Ask This Question Before You Buy | Your Money Or Your Life

Overspending, hyper-consumption, keeping up with the Joneses, the Kardashians and the Gates's is absolutely crushing our ability to save money and build wealth.

I mean, you’ve probably heard the statistic that 78% of the US population lives paycheck to paycheck and would have a hard time coming up with just $400 for an emergency. 

And I know what this feels like because I myself  “woke up” one day with $174,000 in debt, no job, no hope, no prospects. But more about that later.

When you pile on how many of us hate our jobs (think great resignation), maybe we need to start rethinking our tendency toward hyper-consumption and reframe the way we think about this whole arrangement between money and the way we work for it.

So the next question people usually have is, “okay Brad, how DO I start taking back control of my money? What’s the first step?”

Well I WILL say that the whole process of taking control of your money is a MUCH longer conversation (that I’ll get into a little later), but today I just want to cover a really powerful mindset shift that helped me sack that $174k of debt and start moving toward FI.

So, here’s what I want you to do.

The next time you’re going to make a larger purchase that you’re doing to have to use debt for, I want you to start framing how much money you’re going to spend in terms of how much of your life you’ve had to give up in order  to earn that currency you’re getting ready to probably just waste.

So, when you go to make a large purchase, make sure to ask yourself, "how much time am I going to have to do:

1. a bunch of stuff I don't like doing
2. with people I don't really care that much for
3. in a job that's not really well-suited for me
4. all for a paycheck that's only going to pay a just small portion of the "bet" I'm making right now."

And by the way, I learned this idea from Vicki Robin’s excellent book “Your Money Or Your Life”. And I’ll leave a link below for that. I highly highly recommend that you read this book! It will help you with this process of reframing the way you look at spending money.

In the book, she unpacks how we can start to develop new habits around what we do with our money by first starting to change our thinking patterns about money.

To do that, she says we need to create a new road map.

CREATING A NEW ROAD MAP — FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT THINKING

How do you find a new road map for money? It requires thinking in new ways. One of the keys to creating your new road map is what we call Financially Independent ‘FI Thinking.’ This is the process of examining those basic assumptions that you have unconsciously adopted, of evaluating your own road map. Until you can deliberately and dispassionately question your own inner road map for money, you will be stuck in classic financial dead ends, such as: 

• Spending more than you earn.
• Buying high and selling low.
• Not liking your job, but not having a way out.
• Needing two paychecks to make ends meet.
• Being so confused by money that you leave it to the experts, who in turn feed on your ignorance.

Exploring the following concepts will transform your relationship with money and will lead you to FI — Financial Intelligence, Financial Integrity and even Financial Independence.

Now, the next thing you’ll want to do is ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have enough money?
• Are you spending enough time with family and friends?
• Do you come home from your job full of life?
• Do you have time to participate in things you believe are worthwhile?
• If you were laid off from your job, would you see it as an opportunity?
• Are you satisfied with the contribution you have made to the world?
• Are you at peace with money?
• Does your job reflect your values?
• Do you have enough savings to see you through six months of normal living expenses?
• Is your life whole? Do all the pieces — your job, your expenditures, your relationships, your values — fit together?

Like I mentioned earlier, I “woke up” one day with $174,000 in debt, no job, no hope, no prospects. It took an absolutely humiliating set of circumstances and some extreme emotional suffering for me to want to wake up and start asking myself questions like this AND went through a solid tactical program that taught me how to organize, budget, track, pay off debt and THEN how to invest in such a way as to get to FI in under a decade.

So, again when you go to make that large purchase, make sure to ask yourself, "how much time am I going to have to do:

1. a bunch of stuff I don't like doing
2. with people I don't really care that much for
3. in a job that's not really well-suited for me
4. all for a paycheck that's only going to pay a small portion of the "bet" I'm making right now."

And now for a little bonus. If you’re looking to start the process of taking back control of your money around, let me offer you my 100% FREE “8 Steps To Erase Debt: The Foundations Of Financial Independence” workshop. 

This is exactly the set of steps I followed to get 100% out of debt and that helped  me  reach financial independence.

Struggling Or Feeling Alone?

Join Our Private FB Group: Zero Debt Tribe

Now, if this decision process is something you struggle with and you constantly feel isolated about, I’ve got some great news for you and it’s free.

Our private Facebook group, ZeroDebtTribe. It’s a group of like minded people that are all somewhere along this P2P/debt-elimination/on their way to FI continuum. So click the image above and apply to join us. :)

How can ZeroDebtCoach help you? 4 ways...

1. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the notifications bell to make sure you get our new videos every week. 

2. Download one of our free personal finance guides. You’ll learn some of the exact strategies I teach my private coaching students on how to organize and optimize their finances, obliterate debt and move on to financial independence by starting and growing online businesses.

3. If you’re looking for a community of motivated and like-minded people, go ahead and get on the waitlist to join our private financial coaching community. We only open it for new students a couple of times a year, so make sure to get on the waitlist.

4. If you need some help right now because you’ve got a burning issue, you need a problem solved, you want to talk through a complex situation, click on the button below.

All that said, let's keep on building your financial acumen and make this your best year yet!

Thanks so much for reading and we’ll see you in the next video post!