I came into a couple of windfalls this past year after my grandma passed away. The one I got last year was expected, but the one I just got in the mail today was unexpected. As I think about how blessed I am to have gotten it in the first place and to be in such a great position to handle it, I’m overtaken with thankfulness. Because of that thankfulness, I thought I’d share my thoughts on what I feel got me to this position of being able to handle it well so that I may be able to help you do the same when the time comes for you to be given something too.

Being Prepared for a Windfall Changes Its Value

For someone not paying attention to their finances and living for today with a high class lifestyle, a windfall can be a very exciting thing. A big chunk of cash to that person who is spending everything they make is a new car, vacation or new boat waiting to happen. Since they spend everything they make, it’s a sure thing this money will get spent too. That’s great, right? Well, if that person is spending everything they make, they likely are spending more than they make, which means they probably have debt, too. When a big chunk of money comes in and it gets spent instead of used for debt reduction, it really ends up being an enabler to an already bad financial lifestyle. It ends up hurting the person who receives it instead of helping them. What a shame.

A person receiving a windfall could also be in a more intermediate financial position where, although they have been spending everything they made and more, they have recently woken up and are trying to get out of their mess. This person, when receiving some extra money, will likely put a good chunk or all of it down on their debt. This makes the windfall a good thing and something that helps them. Now, we’re talking!

And SOMETIMES…… there is that person who has been paying attention to their finances and kicking it for a few years or more already. They are doing well, not because of windfalls but because they just started paying attention, making their financial position a priority and turning things around. Luckily, I have been in that position this past year. I got a windfall last year that was equal to about 2 months worth of pay and just today that’s equal to more than 1 month of pay. Since I was out of debt and had a fully funded emergency fund, I didn’t, and don’t, need this money for anything. Also, since I had learned to live below my means and get my spending under control, I really didn’t need to buy anything with it either. In summary, I really didn’t need the money. So, I put it in savings last year and I plan on putting this one into savings too. Being able to do that and use it for the future turns a windfall like this into a major blessing as it’s going to help me toward my financial goals.

A Windfall That’s Prepared for is Truly a Blessing

What I’m most thankful for is that I was prepared for this blessing. I wasn’t stupid enough to want to spend it all as soon as I got it. I wasn’t deep in debt so that I had to use it to pay for things I’d already bought. I’m debt free and don’t owe anyone money. I’m prepared financially for emergencies so I don’t need it there. These windfalls are 100% a blessing to me from my grandma and I’ll be using them in my future for something that will be good for me and that will continue to be a blessing to me and my future family for years to come. I’m happy to say that I bet my grandma is looking down on me with gladness that I’m prepared to handle the gift she gave me. Thank you grandma. I love you.

Are you spending too much?

Getting out the numbers and digging into the details tells me that I’m spending about $3-400 more per month than I was 6 months ago. Although it has been the norm for me over the past 2 years to spend more in the summer, I found myself hitting the higher spending numbers earlier in the year this year. It’s kind of concerning that it happened so early this year.

Whether or not it’s a problem for you and me has to do with:

1. What kind of financial shape you’re in
2. What your financial goals are

In my short life, I’ve learned that financial shape has almost everything to do with how much income you earn. If you’re not in good financial shape, it’s likely a problem when you’re spending too much money on your lifestyle. And how do you tell if you’re in good financial shape? The first indicator of financial shape is whether or not you are currently able to pay your bills. If you can pay your bills only by borrowing money each month and putting expenses on your credit cards, that’s a sign of poor financial shape. A second indicator is whether or not you could pay your bills if you didn’t get paid one pay period, or what about an entire month? If you start to get nervous after hearing about potentially losing a month’s worth of pay, then I’d say you are in rough shape financially.

Obviously, some other very important indicators of financial health are:

• Do you have debt? If so, how much in comparison to your income?
• Do you have savings/liquid investments? If so, how much in comparison to your income?
• Do you have an income that exceeds your expenses? If so, by how much?

Debt and savings can both be created and wiped out quickly, depending on how your income and expense numbers compare.

If You’re in Good Financial Shape, Then What?

If you are in good financial shape, then I suppose it’s okay to spend a little more money, as long as you’re spending vs. income still look good. This is a case for me. Yes, I spent $150 on running shoes last night (ouch). I have also been loosening my belt in a lot of other areas. When I look at it all though, I’m still in good financial shape, even with the increased spending. So you know what? I’m going to let myself feel okay about it. Go Kraig!

If Your in Rough Financial Shape, You May Want to Think Twice

Thankfully, I’m not in this condition. I cut things far enough over the past few years that even with an increase of $3-400 per month, I’m still spending far below what I make. For those of you who aren’t spending less than you make, I would caution you to think twice about continuing to live this way, even in the short term. It could come back to really bite you hard. I do wish you the best of luck though in getting your income up and/or lowering your expenses so that you too, can not have to worry about financial troubles anytime soon.

