt makes you more likely to continue with whatever is working.
MMM definitely represents a fairly extreme example of what can be accomplished but I take from him what works for me and sometimes he and other blogs offer some ideas that I didn’t think of trying. That is the fun of exploring other sites, even ones with extreme ideas. Just be patient and always be open to opportunity. Know what you want and where you want to go. Things seem to come when they are supposed to come. While you are in this slow paced growth rut stuck in neutral test your comfort threshold and try something new you once considered doing or maybe something you still do want to try. You say your previous indebted life was weird. Who says you can’t be a debt free weirdo now. Celebrate your current debt free status, push the boundaries of your comfort zone to learn and try new things. Allow your plan time to finish what you started. If it needs tweaking, tweak the hell out of it.
LeisureFreak Tommy recently posted…Letting Go of Summer
I do love the idea of becoming a debt free weirdo.
Funny…I get lots of pushback from people in debt who don’t like the fact that I don’t think “getting out of debt” is a goal; it’s a hurdle.
Goals are positive things. Hurdles are something to get over so you can reach your goal. It might sound like semantics, but to me, it’s important, because everyone who gets out of debt and doesn’t have serious, “gotta get it done” other goals that speak to them like the debt did find themselves in the shoes you’re in.
I’m not saying that you had “getting out of debt” as a goal. I’m saying that it seems like you don’t have those “fire in your belly” things speaking to you right now. That’s what I think it’ll take to get out of neutral. Great post.
Joe Saul-Sehy recently posted…Comment on How To Accomplish More: Just Start Now by Joe Saul-Sehy
I think you’ve nailed it with the “fire in your belly” feeling. I mean, I understand how important saving and investing is AND I do it, but it doesn’t have the same frantic urgency that spurred me forward with paying down debt.
Wow, that’s such a good way to look at it. We feel a bit stuck in neutral, though hopefully the income will be going up soon here. Once the husband graduates we’ll really be able to reach those goals quickly. But neutral can be a boring frustrating gear.
femmefrugality recently posted…Being a Whole Person: The Mom Con Giveaway
We’ve unfortunately hit “neutral” a few times. We were able to pay off our consumer debt in 7 months and now over the past 2+ years we have been working on our investments and paying off the mortgage. It’s difficult to keep the momentum and that “fire” going with such long-term goals but somehow after taking a few months break in “neutral” we are able to go back to pushing our limits. Best wishes!
Nichole @Budget Loving Military Wife recently posted…Groupon 7 Day FLASH SALE!!! Looking for a Winter Vacation?
It’s for sure a battle of lifestyle vs money at times. We made the choice for Sondra to stay home with the kids and that slowed down our income stream. We are debt free, but still owe on our house. That’s our next goal, but it’s a slow go at times. The key is that you have no debt…life’s problems are not so big anymore if you’re prepared! The borrower is truly slave to the lender:) If living in NYC and the costs associated with that are acceptable and that’s where you want to be, then so be it!
-Ryan
Ryan @ Savers4Life recently posted…Financially Savvy Saturdays #59
I get this “neutral” feeling sometimes too. We’ve never had debt to pay off, but, we’re always saving like crazy. Sometimes it’s hard to strive towards distant goals, but, I find that refocusing on what I really want out of life helps to re-energize me.
Mrs. Frugalwoods recently posted…Weekly Woot & Grumble: 6 Months & A Healthy Hound
Maybe it’s time for a quest. Have you heard of the Happiness of Pursuit? Not the greatest book – IMHO – but the topic is marvelous. The author traveled to all countries by his mid 30’s and chronicles the quests of others. Borrow it and give it a glance over to help push you out of neutral. There’s too much life left to live & you have options!
Toni @ Debt Free Divas recently posted…Weekend Reading – Win Cash and Prizes
Getting out of Debt is such a HUGE goal, and I think what makes it possible to be a weirdo and sprint towards paying it off is that you can literally watch yourself make progress each time you get paid. There is an absolute end point. I’m still in debt, but I have “post-debt goals” floating around in my brain–the difference is that they are more abstract and less urgent. That is a nice recipe for neutral, but if you don’t have anything major that gives you “fire in the belly” is neutral really so bad?
