The Painful (Yet Beautiful) Cost of Parenting

Today is a big day! Not only is it one of the biggest college football games of our season (Iowa at Iowa State), but it’s Northern Vessel’s official launch party for our new canned cold brew partnership with We Will Collective (Iowa State’s NIL collective). We’ll be setting up a tent alongside We Will, where our entire Northern Vessel team will be there to celebrate the launch, eat good food, and have a fun time together. Many friends, former Iowa State athletes, and other big names will also be stopping by the tailgate to say hello and grab some cold brew (35,000 cans fresh off the line!). Word on the street is President Trump and several other 2024 presidential candidates will also be floating around the premises.

It will be an absolutely fantastic event…..and I’ll miss most of it. Bummed doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling right now. This is the type of thing we’ve envisioned since relaunching Northern Vessel in November 2022. This is the next step of TJ’s dream, and being able to support him is one of the greatest privileges of my life. Yet, I’m going to miss the majority of it.

Why? Finn and Pax have a parks and recreation soccer game this morning. They really want to play, and just as important, they want their dad there to cheer them on. I remember back when I dreamed of one day becoming a father. I made a promise to myself that I would make every one of my kids’ games, concerts, or other events if I had the power to do so. I also think back to my own childhood and remember fondly that my parents rarely missed a game. They didn’t have to be there, but they somehow sacrificed to always be present. If my memory serves me correctly, my mom only missed two basketball games in my entire 5th-12th career (in one, I scored 47 points, and in the other, I was carted out of the gym on a stretcher with temporary paralysis). I always loved having my parents there and want my kids to have the same thing (not the life-flash-before-their-eyes injury part, though…..that’s a story for a different day).

Can we parents all agree that this isn’t easy? In the chaos of life, it’s hard enough to keep my head on straight with the everyday things in my life…..never mind all the extracurricular activities. And the crazy part is, we’re not even into the thick of it yet. We have a few first graders just now getting into sports and other activities.

I’m very torn today. I’m mourning the loss of missing this important event. However, the decision was pretty simple. Many years ago, I made that commitment to myself to be present when I eventually became a father. This is where we find out if I was just talking the talk, or if I’ll walk the walk.

Oh yeah, Go Cyclones!

No Good Deed

Yesterday, while waiting to board a flight, I heard my name called over the loudspeaker. Since I suspected I wasn't lucky enough to get upgraded to first class, I knew it wouldn't be a wonderful moment of my day.

I sauntered up to the counter, where they informed me there was a family who wanted to sit together. I wait for the punchline. To make that happen, they want me to change seats. Doing so required me to go from an aisle seat to a window seat. They weren't telling me.....they were asking me. 100% my choice. Should I stay in the seat I want, or should I move so a handful of strangers can sit where they want while I get jammed against the window?

I certainly didn't want to move from the aisle to a window, but in my mind, it was the right thing to do. I understand what it's like to travel with kids; as I thought about it, it felt like moving was the right and generous thing to do. Fast forward 30 minutes, I'm sitting in my new and downgraded window seat......right in front of the family who consolidated into my old seat. And as luck would have it, their toddler was sitting directly behind me, where she repeatedly and continually kicked, punched, and slammed the back of my chair. To top it off, the parents were quite rude. The dad was somewhat belligerent and acted like a complete jerk. At one point, I turned around to say hello and engage with the cute little girl, which was met with harshness from the parents (perhaps assuming that I was a predator attempting to prey on their little girl). Overall, it was an incredibly frustrating experience.

No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. If I'm being candid, the whole thing felt pretty crappy. I wouldn't take it back, though. Doing the right thing is always the right thing. We can never truly lose if we're pursuing generosity. All we can do is put our best foot forward and hope good will come from our actions (whether we see it or not). I made a sacrifice so a family could sit together. They did sit together, which was probably better than not sitting together, and it turns out I'm still alive and healthy.