Two years ago, I was struggling to make progress on my debt. I had a $13,000 debt on my car and a $5,000 debt from my student loans. I did have some cash in the bank but it seemed to be sucked/thrown by stupidity in a lot of directions.

I had some unexpected expenses between January and May, 2010, such as:

• Tires for my Car – $800: The tires on my car were shot and needed to be replaced. I hadn’t planned for that. Since my car has 17 inch wheels, the tires (I had to get nice ones to match my car) + a much needed 4-wheel alignment, totaled over $800.
• The Dentist – $1,500: I had to have an emergency (although I knew about it and put it off for months) root canal and re-treatment done on two of my teeth in May. Ouch.

I also spent money like it was water that spring on:

• A mini post-business trip vacation to South Carolina – $310: Two co-workers and I took a road trip to the coast of South Carolina in May. It was a blast.
• A trip to the Pacific Northwest (Cannon Beach, Portland & Seattle) – $800: My friend Matt and I flew out to Seattle, rented a car, road tripped and stayed around the area. It was a great experience.
• A bunch of shopping: I also bought all kinds of clothes and all kinds of meals at expensive restaurants during this time.

When I got back from the Seattle trip, I sat down to look at my finances and found that I hadn’t made any financial progress at all that whole half of 2010. I was very frustrated to say the least. That was when it happened. I admitted to myself that I had been spending everything I made even though I wasn’t trying to. I told myself, “It’s time you start to live on less than you make” and I made the decision to start doing it right then and there. That was Memorial Day Weekend, 2010.

What It Looks Like to Live on Less Than You Make

Here are the steps to live on less than you make:

1. Track Your Finances – To have any clue at all whether you live on less than you make or not, you need to be tracking all of your income and expenses. I mean all of them. It’s acceptable if up to $50 of your money gets lost each month, but everything else needs to be accounted for. To do this, I recommend using an online program, such as Mint.com, but you can certainly keep track of everything the old fashioned way, on paper. Once you’re officially tracking all of your income and expenses, just live normally for a month or two to gather a baseline of where you’re at. If you’ve never tracked your finances before, it’s extremely likely that you are spending as much or more than you make. The goal of tracking is to know what it looks like to live on less than you make.

2. Create and Live on a Budget – When you have your income numbers and a rough idea of what you have been spending each month, you’ll start knowing whether you live on less than you make or not. Now is the time to make a budget. In this budget, you will essentially give yourself an allowance for each month, in advance. This allowance should be broken up by category, which you can determine, although usually people use commonly used categories. At the top (or bottom) will be your total monthly income, and the other part will consist of a listing of all spending categories. The key is to be honest with yourself on what you will actually (not ideally) spend in each category, each month. Give yourself a little extra to make sure you stay under it.

When you have your budget created, look and see if the total of your projected spending is less than your total income for the month. Chances are that if you didn’t change much from your pre-budget days, your projected spending will be at or above your projected income. That’s okay. This is all normal in the process of learning to live on less than you make. The way to lower your budget and live on less than you make is to focus on one spending category at a time and examine whether or not you can lower it or cut it all together. Things like cable TV, Netflix, eating out and shopping are categories that can be cut big time if you decide you really want to live on less than you make. After a lot of examining and attempting to cut your lifestyle using your budget, you will make progress and will be living below your means in no time at all. It took me a couple months to do. Remember, you have to really want it bad, too.

 3. Set Financial Goals and Keep Focused – Once you have figured out how to live on less than you make, the only thing left is to stick to it. This can be extremely hard to do. The reason I’ve been able to do it is because I set financial goals for myself for the future and try to keep focused on them. I think both short term and long term. My short term goals are those where I set a target savings account balance by a specific date. An example of when I set a short term financial goal like this was when I saved for my emergency fund right after I became debt free. I paid off my last debt at the end of December and after some simple forecasting of my income over the next few months and adding in my current bank account balance at the time, I set a goal of May 1st of that year (2011) to have my emergency fund fully funded. I made that goal. It was super exciting!

I’ve set a lot of these small goals to keep me going toward something. I don’t always hit them on target, but I do hit them either a little early or a little late. Currently, I have one of these goals set for September 1st of this year and another, more longer term goal set for my 30th birthday, which is almost 2 years away. This way, I stay focused on living on less than I make.

Good luck to all of you on learning to live on less than you make and winning!

Well, I’m a different person than I was 5 years ago too. I’ve learned a lot about business, about myself, about interacting with others and about life. From my career, the five things I’ve learned that really stick out are these:

1. Just say yes – I think it’s typical when starting out in your career to be shy and unsure of yourself. At the company I work for, it usually takes people 3 months before they are productive. It takes another 6-9 months before they are able to contribute at a level that’s even remotely close to their potential. It just takes a long time to learn it, to build confidence and to be given big opportunities. In making it far professionally, you need to learn to break out of that shy and self conscious mindset where “I don’t know” or “maybe” get used a lot and instead say “yes” with confidence, even if it’s false confidence. Saying yes to opportunities even if they look scary and potentially horrifying is key to being successful in your career.

