I was leaving my nursing home moonlighting gig the other evening. I had just started training that weekend, my first orientation shifts.
It was late, and if you can see that a car looks sweet late at night, my wallet sort of twitches. Vehicles are a weak spot for me.
It's a generational curse that I come by honestly.
My rule of thumb - cars that look good even when it’s pitch black in a parking lot are likely outside of my families’ (current) financial reach.
Our vehicles have "character". A bit of rustic (rusty) patina, perhaps? Vintage chic.
As for the job, I was welcomed and fortunate to be mentored by a few staff members over the course of my orientation to the home. The routines, the staffing unit and the residents - it felt good. Good leaders inspire confidence. One staffer stood out - strong leader. They owned the nice car.
I looked over at them as we were leaving the home late that evening. “Nice car! Puts mine to shame!”
“Thanks”, they said. “I make bad financial decisions.” Just that, nothing further, got in their car, drove away.
Stunned, I laughed and had a moment of reflection.
Physician, heal thyself.
Hello, my name is David, and I have a spending problem. Still.
Wherever you go, you go with you.
My wife is Christina. She is the smartest woman alive. She has more power over me than anyone in the universe aside from God. She can call me out with a look. Cripple me with a sentence. I'm frequently hopelessly wrong, I'm terribly in love. Doesn’t submission suck? .
...Does it? Or am I just prideful and wrong?
“Let’s save for summer day camp for HJ”, Christina says.
“Why tie up that cash flow when we have other things we could use that money for?”, I say, like I don’t know that she’s got my number. Like I don’t know that we’ve been married ten years on April 13th, and that every time I’ve ignored Christina’s gut instinct, it’s cost us at least $10,000.
Like I don’t know that it hasn’t been a stretch to put together the extra cash for daycare camp for HJ for the last five summers.
Physician, heal thyself.
Giving financial self-reflection a blind eye isn’t what has brought our family to where we are now.
It took starting with getting control of the people in the mirror.
David, pull your head firmly out of the sand.
What does the nurse say when they’re about to give us a shot? “You’ll feel a pinch.” “This is going to hurt a little." “You’ll feel some pressure."
Or nothing, because they’re straight up savages.
Welp, that hurt.
Some of the strongest men and women I know are nurses.
Sanctification - "this is gonna hurt a little". Change does.
CS Lewis wrote: "We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."
Financially whittling away the nonsense in our lives - the extra, the unnecessary - particularly when we were broke and in debt - it hurt a little.
It hurt a lot. Like, a lot, a lot.
What did we do to get out of debt? Gazelle intensity. We sold so much stuff, HJ likely thought she was next.
So, submit to the process. Dance with the girl that brought you. Discipline equals freedom.
The steps that we’ve taken to gain (more) financial peace in our home are these:
1. Save for a rainy day. Prov 21:20.
2. Anticipate the unexpected. James 4:13.
3. Eliminate debt and never borrow money again. Prov 6.
It hurts, BUT...
Save for summer camp. Save for Christmas (it’s Dec 25th every year, they don’t move it, it's not a surprise that it's coming). Save for shakes, rattles and squeaks your car makes that cause your wallet to whimper a little.
We know the rain is coming.
Doesn't it feel better when we have an umbrella?
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