Happiness. You want it. I want it. We all want it.
What if I told you the steps to getting out of debt will also bring you greater happiness?
“Wait just a minute!” you might say. “How is that even possible?”
“How on earth does someone become happier while getting out of debt?”
“Doesn’t getting out of debt mean a bunch of sacrifice, meaning living with less and NO FUN FOR ME?”
Well guess what! Not only can you have fun while getting out of debt, but the very steps you take to become debt free are also the same steps to greater happiness.
Still don’t believe me?
Let me give you an example.
Meet Julie Rains of Investing to Thrive.
Julie is a wife and mother. She has to manage a household with two children. Her husband and boys all had different agendas than getting debt free. Sound familiar?
Cut to the end of the story: Not only was she able to pay off $30,000, she began to enjoy her life more.
Here are some of the steps she took that helped her pay off her debt while becoming a happier version of herself.
Included are some action steps. Pick the ones that resonate with you and start there!
1. Julie shifted her from focusing only on the mistakes she had made and began recognizing her good choices too.
By focusing on what she did right, Julie started to see that she didn’t just make poor choices. There were lots and lots of great choices also. This gave her the confidence to trust herself and make new choices that could move her forward. This new-found confidence helped her navigate her finances and other areas of her life as well.
“As I think about the debt freedom journey, I can look back and focus on some of the things I’ve done wrong, but it is also very strong looking forward, and asking myself what I have done right.”
Action step: Right now, stop and ask yourself – “What good decisions have I made about money?” (even if the only good choice you can find right now is reading this article, that is a good start….keep going!)
2. Julie learned to stop dwelling on the past, and shifted her attention to the future instead.
There is a saying that goes “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!” One of the ways we dig ourselves into a hole is by dwelling on what could have been, should have been, would have been, and might have been. But guess what, today is a brand new day.
What do you want today, going forward?
Setting targets for ourselves is the best way for us to achieve those targets!
Thinking about her future, did way more for Julie then just helping her get out of debt: “Instead of worrying that I haven’t nurtured a relationship, I can just start nurturing that relationship now.” “If there was clutter in my house, instead of beating myself up about it, I now just look to the future and determine what I need to do to get rid of the clutter.”
Action Step: Ask yourself these 3 questions right now:
- What is one area of your life you are less than happy about?
- How would you like that area to be instead?
- What is one action you can take today to take it in that direction?
3. Julie didn’t let money just sit around. She put it to work!
It is much easier to avoid temptation when it is not around us. This is as true for money as it is for chocolate cake. When money is just lying around in our checking account, it is all too easy to use it in a haphazard way and it tends to get spent on stuff we don’t really need.
Julie understood that there was lots of money being spent on stuff nobody in her family really needed or even wanted that much.
So how could she change things?
She refinanced the mortgage from a 30 year mortgage to a 15 year mortgage. Not only did this lower her interest rate, it required her family to spend more each month on their mortgage payment and thus not on other things they didn’t need.
“Instead of having that money sitting around that I thought we might spend on something else, we were able to apply it to the mortgage. So I guess that was a little bit of a ploy on my part to make that happen.”
Action Steps:
Ask yourself:
- What temptation takes me away from what I want for my life? How can I remove that temptation from my immediate awareness?
- Create a budget using this budget form and use any previously-unallocated money toward debt freedom.
4. Julie learned to face the music as soon as possible.
We all put things off. Either because we are “too busy” or because we love to procrastinate. Whatever the reason, the cruel joke is that we are going to have to face the music anyway and in the meantime that music is going to play in the back of our minds as stress, unease and energy draining worry until we deal with it. Who wants that?
Julie learned to face the music as soon as possible. She combed through every credit card bill to “make sure that everything is legit and that I wasn’t paying for something that wasn’t correct. Instead of evaluating whether you need an expense every 10 years, I learned to look at it every year.”
Action Step: For the next week, each morning when you get a chance, ask yourself: “What is one thing I’m avoiding?” Do that thing first! (This one action step will change your whole life.)
5. Julie worked to get agreement with her family.
Julie learned it was ok to openly discuss bills with the family and that doing so was the key to getting the buy-in needed to cut back on things they didn’t need or really want anyway.
“For example, the cable bill. We have a cable bill, because we have one son who likes watching ESPN. Just to bring up that topic and ask ‘Do we really need this anymore?’ Sometimes you might be surprised at the other person. You thought they really wanted that cable package, but they really didn’t.”
Regarding her husband, she says “We don’t buy large ticket items without consulting each other.”
Being open with your partner about big ticket expenses before they happen is a critical skill that will bring you and your partner to the same page regarding your finances. These conversations may be challenging and uncomfortable at first, but they get easier with time and they are a whole lot better than you or your partner finding out about big purchases later.
Action Step: Ask yourself if there is any money topic you are avoiding discussing with your partner that needs to be discussed. Find a way to discuss it with them!
6. She learned to be patient with herself.
The truth is, it took longer to get out of debt than she wanted. She struggled to get her family on the same page. She struggled with her whole-hearted commitment to being debt free.
There was always this struggle of “‘this debt is ok, that debt is ok’ vs my desire to be totally debt free. Finally I let the feeling to be debt free win.”
Once she committed 100% there were still setbacks causing her to take even longer paying off her debt. “The recession happened. My investments decreased, it looked like my husband might lose his job, things were falling apart a little bit.”
She took a deep breath, stayed on track and, weathered the storm, and came out the other side debt free!
Julie offers us this nugget: “Maybe it took you a while to get in debt. You may be anxious to get out of debt, but give it some time.”
Action Step: What are you restless to change in your life? What one little step can take you in that direction? Take that little step! Be happy and repeat!