2. Confidence in yourself is king – To be successful at anything, you have to believe in yourself. I remember when I was just starting out after college, I was very unsure of what I could or couldn’t do and I was a little afraid to try almost all of it. After 5 years of “just saying yes”, my confidence grew exponentially. There are few things that I don’t believe I can do now. The only problem with some of them is the amount of time and energy it will take. I have realized that I only have limited time and energy and, although I believe I CAN do almost anything, I’m realistic about what makes sense to attempt to do and what doesn’t. Confidence, overall, is a big deal and one of the key factors to being successful. You’ll need it to decide to do greats things and to have the fight to push them through to successful completion.

3. Other people’s confidence in you is very important too – Just like confidence in yourself is important, other people’s confidence in you is key as well. In any type of organization, you could have all the confidence in the world in yourself, but when opportunities arise and your leaders/co-workers/clients don’t believe or have confidence in you, you’re in big trouble. You’ll miss opportunities for further success and/or advancement. It will limit your ability to make a difference in a big way. To get and sustain other people’s confidence, you will need to follow the steps above (say yes and have confidence in yourself) as well as have a history of doing well with the projects/opportunities that have been given to you in the past. Being a nice person who’s easy to get along with and respectful of those who you deal with doesn’t hurt either.

4. Always do the right thing – This one is extremely important. In college, it’s very annoying how much instructors ramble on about ethics, almost to the point where you think they’re nuts. The real world actually has those ethics issues quite often. They are usually small and easy to get away with. Sometimes they happen with clients, sometimes with co-workers and even sometimes with management. To have confidence in yourself and from others, doing the right thing always, is very important. My strategy, after 5 years of learning and fine tuning it, is that I’m going to do what’s right, all the time. I’m not cutting corners for short term wins. I actually believe that short term wins, if done in a sleazy way, will almost always come back to bite you in the butt later. Speaking from experience, when I’ve chosen to do the right thing over short term wins, I’ve always come out ahead in the end. Whether it’s just having earned people’s confidence or respect (I mentioned how important that is above), or my confidence/respect in myself (this too), it’s turned out to have been a good idea. Take it from me, doing the right thing is better in every case. Don’t get in the opposite mindset. It will get you on the wrong path. The path to being an idiot.

5. Always think strategically about the future – This is probably the most important thing I’ve learned. I haven’t learned it at work though. I’ve learned it personally, while living as a young professional, working like crazy to get ahead and living as an adult for the past years. I’ve developed quite a bit as a person these past 5 years and a lot of it was because of this. I learned to think strategically about the future.

I had this class back in college called Business Strategy. I’m so glad I took that class because I learned how important strategy is. I learned that business, just for the sake of business, is lame and without purpose. That same point can make sense when talking about life too. It would read, “life, just for the sake of life, is lame and without a purpose”. What we need in our life is a sense of purpose and a strategy for living our lives. I won’t in any way claim that I have things all figured out. I don’t. But I do have a strategy for what I want to do and where I want to go professionally. It looks a bit like this:

• Learn everything I can about business – How to sell, how to launch new products, how to develop and execute on a marketing plan, how to organize a business, how to lead, how to make a profit, how to positively impact others, how to be strategic in business.
• Keep saving money for the future – The way I see it, the more money I have saved, the better position I’m in professionally. With a cushion of security in the bank, I’m ready to take on opportunities if/when they arise. I’m also not stuck anywhere, at any time. I can keep my eye open for success when it comes by.
• Go into business for myself someday – Someday, I want to go into business for myself. I don’t want to do this to become rich (although I obviously don’t dislike money). I want to do it to focus on things that I care about and to make a difference. I work best when I’m able to make decisions and execute on them. Oftentimes, I’m executing on other people’s decisions as an employee and, although that has worked fine and dandy over the past 5 years and will continue to work well for me up until the day I go into business for myself, I don’t want to be an employee for the rest of my career. It’s just not where my passion lies. My passion is in starting something of my own, that I’m completely excited about and where the goal is not to get rich, but to make a difference. It’s about enriching the lives of those I will be dealing with. I’m excited to have that strategy identified and be well on my way to making it happen someday.

That’s just my first 5 years. I wonder what my next 5 years will teach me. I bet the lessons will be twice as powerful. If this blog is still around in 5 years, which I hope it is, I’ll do a post on my top 5 between now and then, at that point. For those of you who have some significant experience post college as well, what have you learned so far? Is there anything that you’d like to share that I didn’t touch on?

Life is all about balance. Sure, you could be selfless and spend every minute of free time you have and every left over dollar in your bank account to help those you care about. You could also save every penny and spend all of your spare time focusing on your hobbies and interests. Both extremes sound quite miserable to me. What do you think? So how do you find that balance? Well, first of all, you need to figure out what your goals and priorities are:

What Do You Value?

