Keep chipping away and you will get to your ‘why’
- B.J. Yoder: Young Money
- November 2, 2022
- 801
We’ve heard “becoming debt-free” over and over, and we, at least I, have become numb to it. What is the “why” behind this and why does everyone talk about it? I know I want to be debt-free because it equals “freedom,” but what does that freedom entail? It seemed like a pie in the sky idea until I talked to a business owner.
He was telling me about how he and his wife made it a point to become debt-free, even if it was uncomfortable at times. During this journey, his wife became annoyed with him, but they kept pressing on. By this time, he had already started his business. In the story, he told me “I don’t think my business would have survived if I wasn’t debt-free. I didn’t know what I was doing.” That was his “why.’
When asked about a “why,” everyone has a different one. There are several, one of the most famous is Dave Ramsey’s: “When you own your home, the grass just feels different under your feet.” Just the feeling of being debt-free is enough of a “why” to make your life a little uncomfortable for a while, in order to have it pay dividends in the future.
In talking to someone else, they were just sick of it — $5,000 of credit card debt was finally the breaking point for them and they sat down and cut up all their credit cards to make it real. They ended up paying them off and that breaking point was probably one of the best things possible for them.
I realized another “why” was just to have freedom over your hard-earned money. You can make a ton of money, but if it’s all being taken by debt and unneeded expenses, it seems like there is no point in putting in 50-to-100-hour weeks. I heard someone once say, “if I bring home $200,000 this year and I only net $10,000, I am going to be ticked.” Ticked off at who? The only one to be ticked off at is yourself. You made the conscious decision to acquire all this debt and buy all these other things.
I know I sound harsh in the previous sentence because there are emergencies and expenses that pop up where we have no control over, but a line must be drawn somewhere. Like the person who cut up their credit cards cold turkey, we all come to a point where we say, “I’ve had enough.” The point came to me with the house, when I realized how much money I could save if I paid off the house early. It was staggering. That was one part of my “why,” even though it is scary pouring so much money into something that is not incredibly fun — like bitcoin — or liquid. If it is not comfortable or scary, most of the time it is going to benefit you.
Figure out your own “why” first, before you even embark on a debt-free journey, because that’s what you will have to come back to repeatedly. One great quote a friend texted me the other day — thank you Otto — was “When you feel like quitting, think about why you started.” Like weight loss, like working out, it seems mundane day after day, but once a year passes and you see that you have paid off your house, credit cards, car, whatever it is, twice as fast, the “why” becomes very real. You will not feel results right away, especially if the debt is large, but keep chipping away at it.
Holmes County native BJ Yoder is an insurance agent by day and a finance enthusiast by night. This column is for informational purposes only. He can be emailed at benjamin.john.yoder@gmail.com.