I'm just going to call that a win. A small and somewhat crappy win. But a win nonetheless!!

The Many Shapes and Sizes of Sacrifice

On the heels of yesterday’s post, a handful of people reached out asking about the idea of sacrifice. The joy piece is simple and self-explanatory. The sacrifice piece, however, can be a bit trickier. Sacrifice looks different for everyone. For my youth group students, giving $20 may be a sacrifice. To a few of my clients, though, a $10,000 gift wouldn’t be a sacrifice at all.

Looking at it from a broader level, sacrifice comes in many forms. Let’s go back to the person who could give $10,000 and it not be sacrificial. That same person could volunteer to serve at the very same organization for a day and it would be a huge sacrifice.

I stumbled into an interesting situation yesterday. I was in a text exchange with my friend, Bailey, who is coming back to see her family this weekend. Somewhere in there, I thought it would be a fun idea to bring her family a 64-ounce bottle of Northern Vessel cold brew latte to enjoy at their Easter brunch. Then, my brain went one step further. What if I bought bottles for a whole bunch of families to enjoy at their Easter celebrations? Fast forward a few hours and my day went from getting a lot of pressing work tasks done to becoming a Northern Vessel DoorDash Santa Claus. It was a really fun day and I thoroughly enjoyed blessing these families. Pure joy in my book!

It was only a few hundred dollars, which came from our giving fund. We plan for things like this, so that piece in and of itself wasn't necessarily sacrificial. The sacrifice was the fact I gave up much of my workday to make it happen. There was a very real cost to this, as I was up until about 2AM this morning doing the work items I was supposed to be doing when I was delivering bottles. No complaints from me…..it was so worth it! The sacrifice was what made it that much sweeter.

So here’s my big takeaway today: sacrifice is always contextual to the giver. It’s not a one-size-fits-all. Sometimes it takes creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to create sacrificial giving opportunities. You won’t always get it right, but generosity is always a fun thing to fail forward in. Happy giving!

You Just Never Know

Just a handful of years ago, I was at a high school girls' basketball game cheering on some of my youth group kids. They were playing against one of their biggest rivals, which is always a fun game to watch. It was one of those years where their rival had a really solid team, led by a uniquely talented player. I remember watching that game and thinking, “I bet she’ll have some success at the next level.” My suspicions were right, but I was also so wrong. Not only would she “have some success.”, but she would go on to become the best women’s basketball player in the world. Caitlin Clark, man! Dare I say she’s literally transforming the game? It’s absolutely unbelievable. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d put a women’s basketball game on my calendar and DVR so I wouldn’t miss it…..and for it to be my most hated team, nonetheless. It’s like a Yankee fan getting excited to cheer on the Red Sox. It just doesn’t happen. But here we are! You just never know.

Life is funny like that. So many things in our journey can feel like that. Maybe not to the Caitlin Clark level, but to some degree of special. In the rare moments when I stop to think about all we’ve been through and all that’s happened, I have to shake my head in disbelief. Never in a million years did I even dream about some of these things. Last night was one of those nights. Our coffee company, Northern Vessel, just partnered with the Iowa Cubs (AAA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs) to become the official coffee of the team and stadium. They even asked our founder, TJ, to throw out the first pitch at the season opener. It was a surreal experience to enjoy the game with the Northern Vessel crew while sipping on a Northern Vessel coffee. If you would have asked me even one year ago, I never would have imagined any of this being part of my life. You just never know.

I think there’s a common thread between Caitlin Clark, Northern Vessel, my journey, and your journey. We just have to keep moving forward. In the midst of it, it never feels sexy, or glamorous, or even worth it. We just put one foot in front of the other, do the right things for the right reasons, doing the hard work. Maybe it clicks, and maybe it doesn’t. Many things don’t click…..but some do. But we’ll never know until we do the work. This is what I love about stories like Caitlin Clark’s. You just never know.