To find out how to balance your time and resources between all the possible options available, you need to do some soul searching to figure out (if you haven’t already) what’s important to you. It’s easiest just to write out everything you can think of. Here’s what’s important to me:

• My family
• My friends
• My faith
• My health
• The way I feel about myself
• Financial security
• Having a family someday
• Achieving success
• Being able to help, positively influence and give to others I care about
• Making the world a better place

How Well Does Your Life Align with Your Values?

After making this list, take a look back through it and see how the list measures up against what you normally spend your time and money on. Does it seem in balance? Well, let’s take a look at how mine measures up against this past month:

• My family – I’ve been calling my mom a lot lately as she’s going through a major transition. She seems to be making serious progress and I’ve been praying that she can have the strength to keep it up. I even went to visit her this past weekend, working with her outside in her yard and spending Mother’s Day with her and my grandma. I spent last Friday night with my brother as well and caught up on what’s been happening with him. He was with on Mother’s Day, too. Since I haven’t been going to see my family too often, but have still managed to still see them pretty regularly (if that makes sense) I think I have good balance in this area. I do worry more than I probably should though about my family (especially my mom).
• My friends – I visited an old friend this past weekend as well. It was nice to catch up and all we did was went out for pizza and chilled at his house. Around here, I’ve been trying to get out and say yes a lot more often to friends’ requests to go grab a drink or some food. The trade off here is that doing all of this takes a lot of money so it does pull away from my financial goals slightly.
• My faith – I’ve been going to church pretty regularly on Sundays for years now so that’s good for this area. Other than that, I don’t do a lot to advance in this area of my life. I feel that with this being so important to me, I need to spend more time and money in this area to achieve a better balance.
• My health – I just got done running a 7:25 mile this evening, which is the best I’ve done since high school (I think). I have been trying to run semi often and I would give myself a B- in this area. I know I can do better and I REALLY want to get rid of my belly. So I think this is a balance problem as well. I need to spend more resources on this, which includes buying some new running shoes. This is what’s frustrating: I can spend $100 at the bars over a month, but I can’t spend $100 on new running shoes to get myself in shape. That’s a shame and it makes me feel lame. Fail.
• The way I feel about myself – This is very important to me. Over the years, I’ve learned that for me, happiness and low anxiety levels are directly related to how I feel about myself. Since I’ve been positively changing myself over the past year or two, I have been consistently feeling better about myself. Exercising makes me feel better. Having an emergency fund makes me feel better. Spending time with and helping my family also makes me feel better because I feel like I’m giving and not being selfish.
• Financial security – I’ve been saving like crazy over the past couple years, but over the past month or two, I’ve loosened up a bit. I think that’s a good move for my balance, because not spending money on anything (at the expense of other things I value in this list) is not good. I’ve been overboard and I’m adjusting that a little.
• Having a family someday – I’m trying. That’s all I can say. I’m not going nuts by being desperate for a companion, but I am continuing to work on myself to be prepared for when the time is right. I think my balance is good here.
• Achieving success – I started this blog with the intent of having it be a pathway into achieving my next level of success. I have been successful over the past few years. I’ve made a good living, accomplished some awesome things and have learned a ton. Having an entrepreneurial spirit at heart, I’m always looking to prepare myself for what ever opportunities come at me in the future. I see potential with this blog (and I am going to roll out a second site soon, too) and I get excited about turning it into much more than it is today. My goal of achieving success is going beyond what I’ve done these past few years with my job and to be in business for myself someday where I can do what I am passionate about and make money doing it. Most people would say my balance is good on this today, but I’m actually very frustrated that I’m not able to spend more time on this area. Sure, I spend a ton of time at work (my job), but I don’t get to spend enough time building this blog. I want to make more time for it and hope to soon.
• Being able to help, positively influence and give to others I care about – This can only really be measured by others. I think I’m doing okay at this. I do hear feedback quite often which says I am influencing others and making an impact. I don’t feel like I give enough though. I think I could use more balance there.
• Making the world a better place – Yeah, I’m not doing much here besides just being me. I do have my blog though, which I actually think makes a small contribution to that. I like what this blog is and my next blog is going to be just as great. In the future, as I achieve more, I think I can dedicate more time and money on this. All in all, I’d love to be able to tie in what I do every day (professionally and personally) to making the world a better place. I believe that life is too short to be working your whole life away on things that you don’t feel make the world a better place. Don’t you think?

Go ahead, write down what YOU care about and assess that list against what’s actually happening. Is it in balance or does your life (or values) need some serious readjusting? The things I left out above are the things I do that don’t reflect my values. I’m not gonna get into all that, but those are the areas I need to pull time and money from in my life and give to the things I value above. That’s when you achieve balance. Like I’m trying to do, I encourage you to not settle for doing what you don’t care about or value and get your life in balance. Do what you care about! Life is too short not to.

1. You stop digging a deeper hole – By default, when you start living below your means, you stop digging yourself a deeper hole. When you spend less than you make, you stop the bleeding on a disastrous financial situation. Many people, without even realizing it, are digging themselves a large hole financially that can take years, decades, or even an entire life to dig out of. When you live below your means, you set yourself up to put a stop to any further damage.

