Personal Finance For Life

   

As I read the across the world wide web of ours, I’ve noticed a bit of a trend with other personal finance writers. Apart from writing about Personal Finance, I’ve noticed many also write about life, happiness, purpose, relationships and similar intangibles. They say that money can’t buy happiness. But can the comfort of having enough money create a sense of relief and even joy perhaps?

And so I started brainstorming, how does personal finance relates to life overall?  

It didn’t take long to figure it out. It’s the simple question of what exactly are you saving and investing for. Is it to pay off credit card debts, take a vacation, go on sabbatical for a bit, fund your retirement, or all of the above? The truth is all of these things are a part of many people’s lives. And in order to do them with peace of mind, your personal finances need to be in order. 

PF And Life – We Want A Purpose/Passion

We want a purpose for the hard work we put into earning, savings and investing.

A purpose can turn into a passion too. I enjoy and find purpose in the audit and analysis work that I do, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a passion.

Writing has become somewhat of a passion for me. Admittedly, I’m not always running to the laptop and firing away at the keyboard. There has to be a thought, an idea, something I feel strongly about to put words on the blank document.

There are all kinds of passions out there that may not be related to your traditional job. And in order to pursue that passion, you need time. If that passion becomes stronger and stronger, you’ll want to get your personal finances in order so that money is one less thing to focus on and instead focus on said passion.

Mr. Money Moustache seems to have a passion to build things. His building skills are quite impressive as evidence by the Tiny House he made and wrote about. He is able to focus on this passion more since he has put his personal finances in order and does not need to work to fund his lifestyle. 

How can we quantify how much we need to save and invest so that we may pursue our passion? We just research and document. For example, let’s say your passion is hiking and taking pictures of nature. You’ll need some good hiking shoes to start off with. You probably already have a cell phone that can take pretty good pictures, jeans, shirts, socks and a jacket if you’re going hiking in the fall or winter. Many public parks have no entry fee and come with hiking trails. So you may just need less than $100 to get started.

Ah, but what about the time needed for hiking? If you work from 9:00am to 5:00pm Monday thru Friday, you can take some time out on the weekends.

What if this passion becomes stronger and you want to go hike more? Now you have even more of a reason to get your personal finances in order so that you can retire at a reasonable enough age and are still in shape to go hiking.

Maybe you can semi-retire at an even earlier age as kind of a compromise so that you are still bringing in some income and have more time (when compared to working full-time) to go hiking.

PF & Life – We Want Physical & Mental Health

Mental health means the ability to avoid negative emotions of stress, fear, anxiety, depression. Debt causes stress and many studies have been able to prove this. Personal finance writers know this and do everything possible to remove existing debt and avoid acquiring new forms of debt.

Even physical pain can come from worrying about money. A 2016 study of over 33,000 households from Psychology Science reported that people with high levels of unemployment were more likely to take pain-killers.

So it’s important to maintain financial health in order to help maintain physical and mental health.

PF & Life – We Want Don’t Want A Whole Lot

I’ve come to realize that personal finance writers, once they achieve a level of financial security they are comfortable with, don’t really want a whole lot else. They want normal things such as a safe and reliable car with only some bells and whistles, a modest home, couple of vacations per year, and the ability to eat out a couple times per week.

I haven’t come across any personal finance writers who drive a Lamborghini, claim they live in a mansion or own a yacht. Having big and fancy things requires continuous maintenance, high insurance costs, and maybe even unwanted attention.

PF & Life – Gratitude For What We Have

Finally, I’ve found people in the personal finance world are continuously working on being grateful and practicing gratitude for what they have. This is probably one of the greatest attributes one can adopt. Practicing gratitude also leads to many physical and mental health benefits like greater optimism and more energy as recorded by psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough.

Personally, I’ve found that practicing gratitude brings me peace and empathy towards others which can become a catalyst to helping others and even more gratitude.

Join The Discussion:

  1. What are your life reasons for pursuing personal financial freedom?
  2. Are you pursuing some of those now?
  3. How much time do you wish to devote to your passions?

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