It's Never Too Late (or Too Early)

Young adults have an amazing opportunity when it comes to getting control over their finances. So many things are working in their favor:

• Their financial life is probably the simplest it will ever be. Maybe not as many debts or other entanglements…..yet. Maybe not married……yet. Maybe not a homeowner……yet. Maybe not settled into a higher standard of living…..yet. Life typically gets more complicated as we age, so in theory young adults are living their simplest life.

• They haven’t yet developed deeply-seeded bad habits. Sure, there may be bad habits present. However, they haven’t had years (or decades) to become engrained into their life.

• They have so much time on the other side of getting their finances right. Let’s just say it takes a 24-year-old young professional 12 months to get their finances in order. That still gives them 50+ good years to thrive on the other side of the hard work. What an opportunity!

These are the reasons I love working with young adults. So much opportunity! On the flip side, the inverse of this is why I love it so much when older clients get their finances right. Their lives are more complex, they have to battle deeply-seeded bad habits, and they have less time on the other side of the transformation. All these factors combine for one inevitable outcome: a massive reason to celebrate and acknowledge a stunning win.

I have one client who is on the precipice of achieving a significant win. The win in and of itself is special. But what makes it even more special is the fact they spent multiple decades doing it the wrong way. They dug a deep hole, financially, relationally, mentally, and emotionally. Then, they decided to reverse course! After nearly two years of sacrifice, intentionality, and unity, they are nearing a point where their lives are fundamentally changing. Never again will they have to deal with what they dealt with for the last two decades. Everything can and will be different from here on out. It’s a weird idea to wrap their head around.

Their biggest roadblock to beginning this journey was the feeling it was too late for them. They were too old and too deep in their mess…..so why bother? The moment they believed it wasn’t too late was the moment they knew it was time to act. They wish they would have started earlier, but they are where they are.

It’s never too late…..or too early. If there’s something in your life that’s “too late,” no it’s not. Sure, it would have been nice to start 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years ago. You can’t go back in time, but you can start now.

Generous Tomorrow, Generous Today

A very common line of thinking I observe with people is this notion of building wealth today…..then being generous down the road (*if/when/after they achieve a yet-to-be-determined level of wealth, income, or other financial achievements to be named at a later date). It’s spoken as if building wealth or reaching a certain status is a prerequisite to generosity. While I disagree with this sentiment, I do think there is one prerequisite to generosity: having a pulse. Tall bar, I know. If we’re breathing, we should be generous…..period. Not IF we have a certain net worth. Not WHEN we’ve achieved a certain lifestyle. Not AFTER we’re attained a certain income. Generous today, wherever you are.

For this reason, I was absolutely delighted when I recently spent some time with a couple I had just met. I was completely enthralled by this conversation. I had spent a total of 15 minutes with them in my entire life, and I was ready to be their biggest cheerleader. Then, the wife said something that pushed me over the top. I’m paraphrasing, but she said something to the tune of, “we want to be generous tomorrow……..AND generous today.” YES!!! I about jumped out of my chair. This couple gets it, and their heart to serve others is contagious.

Somewhere along the road, our culture determined generosity is something we do IF/WHEN/AFTER we’ve achieved a specific set of milestones. Until then, we should live for ourselves and pursue the path toward “building wealth.” Instead of building up wealth through hoarding, what if we all took a page out of this couple’s playbook to build up others through generosity? As sure as the sky is blue, I believe it would change our culture from the inside out.

The sick, the poor, the abused, the hurt, the hungry, the cold, the vulnerable, the old, the young, and the lonely. They are here today. Luckily, so are you. Luckily, so am I. Let’s make a difference…..today.

First Things First

Whenever I post a video clip on social media (like this one) about the importance of pursuing meaning, I know I will get at least one reply of the following (paraphrased): “That’s a privileged thing to say. Some people are just trying to make ends meet.” I have three thoughts about this:

1) Yes, I couldn’t agree more. LOTS of people are struggling. First things first, we need to support our family. Life is about seasons, and some seasons are about simply getting by. It’s not fun, and the work may not provide a ton of meaning, but taking care of our family is critically important. I applaud everyone who is doing this. It’s difficult, noble work.

