by Hope
I am not sure where I found this image. If you do know what the “brand” is, please let me know so I can give credit.
I have decades of poor money decisions. Decision after decision after decision that led me further into debt, further away from the freedom that living within your means provides. And now, all I want is that freedom. Like it is the single driving factor in almost every decision.
I think a big part of my money mindset in addition to the “ignorance” of what I was really doing, was the desire to feel like I was enough. I wanted make sure my kids didn’t feel like the “poor kids”. It was never about name brands or acquiring stuff. It was about providing my kids with experiences and fulfilling my need to escape my life. That is where my money went.
I wish I had understood this drive then. I wish I knew of another way to fill the void that was so dominant in my life.
The resolution
While I have dabbled and made progress to becoming debt free over the last 1/2 dozen years or so. The turning point came when the holes in my life began to be filled in a healthy manner – when I began dating, when I found stable housing, and when I had more balance in my mom/adult life. I’m certainly not saying that dating was the answer to my money mindset problems. In general, it was a mental health problem versus a spending problem. Does that make sense?
I think the “guidelines” so many debt free experts are great. They give people a roadmap. But for me, those didn’t solve the problem. I had to really work on myself and my own mindset, determine what that spending was replacing or trying to fix. And no one every told me that might be a factor. I didn’t realize that was a factor. It’s just now, that I feel like I’m really getting to the other side of those bad decisions that I am able to recognize what the resolution has been for me.
Hope is a digital marketing manager and foster/adoptive single mom to five kids. She has run her own consulting company for over 15 years and took a leap of faith returning to the corporate world in 2021 to a job and team she loves! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally mastered the balance between family first and wise financial decisions.
