Excuses Excuses

Wow, I just looked at the date of my last post and it was one month ago from today. Then, I read the content of the last post...it talked about scheduling things you want to prioritize in your life. It went on to talk about how I wanted to make this blog a priority, and that I would start physically scheduling time in my schedule to commit to it. WHOOPS! So, obviously nothing was scheduled, and this blog never made it to the top (or even upper half) of my priority list. Don't get me wrong, I was very productive. I have spent many hours working my day job and spending quality time with my family. But I must admit that I've also had my fair share of "wasted time". It's almost embarrassing to admit how many TV shows I've been sucked into and the endless web sites and blogs that I have perused...instead of working on my own blog.

I had lunch with my blogging buddy today and I walked away from our chat thinking that I probably used every excuse in the book to try to justify why I had stopped consistently blogging. Fortunately, he was pretty nice about it and didn't really rub in the fact that I was just slacking. It's funny to think of the recap of all the excuses I talked about today:

1. My day job was sucking up a lot of my time, so I didn't have any "extra" time to spend posting.


2. I had to dedicate all the rest of my free time with my family.


3. I had writer's block


4. I lost my passion for the topics on this blog


5. I couldn't think of any new and unique topics to write about


6. And the excuses just kept on rolling....

So, here I am, writing on my blog again...telling myself that the excuses have to stop. And when I started listing all of the excuses I was using to prevent me from achieving one of my current goals (i.e. consistently posting on my blog and sharing my message), it hit me that excuses directly relate to the debt free journey.

I don't know what the exact percentages are, but I'm pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of Americans are in debt. So, you can even say that it's the "norm" in our society to have debt. Thus, to begin a debt free journey and fight your way to financial freedom is crazy hard. You've got everyone/everything around you saying that it's perfectly fine to be in debt. In other words, you have a plethora of excuses at your disposal to prevent you from following through with the journey. And sadly, most people never follow through. This explains all the people at retirement age that can't retire and will need to work till they die. This explains all of the families that "need" to have both parents work full-time just to pay the bills. This explains why so many people stay at jobs they hate and feel like they have no other options. Well, just like I should get past all the excuses I've created that prevented me from following through on this blog, I hope more and more people get past all of the excuses that prevent them from following through on their debt free journey.

Here are some of the excuses I had prior to diving into my journey, I'm assuming most people have similar thoughts when thinking about being debt free and obtaining financial freedom.

1. I can't be debt free because that would ruin my great credit score. Although there might be some truth to that (I'm not entirely sure because I don't really care about credit scores anymore), you need to ask yourself why you need to have a good credit score. For most people, they want that high score to get into more debt (get a good interest rate on mortgage, car loan, etc...)....seems pretty ironic to me. I do know that the credit score is used for other things (i.e. new employers run your credit report and if you are renting/leasing a home, they'll run your credit)...but there are workarounds for those things. Bottom line, I'd much rather be debt free than have a high credit score.


2. I can't be debt free because I need to own high quality things. Although I still believe it's better to buy quality over quantity...I now know that you shouldn't do that if it requires you to go into debt. I know for me personally (who is the unhandiest man alive), I used to convince myself that I had to buy new cars because I couldn't fix them myself and it would cost me way too much to maintain them over the long haul. I also took that same mentality with houses. Of course I had to get new houses....so I didn't have to deal with all the maintenance of an older home. The concept just expanded to all of my purchases. Soon, I was surrounded with high quality items and its associated mountains of debt. Like I said before, you can have and you should want nice, quality things....just make sure you can truly afford them.


3. I can't be debt free because my family has needs. First of all, "needs" has to be delineated from "wants". I would be willing to bet that one of the main reasons why people are in debt in the first place is that they think they "need" a helluva lot more than they really do. I'm all about taking care of my family, and I now know that it's actually much easier to support your family's needs when you are debt free.


4. I can't be debt free because I can't make anymore money. This actually was a big excuse for me. I remember getting so frustrated because I thought I made very decent money but it just seemed to leave my checking account as quickly as it got there. So, if you're like me, this could be one of the biggest reasons why you haven't started your debt free journey. But what I finally realized is that you need to look at both sides of the equation when attempting to be debt free. Of course you can attempt to make more money, but probably more importantly, you need to figure out how to spend less. In fact, we have accomplished the majority of our debt free journey without making a penny more than when we started.


5. I can't be debt free because no one else seems to be able to do it. When I first started my debt free journey, most of my family, friends, and co-workers were in debt. So, this was a very real excuse I used to tell myself. It was normal to just stay in debt and everyone else was in the same boat. But I've come to realize that there are many people out there that are living debt free. I've heard from several people that have read my blog that they are living debt free (people that I had no clue would/could be). And if you don't know anyone that's done it, "find" someone. I've always found that it's beneficial to surround yourself with people that have similar goals/aspirations. This is no different. If nothing else, it's a great supporting cast to have....which you go through your journey with.

Wow, I guess when I sit down and really focus on writing for this blog, it can actually come to fruition. Anyway, no more excuses, I want to continue to share my message and related stories in hopes of inspiring/motivating others to follow their debt free journey. So, next time, it won't be a month in between my posts.