2) Embedded in these comments is a common belief that we have to choose between meaning and money. I’m not suggesting that at all. For many - dare I say most - you can have more meaning AND as much money. I’m not suggesting we choose less money. Rather, I’m suggesting we simply choose meaning.

3) Most people who are absorbing my content are doing okay to good when it comes to their finances. By taking these sorts of positions, they get to excuse themselves from having to make this decision. In other words, if you can’t make this decision, there’s not really a decision to make.

I recently spoke with a man who reads this blog. I’ve never met him in real life, but he reached out about his story. He said his family decided to pursue meaning in late 2022 when an interesting job opened up. He reluctantly took a 25% pay cut because he truly believed in the work. He said adjusting financially was challenging, but life was so much more fulfilling due to this switch. Fast forward several months and he gets unexpectedly promoted to a new position that pays more than the job he left. Wow!

I’m not suggesting everyone will experience the same thing this man did, but I thought the story was worth sharing. First things first, we need to care for our family. But once we do, meaning. Always meaning.

Curating the Life of Your Dreams

“I thought you were successful.” These were the interesting words spoken by a friend after driving by my house and seeing where we live. Wow…..and ouch! It never ceases to amaze me what people say to me. Perhaps it’s the consequence of living more of a public life and sharing a fair amount of myself through our content? In any event, wow…..and ouch!

As the conversation progressed, this person explained how, in their opinion, a person’s house is a measure of success. If you’re successful, your house reflects that. If you’re not, it too reflects that. In his opinion, my house reflects the fact I’m not successful. His perspective isn’t rare. In fact, this is a very common perception in our culture. In a similar conversation, one of my other friends referred to someone else I know and pointed out the obvious fact this other person is “really f’ing rich.” Why? Because they have a tremendously expensive house. This “really f’ing rich” couple happens to be a client of mine, and I can testify they aren’t rich. Far from it. They look like it, though.

At some point in our journey, we all have a choice to separate our actions from other people’s perceptions. I refer to it as curating the life of our dreams. When we can completely disregard the expectations and opinions of others and lean 100% into our own family’s values, everything changes. Truth is, I don’t love our house. It’s not the house of our dreams….far from it. But moving here allowed us to unlock the life of our dreams. We’ve been able to curate a life that truly aligns with our values:

• Renting this house has allowed us a ton of financial flexibility, providing the opportunity to lean into other parts of our budget.

• We’re able to push hard into generosity.

• We get to travel anywhere in the world we want.

• We were able to invest in Northern Vessel Coffee Company, which has been such a blessing in our life and my career.

• We’ve created a walkable life given we’re just steps away from public parks, breweries, restaurants, and shopping.

• We’re one block away from one of the best biking trails in the state, giving us immediate access to wonderful outdoor activities.

• We’re a 1-minute drive to the kids’ school, a 1-minute drive to the co-work office I host client meetings, a 2-minute drive to our podcast studio, a 2-minute drive to the grocery store, and a 6-minute drive to church.

This is amazing! I couldn’t love it more. To be honest, though, I do think about what other people think. I get self-conscious at times. I question our sanity. Every time that happens, however, I remind myself how we’ve essentially curated our dream life. We’ve had to make sacrifices, but those sacrifices pale in comparison to what we’ve gained. We’ve gained our dream life. The irony is that, to some, it’s a sign that we’re unsuccessful. To me, however, it’s a sign we’ve truly lived into our values. I call that the definition of success.

I encourage you to spend some time thinking about your dream life. What choices/decisions would you need to make to curate a better life that aligns with your values? This can be a scary question to confront, but it’s worth it.

"What If I Don't Have $20,000?"

