The holiday season weighs heavily on our bank accounts. It seems there are two camps at this time of the year, those that spend to much and those that wish they could spend more. Both camps carry a common guilt.
For those that overindulged on spending during the holidays, the traditional holiday hangover will arrive in January. The post office will deliver the pain in the form of credit card statements or damage done to bank accounts with debit cards.
But this year I'm giving you a very special magical gift. The ability to be instantly debt-free with a total financial stress elimination as a bonus.
Now in the honor of all good magic, this gift is based on simple misdirection. Magic is not real but neither is being debt-free. It is a state of mind and not a reality.
People chase the illusion of being debt-free as if it is some goal that will change their lives forever. Yet the reality is, no matter how hard you try, you can never truly be debt-free.
While we can eliminate the balances due on our credit cards, we can never eliminate all the debt in our lives. Life is full of debt. Be it the debt of time to our employers, lifelong financial debt, like insurance and taxes, or the desire to invest more in our retirement accounts; we all owe something to someone.
The greatest gift you can give yourself is to understand and finally realize, you will never be really financially debt-free. The stress of debt you feel is an emotional toll you pay for nearly no good reason.
There are a host of financial gurus that want to sell you the notion that somehow being debt-free is going to fundamentally change your world. The convincing comes in the form of books they want you buy or other ways to collect your money to hear the snake oil of being debt-free is is the magic key to make you happy and peaceful. Yet it is a law of the universe that you can never be out of debt of some kind.
The truth is you can achieve those goals today, not years from now, by realizing that debt comes in many forms, not just on bank statements. The goal in life is to find a balance between who you owe and what you make.
When you go deep into financial debt you are simply pledging you will have to work a certain number of future hours to make enough money to pay that back. You are paying for financial obligations with future time. That becomes time you have to take from other things, like time with family or doing what you want.
If you want to feel less indebted to people, the answer is not to just lessen the balances on your loans and credit cards. It is actually to shed high priced homes with big tax bills, buy economy cars, have good health insurance, and never eat out. However, that's just not the way people live. It is important to find the balance. Being a frugalvista is no more healthy that being a shopaholic.
So here is some truth you are not going to hear someplace else, it is perfectly okay to have some debt. Use that debt to enjoy the heck out of life. Embrace the cost and get great continued joy from that cost.
Life is a one-way journey. We will all die and at the moment of passing nobody ever utters, "at least I didn't have a balance due."
We will all have a balance due of some kind till our last breath.
This holiday season, give yourself the gift of coming to peace with those realities and stop waiting for some magical moment to feel that joy.
And as a special gift, feel free to download my book, "The Path to Happiness and Wealth." It will help you on your journey.
Happy Holidays!
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