I’m a sucker for a good hack. I love the idea that there’s always an easier way to do something. I love the quote by Abraham Lincoln: “If you give me 6 hours to chop down a tree, I’ll spend the first 4 sharpening my ax.”
As a culture, we’ve fallen in love with the work smarter not harder way of thinking. And while I will continue to love the idea of a good hack, and love reading about ways in which to live better, the truth is some things are just going to be hard work.
We shouldn’t in our quest for better work/life balance and self care forget that what helps us become the best version of ourselves usually comes with a lot of work.
We are in fact, meant to strive for hard things. Those things end up being the goals and dreams that are the most worth doing.
The truth is that managing your money is hard.
Although people love to preach that you don’t have to give up your lattes, you probably don’t have enough money to spend as much as you want.
While I agree that you shouldn’t give up an afternoon trip to Starbucks if that’s an important ritual to you, it’s going to come at the expense of something else. You have to know that whenever you’re spending, it’s already been accounted for as part of the plan.
The truth is, you likely have more priorities than you realistically have money, and you will need to make some decisions so that the most essential things can fit.
And honestly, making those decisions isn’t going to come effortlessly. Creating a budget where you plan how you’d like your dollars to be spent this month and then sticking to it is hard.
If you feel frustrated with trying to make the budget work or you’ve made mistakes more times than you’d like to count, it’s time to get back to it.
Because learning how to master and manage your money is something that’s worth doing. Balancing a budget that fits the priorities of your family is worth doing.
And a budget doesn’t have to be complicated to be a budget. Simply creating a plan that accounts for all of your known obligations and then gives some light structure to how you’d like to see your spending money spent counts. But without having at least some idea of where your money should be going each month, you’ll just be guessing as to whether or not you’ll break the plan.
Budgeting using your very tight resources for your family may feel really challenging, but that doesn’t mean that working to find ways to make it work and to make your precious dollars go the furthest isn’t important.
So instead of feeling like the challenge makes something not worth doing, realize that you were meant to strive for hard things and that they’re worth doing. Then, lean into the challenge.
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