Plenty of people have the desire to get out of debt, unfortunately, there are plenty of reasons why most people don’t achieve this desire and are not debt-free. In case you didn’t know what we’re all about here at His and Her Money; we want you to become financially free. Truth be told, many people want to achieve financial freedom, but only a few actually make it happen.
We have experienced it in our own lives, and we’ve interviewed countless amounts of families that made it happen in their lives. But why is it that there is such a large group of people who want to achieve financial freedom, yet such a small group who actually make it happen and achieve that goal?
The Big Difference
There is obviously a difference between these two groups of people, but what is it? We have come to find on our journey that there is one thing that separates these two groups of people: that thing is consistency.
Consistency is such a huge component of achieving financial freedom. We understand that you are not perfect. You have made mistakes, and now it’s time to undo those mistakes.
Remember though that even when you get to the point where you realize the financial mistakes that you’ve made, and even if you have gotten to the point where you actually step out and execute your plan if you do not maintain consistency in your efforts, you will still fail. Without proper consistency, you may get to a point where you are taken off track permanently, and this will present a problem with getting back on track.
We always teach about making sure that you have a budget and we say that for a reason! This is because it helps you stay consistent in your financial journey. Whether you are out of debt or you’re still in debt doesn’t matter.
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Creating a budget really doesn’t have to do with someone that is either in debt or not in debt. We are completely debt-free (including our mortgage), but we still live on a budget because we need to, no matter what our current financial situation.
We’ve Been On Both Sides
We can personally speak of consistency because we have experienced numerous times in our own marriage where we have not displayed consistency. Yes, believe it or not, America’s #1 Money Couple has not displayed consistency throughout our entire marriage.
One of the most difficult times in practicing consistency for us, was when Tai was pregnant with our third child. When I was pregnant, I am not going to lie, consistency stopped. I didn’t have the patience to do anything – nor the strength, half the time.
All three of my pregnancies were rough, and while there were a few months we stayed on track with a budget, there definitely was no consistency. There wasn’t a lot of saving money, especially when it came to grocery shopping. My pregnancies kept me so tired and preoccupied that they stopped me from making the best financial decisions.
I can recall the day I was in labor with our last child. We were at our new house we had just purchased; we hadn’t moved in yet, but we met somebody there who had come to clean out the air vents. I preach to everybody about being very careful who you purchase coupons for.
These coupons include the marketing material you find on either Living Social, or Groupon, or even from inserts in the mail. The company has an offer where they will clean your vents, for example, for a fraction of the cost. Do not fall for it! Trust us on this one: these companies are going to upsell each and every time, and half the stuff that they’re upselling, you don’t even need!
So, I’m sitting in the chair at the house and I’m actually having contractions – looking back, I’m sure I should have already been headed to the hospital by this time. But there I was. The guy came in and said ‘Well, you know what? We found a little rust on your water heater, or your furnace, and let’s also go outside because you had some build-up outside and we need to clean that. It’s going to be about $230.’
And wouldn’t you know, I said, ‘we’ll take it.’
I wrote the check. The truth is, I just didn’t care at that point. I had this general attitude that it was fine, they could do whatever they wanted, just leave me alone. I’m pregnant, I’m about to have a baby, just do it.
We allowed ourselves to get off track. We lost consistency. And we realized that promptly and had to take action to get back on track.
Getting Back On Track
That’s why we’re telling you to remain consistent. We see all your comments, thanking us for our videos and our messages portrayed, and when you watch our videos you get pumped up and want to start over or make a new plan. But you must stay consistent with it. Do not lose sight of the main goal, whatever your main goal is. Stay the course. Those who continue to stay consistent will win.
We always ask the question to our guests on our show, ‘What do you think are some of the key things that helped you to cross the finish line?’ The answer is always consistency. It’s that they didn’t give up, even when obstacles came that they had to overcome; they overcame the obstacle and they got right back in the race.
What we want to drive home is if you are getting ready to start your journey to financial freedom, if you started and then you stopped, or even if you crossed the finish line paid off all your debts, the key to obtaining and maintaining financial freedom is staying consistent.
It’s never too late to start, and it’s never too late to start over, either. If you started a budget three months ago, and now you’ve fallen off, guess what? Get back up and start again! If you paid off some debt but then you had to charge something else, guess what? It’s time to start over and start again.
Here’s The Point
The point is you cannot give up. This is a journey. Financial freedom is not going to happen overnight. You didn’t get into financial bondage overnight, and you’re not going to achieve financial freedom overnight either. But you can achieve it if you stay consistent. It really doesn’t matter if you started and you stopped because the only time that you fail is if you fail to get back up.
We encourage you guys, even if it’s beyond the budget – meal planning for instance – get back up and do it. It saves your family a lot of money, and you can see that when you do stop planning your meals, you probably start eating out more and you’re spending more money than you need to and more money than you ever have. Start taking that money and applying it, attacking it to debt. It is consistent little steps that eventually add up to realizing a big goal.
Let’s all strive to be consistent. Here is our challenge for you this week. Sit down with your spouse or your accountability partner, and take a good hard look at where you’re at on your journey to financial freedom. If you haven’t started or if you have started and you fell off, pick it back up.
For those who are reading this and know that you’re being consistent, that’s great. Maybe you’ve noticed that you’ve become a little more relaxed, and you can take this opportunity to recognize areas in which you need to tighten up a little bit. Maybe you didn’t fully come to a halt and stop budgeting, but maybe you’re not as diligent as you once were. We encourage you to continue and get back on track; let’s do this the right way and knock out that debt.
We can make videos and share our experiences, and we can tell you how much we want you to be free, but the journey to financial freedom starts with you. Each step that you make in the right direction is one step closer to freedom, and each step is crucial in your consistency to reach your goal. So, let’s take a good hard look at ourselves this week and see where we’re at; let’s make the proper adjustments, and let’s get back in the race on the journey to financial freedom.