2. You get yourself out of debt – Getting yourself out of debt is fun. It’s stressful being in debt. I know because I was in $25,000 of debt just a few years ago after I bought an expensive car right out of college. I still had student loans to pay as well. My first year out of college, I spent everything I made and got myself into the car mess. Once I woke up and started cutting my spending, I was able to pull myself out of that mess of debt. It’s all about cutting your spending and living below your means. That has to come first.

3. You don’t have to borrow money anymore – Borrowing money, by definition, is living above your means. If you’re borrowing money, you’re buying something that you don’t have the money for. It’s pretty simple. Therefore, if you’re living below your means, that means you are not borrowing money. When you keep this up for a while, you’ll have money. When you have money, you won’t have to borrow it from other people (and pay interest) anymore. That’s pretty darn fun if you ask me.

4. You have more money than all of your neighbors – I live in a run-of-the-mill apartment building. Sure, it’s fairly nice and I’ve got plenty of room, a private balcony, a dishwasher and a heated underground garage. But it’s not as nice and/or hip as the places many of my colleagues live. You know what’s neat? I’m probably one of the most financially secure tenants in this apartment complex. It feels kind of good knowing that, too. I’ve heard it said before that it’s better to be the richest person on your block than it is to be the poorest. If you’re trying to keep up with the Jones’, that will likely cause you to go broke. If others are trying to keep up with you, that won’t affect your finances at all. Now that’s fun too.

5. You can set all your bills up on auto-pay – I know people who could only dream of setting up all their bills on auto-pay. Why? Because they are barely squeezing by and doing so would either put them under serious stress or cause them to overdraft their bank account regularly. When you’re living below your means, you can keep a comfortable amount of cash in your account at all times and never have to worry about over drafting your bank account. It hasn’t happened to me once and I’ve had all my bills on auto-pay for several years now. In fact, I don’t think my bank account has even been within $700 of being over-drafted since I set everything up automatically. Doing this allows me to have fun and not have to worry about my bills.

6. Life is less scary – Imagine this. Your car is getting up there in miles. What if something happens to it on your next trip out of town? What if the engine blows up or the transmission goes out? Are you prepared for that? What if your mechanic tells you it’s time for new tires during your next oil change. What if your computer crashes and can’t be repaired? What if you drop your new iPhone 4S in the toilet and you turned down phone insurance? You may have to dish out hundreds or thousands of dollars very unexpectedly as soon as next month, next week or even tomorrow. Ouch. Well, it’s not scary when you live below your means because you have the money to handle it. You have an emergency fund. So go ahead, get out and have fun.

7. You aren’t scared of losing your job – Here’s a scary thought for almost everyone. You walk in to work tomorrow and find out that your department will be cut or outsourced. Or perhaps you have been struggling for a while to find passion in your work and they have noticed your lack of focus and will be letting you go to search for someone who better fits the position. Whatever the reason, your relationship with your employer is likely at-will, which means, they can let you go whenever and however they please (with the exception of a protected reason). This can be scary when you are living paycheck to paycheck. It puts you into panic mode. It can result in taking the crappiest of crappy jobs as soon as you can just so you can keep the lights on and food on your table. With an emergency fund, which comes from living below your means, you’ll have the funds to weather the storm of being let go from work. Sure it will be inconvenient because you’ll have to job search and learn something completely new, but it won’t put you into panic mode. You will have comfort in knowing you are ready for something like that if or when it happens. Maybe instead of jumping on the first crappy job you find, you can finally get the chance to pursue your passion and start your own business? That can only happen when you have been living below your means.

8. You can have fun that’s paid for – The next vacation I go on will be paid for before I go. The fun that you get to treat yourself to when you have been living below your means is paid for in cash. The money for your fun doesn’t get borrowed from someone else. It’s fun that’s deserved and earned. Fun that’s borrowed for isn’t earned. It just doesn’t feel as good either, knowing that you’ll have to work in the future to pay for it. Yuck. Paid for fun is much more fun!

9. You see a lot more opportunities – I just bought a domain name this morning for a second site that I plan to create. It’s going to be every bit as good as this one but more broadly focused on things outside of money. I see a ton of opportunity for what I can do with these sites in the future. I’ve been seeing a lot of opportunity in general lately in regard to almost everything. I love the idea of building a business from scratch. I love the idea of learning how to start making money on my own. I love the idea of going to the Financial Blogger Conference in September. There, I’ll have an opportunity to meet many of the people I’ve been getting to know over the past 5 months. I can’t even foresee all the opportunity that will be available to me at that conference. It’s exciting. I didn’t really see these opportunities back when my life was focused on spending everything I made, showing off my material goods and living large. It was about the goods back then and not about the future possibilities and opportunities. Now, it’s different because I live below my means.