A few days ago, I wrote about a concept I call the “pile of cash test.” In it, I explained how a client of mine used this test to alter their decision from buying a $35,000 car with debt to buying a $20,000 car with cash. I received a lot of feedback from that piece, but a handful of people were quick to ask the question, “what if I don’t have $20,000?” One person was sincere in their question, but several were insinuating it is a dumb idea because debt is the only realistic way to buy a vehicle.

I thought it would be worthwhile to answer the question. If you don’t have $20,000, yes, I’m suggesting you don’t buy a $20,000 car. The point isn’t to figure out the best way to buy a $x vehicle, but rather to figure out what vehicle we can buy with $x of available cash. This idea brings a lot of criticism, I know.

First, I’m not suggesting we buy a pile of junk. Many people do that, to their demise. I’m an advocate for buying a reliable car that will require as little ongoing maintenance work as possible. Yes, a car is going to have issues and require maintenance. But it’s amazing how many people will make $800 monthly payments for 7 years just to avoid the occasional $1,000 repair bill. This is a very common justification for expensive, debt-fueled purchase decisions.

Data shows the average household in America spends $400 per month on vehicle loan payments. But there’s a catch! That’s the average per household…..including all the households with no car payments. I decided to do a little data digging of my own. Of the last 75 families I’ve met with, at the beginning of our coaching relationship they had an average monthly car payment of $320/month. So it was a bit lower than the national average. This is where it gets interesting. 51% of these families had ZERO car debt. Zilch! Wait, it is possible to go without car debt!?!? If you take those families out of the equation, that means the average household monthly car payment for those who had car debt was $650/month! Yikes!

This immediately brings two interesting points to the surface:

1) Many people do choose to live without car debt. Doing so, which often requires sacrifice and humility, opens up so many doors with that excess cash. More than half of the people I meet with have made this possible…..even before starting their coaching relationship with me. I can testify how much freedom and momentum these families have as a result of these decisions.

2) For the people who choose to live with car debt, it’s crushing them! I regularly see $1,000+ payments for single vehicles and households with $1,500+ of combined car payments. This puts a stranglehold on their excess income and prevents them from doing things that truly matter to them.

I think you deserve better than to use your precious resources to constantly fund a car payment. For some of you, true freedom may lie just on the other side of a few sacrificial decisions. I promise you it’s worth it!

Don't Gut the Good Stuff

Let me lay out a scenario. You go into the month with a solid financial plan. You’ve prioritized your needs, wants, giving, and saving. The plan is set and you’re feeling really good about it. Then, just like that, life hits. Maybe it’s a medical situation. Maybe your income is a little lower than you thought. Maybe the car needs some unexpected work. But in any case, something happens. How do you correct it?

Most people in our culture don’t, unfortunately. Instead, they whip out the credit card, quickly “fix” the problem by dropping the new expenses on the card, then move on with life. Fortunately, most of my clients don’t own credit cards and would not take this route. But the problem still needs to be fixed. What do you do to fix it?

Many times, our gut reaction is to simply rip away some of the money allocated to the fun categories. Personal spending, dining out, entertainment, and travel are likely candidates. It’s easy to steal money from these categories. After all, you don’t “need” it. There are a few problems with this approach:

1) Life happens……then life happens again….then it will probably happen again. It’s something this month, but it may be something else next month. If our gut reaction is to constantly steal from the good categories, these categories will be perpetually abused when life inevitably happens.

2) Wants are important. I’m not going to say our wants are more important than some of the other categories, but I will say they are just as important. We need some fun things in our financial plan. They add richness and act as a release valve. When we constantly cut them from our budget, the tension builds and a future blow-up starts to build.

3) When we simply give up fun things to make the numbers work, we train ourselves to handle all unforeseen situations in this manner instead of preventing them from happening in the future. It becomes a coping mechanism and we’ll perpetually suffer because of it.

