Broken Piggy Bank?

I wrote a few days ago about choosing the top 10 things you want to teach your children - focusing in on 10 in order to ensure that you SUCCEED because your thoughts and intentions are not scattered all over the place.  You have a focus.  You can create a plan.  You can deliberately CREATE and TAKE ADVANTAGE OF moments to teach your 10 Things.

After I realized the power in focusing my Vision for my family, my thoughts immediately turned to our Finances.  One of the things I want my children to learn is Financial Self Reliance and Freedom. 

But so many times, in spite of my VERY detailed-and-verified-daily Budget Sheet, I do not see an end to all the things that are pressing on us. From mortgage payments to student loans to much-desired hobbies/extras for ourselves and our children, we seem to be "always moving but going nowhere."  Like there's a crack in our piggy bank and the money that is supposed to be accumulating keeps falling out somehow! Can you relate?


After I focused in on my Family Vision, I went to my Budget Vision.  Where I had been spending SO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY trying to budget in money in so many different areas - refinancing, downpayment on a new home, money towards student loans, extra payments if we don't sell or refinance to cut the term of the loan, etc. - I decided to follow Dave Ramsey's advice and focus in on just ONE, the one with the highest interest rate and the one I had the most control over. 

When I took the money I was trying to allocate to so many different "What If's/Needs/Debts" and channeled it to ONE place, it was like magic on paper!  Suddenly I saw an end to one thing that was in our control, in spite of all of the things that were not.  Suddenly I saw and felt success instead of continual despair.  Suddenly the end of ONE MAJOR WEIGHT was a LOT closer than any of my previous calculations had ever deemed possible.

THAT IS A GOOD FEELING!  That is an EMPOWERING feeling!  That is a FOCUSED, DELIBERATE feeling!

Within a week of me making this "plan", we had some big financial things break down, fall apart, and come up.  But they didn't phase us!  They didn't get in the way of the PLAN, of the VISION, of the FOCUS, because we were committed to it.  We were committed to sacrifice in order to realize it.  We were committed to let the broken stay broken, the fallen apart go to the garbage without being replaced, the coming up come and go without us being a part of it this ONE time.  We could see the fruits of doing so, and they meant more to us than the temporary sacrifices we would be making.

I invite you to do the same.  Go to your finances and decide ONE THING that you can WIPE OFF your list.  Just one thing that is IN your control.  Get rid of it, re-channel the money and energy in order to be done with it, and when you hit that point, see what the next thing is that is in your control and weighing the heaviest on your mind and budget and get rid of it!  This is the way of success.  The other - the constant worrying and relocating and replanning and revisiting without ever actually progressing - is just the way of madness! :-)