10. You can take more risks – Even though I’m not taking many risks right now, I know I could if I wanted to and that’s fun. I live far enough below my means that I could actually hire someone full time to work for me, on anything I would want done and cash flow it every month. That’s kind of exciting, but I haven’t figured out how that would possibly be a good idea, yet. Maybe once this blog and potentially my next one get off the ground, I can hire someone to help take it to the next level. I am in a position to do all sorts of crazy things since I have that cash flow surplus as well as a healthy bank account from living below my means for just a few years now. No, I won’t take stupid risks, but I may take smart, calculated risks. I want to win and being able to take risks when the opportunity is there for success is crucial.

Cheers to living below your means. It’s fun. Trust me!

 The Typical Personal Finance Mindset

A personal finance mindset is really a life mindset. Your finances really govern your entire life as an adult. If you’re broke, you really have little choice as to where you live or work. You also have few options on how and where to spend your free time. This lack of choices and options affect your family too and your ability to enjoy time together and experience new things. The typical personal finance mindset is that you need to get a job. As long as you get yourself a job and show up to work everyday, you “get to” pay rent or a mortgage, keep the lights on and put food on the table. Better yet, if you put your head down and keep bringing in that paycheck and paying your bills every month, you eventually “get to” retire when you turn 65 or so. At that time, the government will give you a social security check each month to allow you to keep your house and food in your bellies.

In a nutshell, the typical personal finance mindset is that you go to work for a crumby job from age 22 to age 65 (33 years at least) just so you can retire when the social security checks start coming in. Whether you realize it or not, you don’t have many options under this mindset as to how you spend your 33 years of working, or more importantly, your retirement years after that. This mindset sounds kind of lame to me. I’m only 28, but living this way, depending on someone else for my shelter/food/ability to enjoy my life, isn’t how I want to live the rest of my life.

 The Better Personal Finance Mindset

I started learning about a better way to live my life when I got into all this personal finance stuff a couple years ago. This different mindset says. “You don’t have to hate your job. It also says, “Who cares what other people think your worth.” This better personal finance mindset is about:

• Finding your passion
• Getting motivated
• Getting out there and executing on it

Finding Your Passion

You’re probably not passionate about your factory job or your corporate cubicle position. You probably don’t get that excited to be told what to do each day either (although some people like this). You may think you’re worth more that your company is paying you. You may just be passive aggressive about everything related to your job. This is all okay (for now) if you’re experiencing it. Yes, you need to keep that paycheck coming in. But after work, when you’re usually watching TV, think about what you really care about. Think about your dream job, career or business that you want to run someday. Define out what you want your future to look like.

Getting Motivated

It’s usually fairly easy to come up with a dream job, career path or business idea. It’s usually harder to get the motivation to start working towards actually making it happen. After all, you’re working full time and/or running a household. If you can just carve out a few hours each week to work on something toward your future, it will make a difference. For me, it’s learning about business (which I do at work), it’s blogging (which I do mainly on weekends) and it’s about my personal finance and saving for the future (which I do every day). I can’t say I’m the most motivated personal in the world, or even on this block, but I have some motivation that I keep my engine running on.

Getting Out There and Executing On It

Since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to run my own business someday. Although I haven’t been the best executor on this yet, I have been able to leverage my career so far working as an employee to learn about how business works. I thought I was smart enough to run a business when I graduated college. That makes me laugh today, knowing how much I’ve learned during the past 5 years at work, helping our company grow and thrive through these tough economic times. In the personal finance side of things, I’ve really learned a lot these past few years and have kicked it in gear, getting myself out of $25,000 in debt and saving  life crazy since. As for my blog, I’ve been doing my best to keep that moving forward as well. In all areas, I’ve learned a lot and prepared myself immensely for my future goals.

So what is this better mindset? It’s about thinking outside of the box and chasing your dreams. If your doing what you love to do, the word “retirement” might not even exist in your life when you get older. It’s simply what you love to do and you wouldn’t have it any other way. The better personal finance mindset is about breaking free from having other people choose how you live your life, where you live, how you live, what you spend your time on and who you spend it with. There is a better way to live your life everyone. I may not be there yet, but I’m working towards it. It’s my goal. Is it yours?

1. You don’t get to have all the latest gadgets like everyone else does – This is the obvious thing about living below your means that everyone dreads when thinking about living this way. Of course, if you lower your spending, that means you don’t get the latest and greatest iPads, iPhones, 3d TV’s, cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycles and clothes. In an age where all of your friends have all of the new, expensive gadgets, it’s pretty darn hard to be the one who looks like he’s on welfare. Living this way may attract questions like, “What, you don’t have an iPad?” or comments like, “You should really buy a DSLR camera since you like photography so much!” It’s hard to handle those comments in a time where what you have and how you look are closely observed by, well, everyone you come into contact with.