Yes, we need to be responsible and address issues as they come up. No, we don’t always need to gut our fun categories in order to make it happen. Give yourself permission to have fun, even when life happens. Strike that……especially when life happens.

Giving What You Have: PTO Edition

In multiple posts, I’ve mentioned the words of my wise friend, Gary Hoag. “Give what you have, not what you don’t.” This simple saying has changed my perspective on life, as it has for countless others. When the topic of generosity comes up, people are quick to highlight all the things they don’t have. But everyone has something to give. We just have to each recognize what we’re blessed with and decide to share it with others.

This idea hit full speed today as I was chatting with a friend. My friend has been dealing with significant and scary medical issues. I’m sure it’s taken a toll emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially. It’s been a brutal journey and there’s no way around it. This situation has caused my friend to miss a lot of work recently. Luckily she has PTO (personal time off - i.e. paid vacation time), which has been a blessing. Unfortunately, her bank of PTO hours is waning, and more time off will most certainly be needed. Knowing this, their family has been preparing the finances to take unpaid time off to navigate the weeks ahead.

Recognizing this and also caring for their friend/colleague, her co-workers decided to step up. In a very creative idea, they volunteered to donate some of their own PTO time to their struggling friend, meaning their sacrifice allows her to get additional time off without losing her pay. I couldn’t have loved this story more! These people have zero obligation to her, surely have their own issues at home (financial or otherwise), and could have just kept doing what they were doing. But they didn’t! They had something to give, and gave it!

Such a beautiful model of what generosity looks like. They gave what they had, not what they didn’t. I hope you find some creative opportunities this week to share what you have.

You Can Always Go Back

I was days away from making one of the biggest decisions of my life. I was 99% sure I was about to resign from my career, make a complete 180-degree shift, and take a 90% pay cut to do something unconventional. To be honest, I was scared out of my mind. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, and my mind was continually racing. Then, I found myself sitting face-to-face with a trusted friend. Yeah, he too thought I was absolutely out of my mind. He told me as such, elaborated on why I was, then reaffirmed his opinion that I was, in fact, insane. But then, he added, “So what if you fail? You could always go back.”

Wow. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. In my mind, I was slamming a door in life, nailing it shut, then covering it with concrete. It’s as though I was forever locking my path in a new direction, for better or for worse. The reality is, I wasn’t. He was right! What’s the worst that could have happened? If push came to shove, and I fell flat on my face, I could always go back to my old career (or something resembling it).

While the idea of utter embarrassing failure didn’t necessarily give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, it did help put the entire situation in perspective. If my idea works, our family’s dream comes true. If I fall flat on my face, I eat a slice of humble pie and we move on to something else. The cost/benefit seemed obvious, though still scary.

3.5 years later, I’m living in both worlds. Our family is living our dream life…..and I’m eating little slices of humble pie along the way. It’s way harder than I could have ever imagined it being, but far more worth it than I could have ever imagined.

I’m not advocating everyone leave their career and take a huge pay cut to do something completely different. That just happens to be my story and I’m the one writing this. But you have yours. There’s something in your life you’re scared to do. You know what it is. Just a reminder: You can always go back.

The Road to Nowhere

One of the side effects of being so open about my debt and career journey (recent podcast episode) is the amount of feedback I receive. So much of the feedback is positive, but not all. Some people, perhaps out of jealousy, or self-talk, or their own debt/career frustrations, offer a lot of criticism and skepticism to my story. These little nuggets of negativity (er, constructive feedback), often start with “but". Here are a few common ones regarding our $236,000 debt journey:

• “but I don’t have a high income like you did.”

• “but we aren’t able to sell one of our cars like you did.”

• “but we can’t leave our house and live in a tiny apartment like you did.”

• "but you didn’t have kids.”

• “but you had two incomes.”

• “but the cost of living is higher where we live.”

• “but we can’t just stop spending….we need to enjoy life.”

