Til Debt Do Us Part 💸

Day 2 of YNAB's 34-Day Challenge is an interesting one to consider. We entered this new year completely debt-free. We have no mortgage, we own our home outright, we have a 13 year old Toyota that won't quit, we have no credit card debt, -  we are truly debt-free.

Being debt-free is thrilling and makes so many many things available to us, however we built a really happy life while in debt, we live thoughtfully and in the present - this needs to be acknowledged. We spent New Years Day reviewing where the weaknesses aka overspending are in our budget. We created a new budget for the new year, with new goals and a new awareness that now we have to consider the trap of Lifestyle Creep. 

If we just set off confetti cannons and marching bands and threw our YNAB to the wind, we would be abandoning our goals of retirement, further education, career restarting, travel, supporting aging parents, supporting our children's goals now and in the future and bettering the parts of the world we touch. We've entered new territory with our budget and are very aware of just how much just about every industry wants us to part with the money we are no longer moving to debt.  Our future selves will be very present in our financial decisions.

We have been weighing the options of a new car. While we'd be happy and can reason our way into owning a new high end alternative fuel vehicle, the undeniable truth is that while our Matrix is 13 years old it's the most mindful choice to continue with!  Its annual cost is approximately $2000 - that includes maintenance, insurance and gas, more kind to our budget than any lease or buy options. Using our vintage, hipster Toyota until it can no longer be a car diminishes our carbon footprint well beyond the capacity of any e-vehicle on the market (Adam Ruins Everything charmingly illustrates this).

While a new car would be a lot of fun - it would mean new debt and growing our impact on our fragile planet rather than reducing it, ignoring those factors simply because we have available funds for a new car is the seductive reward of lifestyle creep without actually being a reward.

Being on the "other side", so to speak, of debt brings new challenges, new perspective on how much work is done to prevent people from bettering their position and possibilities in life. We have been trained to think we deserve more, better stuff rather than deserve contentment and responsibility. And we all know what Uncle Ben's told Peter about
responsibility ❣️