With age comes wisdom…or so they say. Speaking from personal experience, I can say that my wisdom is arriving in dribs and drabs. For their part, the birthdays arrive at a seemingly more frequent pace. I’ve made plenty of money mistakes, but I’ve finally learned to go beyond the letter “A”.
Blue Lobster, what the hell are you talking about?
It’s simple. I’ve finally learned to take my own advice about continuing to learn about personal finance. When I was younger, I would read a book and believe that the author’s words were the definitive way to do one particular thing. It never occurred to me that the author wasn’t a subject matter expert. After all, she or he had written a book! Who was I to doubt their greater experience? Or to even suggest that their advice/steps/insight might not be applicable to my individual circumstances?
Thankfully, the good folks behind the X-Men franchise created a villian who uttered words of wisdom that I’ve since learned to implement in my own life: “Take what we need, gentlemen.”
And later on, I came across a variation of the above: “Take what you need. Leave the rest.”
Looking back, I would’ve made fewer money mistakes if I had come across this wisdom sooner. For example, one of my biggest money mistakes was to focus on eliminating debt while ignoring the need to invest in the stock market at the earliest opportunity. I read The Total Money Makeover many years ago. I followed this book’s instructions diligently and focused extremely hard on getting myself out of debt.
What I regret is that I didn’t consider the possibility of investing my money sooner while paying off my debt slightly less agressively. My money mistake was in pursuing one path without giving adequate consideration to the other options open to me. I read this one book and I assumed that it was the optimal path for my life & my money. Then, I followed its steps without question.
In other words, I did not go beyond the letter “A”… I made the mistake of believing that the starting point represented by the letter “A” was the whole alphabet and that I didn’t need to learn anything more than what was in the pages of this single book. I was young and inexperienced, but also so very, very wrong.
Looking back now, I see that taking advice without considering my own individual goals and priorities is never the smart thing to do. There is more than one way to achieve the ultimate objective. Had I taken the time to consider the option of investing sooner while taking slightly longer to pay off my debt, then I would be in a position to retire now. One of my long-term goals has always been to retire as soon as possible instead of waiting until my 60s. By following the path set in the TTMM book, instead of considering all of my alternatives before choosing a course of action, I’ve delayed my retirement date by atleast 5 years. Ouch!
As I’ve written before, I wholeheartedly accept some of the Baby Steps as set out in TTMM, but I do not accept all of them as the one true path to financial prosperity. For those who are financially fortunate enough to do both, I would suggest investing in stock market while also paying off non-mortgage debt. The debt will eventually be gone, and you’ll be left with an investment portfolio that’s chugging along. At that point, you have the choice of investing your former debt payments in order to meet your financial goals faster. Or you can continue with the same contribution level you’d established while paying off debt and use your former debt payments in other areas of your life. In both options, you have an investment portfolio working hard for your 24/7 while you go about the business of living the life you want to live.
That said, I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did. Keep in mind that I’m not a financial expert nor am I licensed to give financial advice. Rather, I’m just an anonymous voice on the internet that enjoys talking about personal finance and sharing what I know. Consider my words and evaluate the source, then determine whether either proposed course of action gets you closer to fulfilling your life’s dreams and ambitions.
I’ve been working hard to practice taking-what-I-need-while-leaving-the-rest in my life. This new-to-me perspective requires me to broaden my horizons by considering things that I would’ve automatically disregarded. Metaphorically speaking, it’s necessary for me to go beyond the letter “A”. The first piece of knowledge is akin to the first letter of the alphabet. This is not the point at which I should simply stop learning. I need to move to letter “B” if I’m going to maximize my chances of learning how to get what I want.
For me, moving from one lesson to the next involves routinely assessing my habits. Some I’ve kept. Others I’ve discarded. I still read about personal finance every chance I get. I’ve purposefully found people who share my love of this topic. I seek out those who give me insightful feedback on my plans & ideas. No longer do I blindly accept everything that’s posited by someone else. By forcing myself to learn as much as I can, I’ve developed a nuanced approach to new ideas about how to achieve my goals. At the end of the day, I’m much better at assessing when to stick to my chosen path and when to tweak it ever so slightly. No longer do I give the opinions of others more weight than they are properly due.
Today, I ensure that I always go beyond the letter “A”. My dreams and priorities are too important to leave to chance. It’s up to me to do my very best to make them come true. Only time will tell if I’ve minimized my money mistakes. Even after decades of reading and learning about personal finance, my education is still not complete. My knowledge is hard-won, yet there’s still more to learn, more to consider.
You owe it to yourself to pursue your own life’s goals too. You are worthy of having the life you dream of, so make sure that you always go beyond the letter “A”.