One of the things that drives me crazy online is the constant sharing of so-called “sexy” financial stories. You know what I’m talking about “Young woman retires at 32 after 7 years of work” But, no one adds the second part of the story which is “After 7 years of work making $250,000k a year plus stock options.” Or, couple pays off $500,000 in debt in 7 months. But, the other part of the story “After selling off their $427,000 house and cars.” For a long-time I loved those sexy financial stories until I began questioning why they seemed to be valued more than stories like mine. The painfully mundane stories. Where it took years to pay off $60,000 of really complicated debt. It’s as if slow and steady doesn’t win the race…but, sooner or later it does. In this podcast episode, I want to encourage those of you with who have what you feel are unsexy financial goals to keep moving forward. The unsexy stories eventually do become sexy…over time. Your boring financial goals matter.
Welcome to Michelle is Money Hungry. I’m your host, Michelle Jackson, and I focus on holding financial conversations that lean into social equity, policy and access with a splash of pop culture. My goal is to lead these conversations with empathy and help both my listeners and myself learn more about money.
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Show Notes
I’m recording this episode at the beginning of 2023. Per usual, we’re being inundated with “New Year, New Me!” propaganda, fitness goals that will likely be forgotten about in the next couple of hours and the unnecessary social pressure that comes with living in a competitive society. For my American listeners, I know that we hear the following conflicting messages:
- Why don’t you work harder? Why? Because I’m tired.
- Why are you tired, no rest for the wicked. I’m just tired and I’m not wicked-I’m a human being who has a lot going on.
- You should be grateful for your job. Of course I’m grateful for my job but I’m sick of being held hostage by their unfair employment practices.
So then we begin thinking of the financial goals that we would like to achieve or make happen in order to change our lives. But, they just feel small compared to other people’s goals, low-key not cool enough and at the same time impossible to achieve.
Boring Financial Goals
What’s on my mind. It’s the beginning of the year and I’m also setting my financial goals. I would love to say that I have everything figured out financially…but, I don’t. In fact, Learning and maintaining good financial skills feels like learning another language and I wish that we would talk about personal finance from that perspective. Here’s what I’m mean. Personal finance has so many angles to it:
- What was modeled financially in your home
- Financial Values
- Access to money
- Lack of access
- Technology and how changes influence our understanding of money
- Debt
- Savings
- Earnings
- Investing
- Credit scores-a metric that is a relatively new financial tool
- Credit cards-Credit utilization and rewards points
Don’t get me started on all of the policies that also influence our financial decisions. So, when someone tells me that their financial goals-I’m also excited for them because there is so much to focus on and even if the one financial thing you’re focused on feels small to YOU, that financial goal may be a big deal to someone else.
I guess what I’m talking about is perspective. As you set your financial goals at the beginning of the year or whenever, I want you to keep the following in mind:
- Your financial goals are important
- They don’t have to be sexy
- Even small goals such as paying off a $150 dollar bill, could make a difference to your life.
- Mental energy gone from focusing on that bill
- One less thing to think about
- Credit allocation changes-if that’s something you even think about.
- Maybe your goal is to stop getting debt collection calls
- To buy a new to you car
- Or, buy bougie coffees regularly
- To visit a family member in another state
Own your sexy goals. My financial goals were to try to figure out how to manage my finances better because my money issues were managing me.
So, I Ended Up Paying off $60,000
But, there’s more to the story. It took almost 8 years to pay this debt. The process was quite honestly, messy and a bit disorganized. I also ended up quitting my job-drastically lowering my income-due to acute stress and anxiety.
I also had around 30 creditors. I owed a lot of small bills, but they were big bills to me because of the energetic space that they took in my life.
On a daily basis I was receiving:
- Debt collection letters
- Text messages
- Late notifications
- Emails
- And was served 3 different times regarding old credit card debt-I need to do a podcast episode about that experience.
For the first 4 years of paying off debt, I wasn’t really convinced that having this goal was making a difference in my life. Especially when I knew so many other people who had achieved their financial goals faster.
One day though, I started noticing the following:
- I was getting A LOT less mail. Significantly less and it wasn’t because I’d switched everything to online communications. It was because there was nothing left to communicate-those bills were paid.
- I wasn’t getting debt collection emails. The debts were either in good standing or gone.
- No more text messages.
- But, what was even better was how I felt-I could feel an ease off from all of the pressure that I had been dealing with.
I was also making fewer financial mistakes-because I’d learned more over time about managing my money. Positive financial management as a lifelong skill should likely improve overtime.
What felt like small goals to someone else were big for me.
- To have more money than month
- To pursue some interests personally and professionally
- To pay ahead on my bills
- To travel around the US consistently
- To eat what I wanted and not have to economize on food
It took awhile to do, but I was able to achieve those goals. And that has been a big deal for me. This year I’m publishing my first personal finance book “Not a Financial Unicorn” it’s a book for those of us with unsexy financial goals-the goals that don’t make the front page of our favorite websites or get shared on social media.
“Not a Financial Unicorn“ shares what it’s like to be at financial rock bottom and how gradual changes made a big impact on my life. The book is currently available for pre-order now. What is your unsexy financial goal?
I share my story because I don’t want you to give up on your financial goals. Sometimes slow and steady is all that you can give a goal. And that’s ok.
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