Plain and simple. If you’re going to live below your means, you’ll always look poorer than you actually are. As Dave Ramsey says, when people are making fun of you, you know you’re on the right track. Thankfully, people aren’t making fun of me because I have a nice car (which I regretfully bought before I became financially smart) and an iPhone (which my work pays for). If I were to have nothing now and needed a car and a cell phone, I’d buy a $3-7,000 car and use my 5 year old cell phone. Then, I think I’d get made fun of a little more.

2. When you actually decide to go on vacation, good luck finding someone else who can afford it – This had been a major issue lately. My last vacation (excluding work trips), was two years ago this month when my friend Matt and I went to the Pacific Northwest. This was really the end of my previous financial life of not living below my means. After that vacation, I tightened my belt like a mad man and started living below my means. You can read about that here. Well, two years is a long time and I’m antsy to take another vacation. Do you know what my problem is? I can’t find anyone to go on vacation with me who can pay their own way. Perhaps it’s too much for me to expect to only have to pay for myself, but I feel like that’s pretty standard practice for people at this age. When two or more adults (who aren’t married or in a serious relationship) go on a vacation together, they usually pay their own way, right? Unfortunately, most/all of my friends that I’d want to travel with don’t have the disposable income right now to take a trip somewhere. Bummer for me, huh? My options right now are either to wait until they do have the money or pay for their entire trip in addition to mine. Hmm…. That is a tough one to swallow.

3. Your life looks boring to other people and therefore, you probably look boring – I’m pretty sure my life looks VERY boring to a lot of people I know. Why? Because I live in a run-of-the-mill apartment in a run-of-the-mill neighborhood. They live in cool neighborhoods in the city while I’m in the boring suburbs. The people I know go out a lot more than me. They are always going out to the nice restaurants, enjoying the finest cuisine in the Twin Cities. I’m eating frozen pizzas and leftovers in my apartment. My friends and co-workers take 2-3 trips every year it seems like, going to: Mexico, New York City, San Diego and Las Vegas while I’m hanging out in the suburb over the weekend or working during the week. I lost track of my vacation days (I think I have 2-3 weeks built up) a couple of years ago when I started living below my means because I basically stopped using them. I barely ever take a day off from work. How lame.

So, in a nutshell, I eat at home a lot, I don’t buy any new cool things, I go out to the boring bars for happy hour and two-for-one specials, I live in a boring apartment in a lame neighborhood and I never leave the state (except for work). Yeah, I’m pretty sure that looks boring to everyone else. It’s a definite downside of living below my means.

4. No one wants to hear about how much money you have or save each month – This one I struggle with a lot. Usually, when I do something I’m proud of, I can’t wait to go tell everyone else about it. It’s fun to hear “great job” and “way to go”. It’s usually what keeps me going and striving toward accomplishment. Positive reinforcement from people you know and care about is a great thing! Well, as soon as you start bragging about something like how much saving you are doing and how much money you have, people stop giving you positive reinforcement. Instead, they give you a fake congratulations when on the inside saying to themselves, “Wow, I don’t want to hear another word about how much money you have”. I don’t remember if I ever even figured that out the way I just described. I just felt it right away that no one wants to hear about how much money I have. So, what’s the big deal? Well, that means that after working so hard to cut my lifestyle and save money, I don’t get to brag about it to anyone.

If you buy a new car, you can go drive your friends around in it. It makes you feel great. When you buy a new iPhone, you can play Words with Friends or Draw Something or even Face Time with them. When you buy a new TV, you can have your friends over for the big game. But if you put that money in the bank instead of spending it on something ridiculous and start living below your means, you can’t say a dang word to anyone about it, or they’ll resent you for it. What a shame. It sucks and yes I’m complaining right now. If I can’t say anything to people about it, then I won’t get any positive reinforcement like we all yearn to hear once in a while.

5. There’s no guarantee that you’ll ever get to enjoy the fruits of your labor – Right now, I’m able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I’m in my late twenties, in pretty good physical shape and have a flexible job. If I decided to go travel 1 month every year or buy a brand new car or treat my friends to a vacation, I could do it and I would enjoy every minute of it. Instead, I’m putting all of my money away for a later date with the intention of being able to enjoy it at a later date. Maybe the enjoyment is just having financial security or flexibility. Maybe that enjoyment will be in a house I will buy from it someday. Maybe it will be saved all the way until retirement, when I will then enjoy it or spend it on my traveling then.

That’s a big maybe. Maybe, I’ll enjoy the fruits of my labor today someday from living below my means. It’s not a sure thing. My dad, 4 uncles and one of my grandpa’s, all died very young. My mom has been struggling for the past year pretty intensely (I hope she recovers very soon). You just never know what will happen to you in the future. There are too many people I hear about who work all their lives and save everything for the future, only to up and have a stroke, die or lose everything out of the blue. Yes, that’s a negative view, but one that could happen. Putting everything away for the future is a risk. Living in the future completely can have its downsides. Of course, living for the present can definitely have its downsides too. I’m not saying I’m going to stop saving money and go enjoy it all today, but I am expressing my frustration about the unknowns of the future. I do want to enjoy what I’ve worked for. Taking all of your potential fun and just stockpiling it for “some day” is a risk. A risk that you may never get to enjoy it.

