Money Headwinds On The Path To FI

I have been see­ing some ideas pop up on Twit­ter more than the past couple of months that have sparked an idea in my brain. Obvi­ous­ly, every­one’s jour­ney to Finan­cial Inde­pen­dence will look dif­fer­ent. But what are some of the means our paths dif­fer? Our jour­neys are dif­fer­ent due to the fact we’re all fac­ing dif­fer­ent finan­cial head­winds. Let’s look at some of the finan­cial head­winds I’ve confronted on my jour­ney so far. 

Early Times

Wayyyy back again in the old­en times (okay good the late 2000’s), ya female was in substantial faculty. I had the essentials tak­en care of for me cour­tesy of my par­ents like foods, shel­ter, some clothing, and lunch mon­ey. Every­thing else I want­ed was on my individual. A major finan­cial head­wind for me in large university was pro­vid­ing the mon­ey for my individual cell cell phone prepare — and a pay-as-you-go program at that. $60 a month does­n’t seem to be like all that substantially now, but it was a major drag for me to scrap up that kind of dough each and every thirty day period. Items got slight­ly bet­ter when I got my very first occupation at Toys R Us, but my head­winds amplified proper together with the increase in funds movement. Sud­den­ly I need­ed to have mon­ey to fork out my vehicle pay­ment ($150/mo for 18 months), insur­ance, and gas.

My class­mates did­n’t under­stand what I was heading as a result of as they were fac­ing both no head­winds at all or even a sig­nif­i­cant tail­wind, help­ing them to suc­ceed. I once had a con­ver­sa­tion with a class­mate who was com­plain­ing her lit­tle sis­ter acquired a nicer car for her 16^th birth­day than she cur­rent­ly had. I don’t remem­ber what car or truck her lit­tle sis­ter got but I dis­tinct­ly remem­ber her com­plain­ing about dri­ving a 2 12 months old Jeep. I offered to trade her cars. When she listened to I drove an old­er POS Dodge Neon that came with the afore­men­tioned car or truck pay­ment, her nose wrin­kled up and I got an “ew no way” in response. Her tone was on par with Alex­is Rose in Schit­t’s Creek. To this working day, I doubt that par­tic­u­lar class­mate has any extra empa­thy for those in dif­fer­ent finan­cial scenarios.

Over­shad­ow­ing the oth­er finan­cial head­winds in significant college was, of training course, the loom­ing moun­tain of how to pay back for faculty.

Faculty

I was incred­i­bly for­tu­nate to have all my initiatives in significant school fork out off in the form of a full-experience aca­d­e­m­ic schol­ar­ship for col­lege. With my mil­i­tary stipends com­ing in every month, the diploma to which I felt the head­winds less­ened dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Head­winds have been nonetheless there, but considerably far more man­age­able than just before. 

I was nowhere around strug­gling in col­lege like some of my close friends. They experienced to spend for their own hous­ing, foodstuff, college, textbooks, car or truck, mobile phone.…. every­thing. These are some hur­ri­cane-lev­el head­winds to over­come. Since of my expe­ri­ences in high school, I was in a bet­ter location to under­stand the dif­fer­ences involving me and my friends. I made confident to pay for activ­i­ties I sug­gest­ed like going to see a movie with a friend or cov­er­ing their drinks for a night out. 

Early Job

It is at this time in my daily life that I start­ed to tru­ly under­stand how my priv­i­leges in everyday living led to few­er head­winds for me. Even nevertheless I had few­er priv­i­leges than some peo­ple I had grown up with, I still experienced a lot going for me. I had got­ten a glimpse of it in col­lege, but this phase of everyday living real­ly drove residence the discrepancies.

I did­n’t have stu­dent financial loans. I did­n’t have fam­i­ly that need­ed sup­port­ing every single thirty day period. I did­n’t have a child to choose care of. I did­n’t have expen­sive wellbeing challenges that imped­ed my abil­i­ty to do the job and receive mon­ey. My auto was all paid off and almost never had mechan­i­cal challenges.

The deficiency of big head­winds at this phase in daily life real­ly served me get forward in life. 

Adulthood

Now, my head­winds are more like small breezes on a nice sum­mer day. I have to fork out $300 a year for glass­es or con­tacts to be ready to see. I pay $50 a month in med­ica­tions to help man­age my ADHD. I am a woman, so a lot of prod­ucts I buy charge a pink tax or are just straight up some­thing gentlemen never have to wor­ry about like fem­i­nine prod­ucts or bras. (Guys, you do not know how very good you have it!!!)

Summary

On paper, two peo­ple who get paid $100k must be able to help you save exact­ly the exact with the exact volume of money, suitable? 

Incorrect! 

A great exam­ple was pro­vid­ed by my pal Matt Lane on Twit­ter recent­ly. He earns what most peo­ple would con­sid­er to be a high salary. How­ev­er, he also has a lot of finan­cial head­winds against him at the second. He life in Wash­ing­ton, DC, a high price tag of liv­ing location. Extra like super significant if you talk to some­one who lived there for a year (psst which is me. DC is tremendous expen­sive!). Child­care for 2 chil­dren is $4,600 a month. $2,000 a month goes straight to stu­dent mortgage repay­ments. Add in $2,300 a month for a decent apart­ment and which is $106,800 before you include in oth­er neces­si­ties of daily life like foods, outfits, dia­pers, trans­porta­tion, inter­net, cell phone, and oth­er essentials. So yeah, he may generate a ton of mon­ey, but he’s also expe­ri­enc­ing critical finan­cial head­winds against that large revenue. 

So in advance of we go through a Mon­ey Diary on Refinery29 that will make us tsk our tongues and raise our eye­brows, remem­ber money is just one portion of the puz­zle and some­one could be fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant head­winds that you are not. Or, what is the equiv­a­lent of a light breeze for you could be the equiv­a­lent of the Weath­er Chan­nel reporters stand­ing on the shore in advance of a hur­ri­cane would make land­fall. I’ve been for­tu­nate in daily life to encounter favor­able winds and I only hope the identical for every­one close to me! 

As normally, thanks for read­ing! Are you fac­ing any sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial head­winds? Sound off in the com­ments below! 

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