Last night I posted about how personal finance is no picnic.
But I don’t want to be a complete downer about it. Here are some ways that I’ve found what I’ve learned in these three months encouraging and rewarding:
1. Alternative income fulfills my creative side.
I always knew I had creative capacities, but I felt like a certain amount of “real life” had to be spent making money to support the creative person. Now I realize how much my creative side can also be financially rewarding. I know that work is never entirely pleasant and involves hard work. But I also know that I can work hard doing some of the things I love and still (I hope) make it.
2. Money is less frightening.
Seems like a contradiction–in the last post I said that when I think about all the money we owe or need, it scares me. Some of the time that’s true. But I’m also less scared about money because I know what we owe and how we plan to pay it back. I feel more competent about controlling spending since I have a spending plan (budget). I don’t worry that this one purchase will push me over the edge (unless it actually will), because I know just where the edge is.
3. Seeing the numbers is rewarding!
We could have spent just the same last month without a budget. We would have simply been responsible about our purchases but not tracked it. However, at the end of the month I got a huge morale booster by finding out that we’d saved about 1/3 of our income. I mean, that’s stupendous!!! All I would have known without tracking it is that we didn’t overspend. I didn’t overspend for years and it made me feel ok, but not safe and definitely not exhilarated.
4. The community is supportive and educational.
I could probably do a lot of this on my own. I originally started the blog because I hoped that it would provide me some kind of accountability (and because I love to write). But I could have kept it private and not read other blogs.
However, I find the rest of you so encouraging–whether I’m reading about your progress and realize that I can do it too or if you’re leaving supportive comments on my entries. Just like AA, Weight Watchers and Curves, personal finance should be done in a community of like-minded people with similar (though not identical) goals.
Plus I learn a lot by reading your blogs, maybe about debt snowballs or Roth IRAs or yummy frugal recipes.
Thanks to all who read my blog and/or who write the blogs I read, it’s great being with you on this journey.
For those of you who haven’t started blogging yet, it’s a wonderful opportunity. It helps you get your own stuff straight, opens you to more ideas, and places you in a pretty supportive community. Despite the difficulties, the fears, and the dread, I think being proactive about one’s financial situation is much more fun and rewarding than the laissez-faire approach.
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I’m in agreement with you here. I know that you are very creative, but I’ve found the just blogging fulfils on the creative side that I have. Thinking about personal finance gives me a lot more incentive to do the things that I know that I should.
Irrelevant to this post: I can’t get your RSS feed to work for me.
I’m using Wizz RSS on Firefox as my reader; I suspect the problem is on your end because I added several other blogs in the past day or two with no problems. It just won’t do yours.
Any ideas?
Nice to hear about the fun side of things too! Again, I agree.
With regard to the RSS feed, I read it in Google Reader without any problems.
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