As a professional adult, I find that most days I am not qualified for this job. What I wouldn’t give to go back to being a kid. Tell me I’m not alone in this? I missed the Adulting 101 class or I slept through it, I’m not quite sure.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being an adult at times. I enjoy the challenge and constant struggle to act like I know what I’m doing. But on occasion, I miss the days when someone told me what to do. When it wasn’t all up to me to figure this life out on my own and I didn’t need to think.
When I was young, before bed my mom would set out my school clothes for the morning. No thinking involved for me – just get up, put on whatever was there and eat whatever she made me. That was the life – no responsibility, no thinking for myself, no stress!
Perhaps you miss the good old days as well. As adults, it can feel like we are on an island. As I scroll through social media, it’s like I’m the only one struggling. How is everyone’s life perfect except for mine?
Our Financial Islands
Often I find myself on a financial island. It’s up to me to figure everything out on my own because I am the adult and it’s my job. We have different islands in our lives and some of us are better than others at rowing to the mainland for help. The truth is, none of us know what we’re doing in this life! We all struggle with relationships, finances, parenting, you name it. I have yet to meet someone who has it all figured out.
With that being said, there are people in this world who have been where we are now. There are people who have already lived through what we are experiencing at any given moment. While you and I are unique people, we are not so unique that we are the only ones with difficulties!
When I find myself struggling with something, I have found that picking up a book on the subject or by reading related blog posts helps me make the most informed decision. I guarantee if you Google’d “help me with ****” someone has already written a post about how they were able to get through it.
Be Cautious Of Broke People
This is how I have been able to create 80+ articles on personal finance in a relatively short amount of time. I write mostly about my experiences and personal knowledge, but I also write about topics I research. While we may feel that we are alone on this financial journey, the truth is there are so many people who are willing to share their experiences. By seeing what worked and what didn’t work for others, we can make more informed choices.
As children, most of us knew we could trust our parents. If it wasn’t our parents, we had some figure or influential person that we trusted to take care of us. We didn’t question them because we trusted them.
As an adult, blindly trusting others can lead us down a dark path especially when it involves finances. I wrote an earlier article about my meeting with a Dave Ramsey ELP and the trust issues I experienced. The truth is, there are far too many broke people who are willing to give their personal finance advice. Avoid taking advice from people who do not have a proven track record of making sound financial choices.
Swim To The Mainland
Even with all the misinformation out there, we must continue to search for answers to our personal finance questions. The more we learn, the more we can differentiate between those who are looking to take advantage of us and those who actually know what they are talking about.
The research I do for this blog is very focused and thorough. My name is attached to each article and I take this extremely seriously. As I do an extreme vetting process before I publish any posts, I encourage you to treat your financial life the same way. Realize that get rich quick schemes are just that, schemes. Learn how to spot them and how to protect yourself.
In order to be successful with our finances, we need to connect with those who share similar mindsets. If you missed it, I wrote an article about our need for friends with financial benefits and where to look for proper financial encouragement. Networking and learning from each other is extremely important because there is no need to make the same mistake twice. If someone else has already made the mistake, let’s avoid it in our personal life.
Proven Personal Finance Strategies
I have yet to hear of anyone who has messed up their finances by creating a budget. In addition, I have yet to hear of a story of someone who went broke by saving too much money. The reality is if we stick to the basics of money management we can live intentional and financial stress-free lives. Getting back to the basics is the core of financial peace.
Each one of us should have been taught that if we don’t have the money to buy something, we don’t buy it. Yet how many of us have car loans, credit card debt, rent-a-center items and other things we could not afford at the time? We need to reset our mindset to the time when life was simple. The basics of personal finance is not a difficult topic to comprehend if we ignore the noise. Credit cards, high-interest loans, and the need for immediate gratification pull us away from the basic financial principles we learned early on.
Adulting 101 – The Financial Basics
Learn from other’s mistakes. Build a budget, don’t buy it if you don’t have the cash for it, and stop rewarding yourself with debt. Go back to your child like mindset and keep things simple. Trust the financial advice of others only when they have earned your trust. Look at their financial histories – and if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Adulting is hard, but it gets easier the more networking and learning we do. Before you blindly follow my advice, read my about me page and fact check any of my other 80+ articles. I am confident you will find that my advice is solid because it is pretty basic. I can’t go wrong by teaching what I have lived through or researched based on the basics of personal finance.
It’s time all of us went back to the basics. By doing this, we can get out of debt and start building wealth on our terms and not the terms of our credit cards. Refer to any of the following articles to start your debt free journey!
The Debt Payoff Playbook
It’s Time To Budget Like A Boss!
Simple Steps To Start Your Debt Free Life!
Keep learning and growing my friends and if you would like to learn more, please subscribe to my blog below so you don’t miss any of my posts. Thank you so much for your support and leave a comment below. You work too hard to be this broke!
-Ryan
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