2023-The Year of Fixing Our Finances
There are few things I have wanted more than to look out across rolling hills peppered with garden beds, native grasslands, and wagging tails and know I am home.
In Summer 2026 (or sooner if the right property comes up) we want to purchase the land for our forever homestead. The most daunting part of this is of course…finances. It is also one of the most stressful parts for me. Whenever talking about money, debt, savings or any of that it creates such a strong anxiety in me that I literally want to ignore the topic. Because of this flight response, when it come to finances I haven’t always made the best descions and it has affected my credit. Additionaly, finances are a stressor for my partner, Scott. While our income is fairly decent, roughly 100,000 before taxes, we often ourselves living paycheck to paycheck. When unexpected costs come up we become panicked to say the least.
We loosely know what we need to do: pay down debt, pay things on time, save…a lot. We don’t know everything though, and we want to learn more about finances, especially around purchasing and running an acreage. So along with those previously mentioned action steps we need to find experts that we can learn from. Again, this makes me feel like I am having a heart attack and want to climb in a hole and hide until it has passed. Why? Welp, lord forbid I not be an expert in everything and need assistance.
As you can imagine, the biggest barrier to fixing our finances is 100% emotional. The stigma around struggling with money is strong, and historically I have not faced it head on. Closing my eyes and hoping things just work themselves out won’t get us to our goal. In preparation for our year of fixing our finances I took a deep dive into where we are with all things related to our funds: debt, bills, income, savings, irregular expenses. Afraid I would miss something I even purchased an annual budget template from Etsy.
I then spent a couple hours going through every account and writing down all the money we owe, all of our expenses, our income and plugged it in to the budget template. I even combed through my bank account to see everything that came out in the last few months. This was painful to do, but valuable time spent. There were 3 or 4 recurring payments that I thought I canceled or forgot I signed up for. For subscriptions I didn’t want, I took the extra step to cancel them. Now I know where we stand.
How our debt breaks down:
$100,000 owed on the house
$60,000 in federal student loans
$5000 in private student loans
$15,000 in a car loan
$10,000 in miscellaneous other debts (credit cards, orthodonist, phones etc)
Even typing all that out I am overwhelmed with guilt and shame about those numbers. I deeply want to delete this post, and not share what feels like a personal failing. However, I need to overcome these feelings to make progress. Our goal this year is to clear out the $10,000 in miscellaneous debt, and knock out as much of the private student loan as I can. We will do this several ways:
Restrict our “fun” spending
Paying extra towards our lowest bills then rolling those payments into the next ones (aka the debt snowball)
Building new income streams to help pay those debts down even further
I want to better my relationship with money well beyond obtaining the acreage. To get there, this year I will also be focusing on managing my emotional response to money and deepening my understanding and knowledge about finances. To accomplish this, I will be doing three things:
Reread I will Teach you to be Rich by Ramit Sethi - I read this two year ago and it gave me a lot of knowledge and confidence around finances.
Read Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love by Tori Dunlap- I have followed this creator and they dedicate a lot to overcoming the shame of debt.
Find an expert in financing an acreage/homestead.
