So, I’ve been nose to the grind stone for about 2.5 years. Partly because I’m determined and I want to grow my business. But mostly becasue I was carrying a crushing amount of debt and was finally determined to do something about it.
So my wife and I have been killing it, getting out of debt for the last 36 months, which has been exasperated by Covid, but we still made progress in that time and although we’re not finished, we are the most financially free that we’ve ever been and there’s a light at the end of another, short, 12 month tunnel. Damn student loans…
But I’m having a moment of reflection this morning because we’re buying a second vehicle today and the circumstances under which we’re doing it are so good, and so healthy, and so easy and pressure-free, that the only possible response would be to stop and look back and realize how far we’ve come, we being my wife and I.
See, when I was a senior at Penn State, I had a job offer on the table that was going to start at about $170K with a signing bonus and I thought I could afford just about anything. So with my impending degree in Petroleum Engineering on the horizon (notice the emphasis on impending), I went out and bought a $57,000 F-150. It was gorgeous and had all of the bells and whistles. So I went and bought this truck… and financed 100% of it. Then the second semester of my senior year of college hit and oil tanked from about $130/barrel to somewhere around $45/barrel, my job offer got pulled, and more importantly, I realized 2 things:
- ) I sat down and actually figured out how much my student loans were, both federal and private and I learned that I was $80,000 in student loan debt. And that scared me
- ) I realized that I enjoyed being able to tell people that I was (or was going to be) a petroleum engineer more than I actually liked that work. And that terrified me.
And when I realized these two things I found myself in an impossible situation: I’m sitting there, 22 years old, $80,000 in student loan debt, nearly $60,000 in car debt, and close to $30,000 in credit card debt at the time.
I was sick to stomach, and furthermore, in no way could I justify taking out another $22,000 of loans to get a degree for a job that I realized I was just using to impress people I didn’t even care about and didn’t actually enjoy.
So, in 2016, I dropped out of college. I took my $170,000 of debt and I dropped out. It was gut wrenching, and terrifying, and overwhelming, and exactly the way it sounds: horrible.
Fast foreward to current day. I have zero credit card debt. No auto loans, and about $50,000 left on the student loans which will be gone in 12 months.
And I just bought a vehicle and had zero stress about it.
There’s never a situation where dropping thousands of dollars on something, writing that check, isn’t slightly nerve wracking. There’s safety in having that money, at least, there’s perceived safety, it might not be legitimate but it feels safe.
But when you’ve worked, and saved, and planned for something and you can show up and pay for it, outright, no gimmicks, no squirming or scheming, that feeling outweighs the nerves of spending large amounts of money 10:1. It’s incredible. I’ve never bought a vehicle where I wasn’t slightly nervous about affording the monthly payment, let alone bought one and thought that not having a monthly payment was possible. That aforementioned F-150 was over $700/month at the end of the day, I was terrified going into that deal and yet, somehow, let’s call it immaturity (read stupidity), I still talked myself into it. I’d never paid $700/month for anything in my life! I was a kid in college.
Anyways, this has the potential to turn into some pretty lengthy ramblings because one of my favorite things things to talk about other than business is personal finance and how to get freedom and build wealth, so I’m just about to marry the two and hope I can keep it short:
I was able to buy this vehicle like this becasue of the work my wife and I have put in digging ourselves out of the hole that I dug with debt before we were married. Being out of debt (mostly) has given us the freedom to choose what we want to do with our money because we haven’t committed to paying it all back to someone we borrowed money from based on how we felt 4 years ago and isn’t even how we feel now in the present.
If you own a business and want the freedom to work and actually enjoy the work you do and not feel pressured to take every lead that comes your way, regardless of if the pay sucks, because you don’t need the money to keep yourself afloat: get out of debt.
If you want to walk into a car dealership when it’s time to buy a vehicle and write a check and call it a day and be as stress free walking out as you walked in: get debt free.
If you want to increase the quality of your life and actually get excited and watch your business grow because you’re taking on work that you’re passionate about and not just any work that pays because you have to: get out of debt.
The biggest thing that will crush your dreams and goals, other than you and your imagination, is the freedom and autonomy that you have to make decisions to do, or not do, the things that you want. In life, in your business, in your relationships, in everything. When your autonomy as a person gets removed, you begin a very unhealthy cycle that’s incredibly difficult to crawl out of.
Debt steals your autonomy. You can’t make the decision of what to do with your money because you made the decision of what to do with someone else’s money and now you have to pay it back.
Don’t sacrifice you’re autonomy because somebody else is happy to give you their money for a 24% fee, or 4% for that matter. It’s not worth it.
Trust me, I’ve been in both situations, and I can tell you from the side I’m sitting on now, debt isn’t worth it and will suck the life out of the things you’re trying to accomplish in life.
Thank you for listening to this PSA.
Much love. Peace