Brittany @ Fun on a Budget Blog recently posted…Saturday Morning Hustle: Links we Loved this Week
It’s true, probably neutral is not the worst thing in the world. I just feel very shiftless when my goals don’t feel pressing and have a little too much of an all or nothing type personality… so it’s always better to have concrete goals I’m passionate about, I get so much more done that way.
Good post. Very interesting sentiment. I think most commenters hit on the point that getting out of debt is such an all encompassing feeling (i.e. feels like you are drowning.. or is a huge goal itself etc.).
I guess the logical point to me seems to be that you need to replicate that goal / sense of mission. MMM does that by a) being a little extreme 🙂 b) having a defined target of EXTREMELY early retirement.
For you and your readers perhaps it is something different? For me it is starting/ running my company, being a major voice in the national / political conversation some day (aka soon is great, but realistically 5 – 10 years for national prominence), getting to play a TON of golf, travel a good bit etc.
Not that you were looking for exact suggestions, but from just knowing you really briefly perhaps some travel based goals (aka 2 weeks to Europe.. or 4 cities you want to go to next year) or perhaps more large scale around acting / play production that you would like to “develop / design / manage” broadway or off-Broadway production? I could be off base, but idk, some of those cold happen with perhaps $50k? Or maybe $100k and other backers etc?
Maybe my specifics are off, but I think what you really hit on is that getting out of debt gave a huge sense of purpose, focus, energy etc.. And my contention is you can do that with other goals if you want!
Great post Mel. I see where you’re coming from — it’s a “where should I focus my energy” question, right? And without the sense of debt-drowning there’s less of an urgency to figure the answer out.
For us, the next step was to maximize our contributions to IRAs and 401Ks. There wasn’t as much of a burning emotional urgency…more of a preventative decision so we wouldn’t have to experience the same sort of drowning, “what will we do?” feelings when we reach retirement. It took a few years to get those investment contributions locked in but I sure am glad we did.
Next for us after _that_ was a little (carefully budgeted) lifestyle inflation. I don’t have a desire to be an extreme early retiree — retiring in my late 50s is good enough for me, and I’m willing to give up retiring earlier in order to take some fun vacations and play a little.
What does this mean for you? It means you’ve reached a point where you have some options, and have a chance to decide the directions for your life. Congratulations!!!!!! So many people never reach that goal. It’s ok not to be certain what you’d like to devote your energy to — try a few ideas on for size and see what resonates. You’ll do great.
Jean @ NearlyRetired recently posted…Weathering the Retirement Storms: The 2 Critical Keys
Being in debt is frustrating and it’s important that when we get out we don’t put ourselves back in. I also found that once I paid off my debts it was tempting to accumulate more.
Sticking to a budget and not buying things we can’t afford will keep us out of debt and learning to make extra income will help too!
I think Matt hit the nail on the head with re-thinking the goal. I honestly don’t know exactly what we’ll do (we’re currently running pell mell at deleting our mortgage). We’ll probably do a combination of Jean and Matt’s ideas: max out our retirement, and set some small goals (mainly travel-related). I also love the idea of saving up for a rental property when our mortgage is kaput, but I don’t know if we’ll have the energy (probably put them in our other investments instead). Keep us posted on how you kick it out of neutral, I’d love to hear what re-ignites the fire for you!
Janeen recently posted…College Savings: When an UTMA Beats a 529 plan
Hey Mel, I’d love to hear how you’ve since kicked it out of neutral. Have you posted on this lately? I vote that you do!
Janeen recently posted…The Best Home Investment of the Decade
Good idea, I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to write for this Monday ;0)
I’ve noticed over the past 6 years, I go through periods of intense commitment and extreme saving, and then I go through periods of less budgeting and lax spending. Lately, as a way to get myself out of my less motivated funk, I’ve been trying to play with more extreme ideas. Like giving up my car for instance. I’m not there yet, but I’m decided to try a week without it, and then a month…just to challenge myself even though I’m not ready to take the final step yet (sorry MMM).
Emma Lincoln recently posted…our living room is a storage unit
No, you are not the only one. And it isn’t only with debt – I feel like this every time I achieve a big, fat goal I was wholly focused on. What helps with me is to have without a delay another ‘red carpet dream’ – another audacious goal I go for. This keeps me in check. Once we paid off our debt ($157,000 in three years) we decided that we’ll build sufficient capital and income streams so that I won’t have to be employed if I don’t want to be. And…the deadline is October, 2018.
That’s a pretty good red carpet dream!!
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