These statements may or may not be factually true (fact check below), but one thing is certain: The road to nowhere is paved with lots of “buts”. You can have progress, or excuses, but you can’t have both! At some point, if we want to win, we have to set the excuses aside and get about the business of finding a way. There’s always a way! We also need to stop comparing someone else’s situation to our own. When I share my story, it’s just that…..my story. It’s not the absolute blueprint for success, but rather the blueprint that best suited our specific situation and our life.

“The road to nowhere is paved with lots of “buts”. You can have progress, or excuses, but you can’t have both!”

Instead of making excuses why we can’t make this decision or that decision, we need to start asking ourselves what decisions we can make. If you think you can or cannot win, you’re right. So how about we start to believe we can……and make it happen! We need to find deep and meaningful sacrifices that work for our situation. We need to decide there’s no amount of pain we won’t endure for the sake of a better tomorrow. Now having been on both sides of the debt spectrum, I feel even more convicted in my previous statement. Knowing what I know now, I would have intensified the pain even more in order to get to the other side of the debt.

It was a long and grueling 4.5 years to pay off our $236,000 of debt, but doing so changed us. It showed contentment like we had never known before. It taught us money couldn’t buy happiness…..because we had no money and we were pretty dang happy. It showed us anything is possible if we do it together and care enough to make it happen. It showed us what true freedom looked like, which emboldened us to draw a line in the sand and say “never again” to debt. Lastly, it taught us to dream…..and dream big. And not only dream big, but to be crazy enough to believe these dreams are possible.

Look at all that stupid debt!

Here’s the reality of the “but” statements above:

• Our income wasn’t all that high during our debt payoff season, as I was still young in my career and the country was still working its way out of the recession.

• Selling one car really sucked, but it was a defining moment where we made a choice that no sacrifice was too big to fix this mess. I never want to do the single car thing again, but I’m so glad we did it then!

• The only thing stopping you or me from moving from a house to an apartment is pride. Any other excuse is a lie. I went from a new, 4-bedroom house in KC to a 600 square foot, 1-bedroom apartment (80s vintage everything) in Des Moines. Very humbling!

• We didn’t have kids at the time, fair point. But we do have two toddlers today and it that didn’t keep me from leaving my career and taking a 90% pay cut. No excuses here!

• We did have two incomes, but one of them was a limited-benefits, near-minimum-wage childcare job. We weren’t exactly rolling in the dough with that second income. But Sarah worked hard in that job and it meant a lot to us! Fast forward to my drastic career shift in 2019, I was the sole breadwinner of the house since Sarah stays at home with the kids…….but we weren’t going to let that be an excuse.

• The cost of living in Des Moines is lower than some cities and higher than some cities, but it’s not the reason we win or lose. There are people winning financially in expensive cities and losing financially in cheap cities.

• Spending can be fun, but it can’t make us happy. You can choose to keep spending, or you can choose a better life. Or maybe you can choose a better life, which could include more spending down the road. Think of it as one year, or two years, or however many years……for the rest of your life! We spent 4.5 years sacrificing, which is followed by 60 years of freedom. I’ll have the six decades of awesome, please!

The road to nowhere may be paved with “buts”, but the road to freedom is paved with sacrifice and a deep desire for better. So maybe it means selling a vehicle. Maybe it means downsizing your home. Maybe it means giving up travel for a season. Maybe it means picking up some extra income. Whatever it looks like in your life, just do it! It’s just one season, and I promise you every subsequent season of life will be better for it!

More than anything, here’s what I want you to take away from this piece. You can do it!!!! There is nothing that can stop you if you want it bad enough. Don’t let anyone or anything hold you back! You got this! For each of us, there comes a fork in the road where we must decide what’s more important: Our stuff or our dreams? Comfort or happiness? Pride or freedom? I made my choice! What about you?

“For each of us, there comes a fork in the road where we must decide what’s more important: Our stuff or our dreams? Comfort or happiness? Pride or freedom?”