*Note: The links before are to articles written by other personal finance bloggers on their own blogs. They do not necessarily reflect my views or the views of this blog, Young, Cheap Living. Their presence on this post is NOT an endorsement of their views, their article or their blog by me or by Young, Cheap Living.

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Jackie @ MoneyCrush writes Why “Invest in What You Know” is Bad Advice – When you’re just dipping your toes into the world of investing, a common suggestion is to “invest in what you know”. But that doesn’t make it good advice. In fact, invest in what you know is actually bad advice. Here’s why.

KT @ Personal Finance Journey writes Some Smart Ways to Use an Unexpected Windfall – As a child, you may have played the game of LIFE and enjoyed those moments you get an unexpected windfall. The same can happen in real life. A few years ago, many Americans got an unexpected windfall when President Bush offered a tax rebate to a majority of U.S. citizens.

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Ken Faulkenberry @ AAAMP Blog writes What is a Mutual Fund Expense Ratio and How Does it Affect Performance? – The mutual fund expense ratio lowers mutual fund performance enough that investors should consider the benefits of investing in stocks and ETFs, but NOT mutual funds.

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J.P. @ Novel Investor writes Book Review: Millionaire Teacher – Financial education is a big key to successful investing and the Millionaire Teacher is a great place for novice investors to start on that journey.

Without getting into the details, as they are quite personal, let’s just say that my family situation is in very rough shape. I refuse to use the “victim” card as I don’t believe I am a victim. What I am is someone who’s been (and continues to be) tested. Whether you believe it’s God, another higher power or just mother nature, it’s pretty obvious that we all are tested from time to time in our lives. Sometimes, it can get pretty rough. How the heck do/can/should we handle it? Well, I’m just a regular person (not a Dr. or an expert) that has gone through some crazy stuff and for what it’s worth, here’s my strategy for handling this stuff:

Protect Your Health First and Foremost

Especially when dealing with someone with a mental illness, you need to protect your health first and foremost. Being around too much “illness” literally can drive you nuts. If you can’t handle craziness and that’s what going on, keep your distance to make sure you stay healthy. The obvious problem that comes to mind with this is:

Guilt – It’s a difficult balance. You want to do all you can for your family and friends when they are hurting or ill, but remember that you have a responsibility to protect yourself and those who depend on you first and foremost. Risking everything you have and your health for someone else seems like a great idea and the “right” thing to do, but if it destroys you in the process and doesn’t help the other person, is it worth it? It’s not worth destroying yourself, especially when you don’t know if you can do anything to fix their problems. Do always try to do your best and care for your loved ones, but make sure to balance this against your own needs.

Go On the Offensive with Your Life and Health

If family, friends or just life in general is attempting to drive you nuts (like it has for me), get on the offensive side of your own health. This means do positive things to help secure your health and sanity. A few things I’ve done over the past year that have really helped hedge the weight that has been put on me are:

• Putting an end to smoking after many years of it
• Getting started with running (I run more now than I ever have)
• Securing my emergency fund and saving money like crazy
• Making more money and climbing the ladder of professional success
• Learning more and planning for a more successful future

Yes, life will bring you down. It will attempt to rob you of your health. It will even try to drive you nuts. That’s why you need to get serious about your health and counteracting it’s negative pull with a positive push. Push back on life’s negativity when it shows up. It’s been working for me so far.

Learn the Lessons That Life is Teaching You

In hard times, there are always lessons to be learned. Whether they are what to do, what not to do or how to handle things next time, it’s crucial that you learn the lessons that each difficult time can teach you. One of the lessons I’ve learned and continue to learn is that I’m a lot stronger than I would have ever thought. I’ve handled some crazy crap in my life and I’m only 28. While many people my age out there are getting jobs or taking over a company from their dad’s, I’m 11 years into adulthood without a dad altogether. While most of my friends and co-workers go home for Christmas and Easter to see their parents, I don’t even have a place to go to be with parents as long as my mom is in this condition (thankfully I do have great siblings though).

I’m basically on my own. No, I’M NOT a victim that got the short end of the stick. I actually AM someone who has been very fortunate. What I have had though and continue to have are some very testing times. The things about it all that make me unique and in many cases quite lucky are all the lessons I have learned. Who learns more lessons? The business owner or senior manager who had the company or position handed to him by his dad or his dad’s buddies, or the young adult without a dad who figured out how to get the job done on his own. In my opinion, the person who gets the raw deal in many cases gets the best deal if he/she learns the lessons to be learned. Learning important things at such a young age can bring some seriously awesome things much earlier in life.

Instead of complaining about how crappy of a deal I got and have right now, I’m going to instead end this post by bragging about how much I learned so far in life, how much I know and how strong of a person I am today. No-One and No-Thing are going to destroy me or keep me from having hope in the future. I will persevere. And if you want to know where I get that drive/attitude/hope, it’s from the Lord.