I’m a huge fan of living a real life on a budget – meaning, I’m a fan of making your own dollars and cents work in a way that makes sense for your real life. That’s why I don’t fall into that mindset of “recommended percentages” because it ignores that you’re not a robot. And chances are you, and your next-door neighbor probably don’t have the same values or priorities, so what makes sense to have the same percentages as your neighbor?
None. It makes no sense.
Let’s get crystal clear…
That’s why we need to clarify what makes sense for your life. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw in my stories how I mentioned that we were putting an offer in on a house. Our current home would be able to pay for about 70% of the house we put the offer in on. So yes, that means we’d have to float a mortgage for a while again.
I had so many DMs asking why I would even consider having a mortgage again after not having one (if you’re new here, our current home is paid off).
The thing is, I’m not anti-mortgage. I’m anti being asleep at the wheel of your finances. I don’t want you just to pay your mortgage or car payment every month – I want you to look at that payment differently. What else could you do with that money if you saved it? Could you finally go on that European vacation you’ve always dreamed of? The point is, I don’t want you to just go through the motions of making payments because that’s what you’ve always done and is what is normal. I want you to pay better attention to your money.
Paying off your house won’t make sense in every season of life, nor will it make sense for every person. As I said above, we’re not robots. We must stop seeing money management advice as this “one size fits all” thing. Because it’s not. Right now, if you just bought a house and are expecting a new baby, it does not make sense to try to tackle killing off your mortgage. But if you’ve been in your home for a few years and are financially stable, aggressively attacking the mortgage may make sense.
Same thing goes for…
Your Emergency Fund.
We had a $150 budgeted and ready to go to pay for our septic tank to be pumped. If you’ve been following me for a while or read my book, you know that our septic tank backed up and flooded our finished basement and laundry room three years ago, resulting in nearly $30,000 in damage. So, needless to say, we decided to take the whole “you should get your septic tank pumped every 3-5 years” seriously. And as fate would have it, this week marks three years to the day since that horrible moment happened. Trust me – nothing, and I mean nothing prepares you to be standing in raw sewage in your own home.
Well, when the guy opened the riser on my septic tank, I knew before he even said a word that something was wrong – very wrong. My tank was slapped full of sludge. And not to get too TMI here, so I’ll leave out some details, but when we had it pumped three years ago, the guys that pumped it didn’t pump it all the way empty. We discovered that the main line leading to one set of our field lines was completely broken, and raw sewage had been leaching into my backyard so long it had hardened like a rock!
So, even though I was really upset to pay that $2,910 bill, I’m grateful it didn’t back up and flood my house again.
But that’s not even the real MVP of the story. The real MVP is my Emergency Fund.
My safety net was there to catch me.
That’s what an Emergency Fund is – a safety net because it’s not a matter of if you’ll use it – it’s a matter of when. My husband had to remind me of this when I was super upset over having to transfer that money of what I said in my own book – that it’s 100% okay to use the money in the Emergency Fund for an emergency – that’s what it’s there for!
It’s time we stop…
This is why we have to stop putting our money on autopilot all the time. Don’t get me wrong, autopilot and auto payments can be a wonderful blessing in certain seasons of life. However, if your wallet is getting hit hard like ours is from inflation and rising gas price (again 
), you can not afford your money to stay on autopilot. It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get knee-deep in your finances, no matter how stable they are.
So, if you haven’t yet started your Emergency Fund, it’s time to do it! If you do have an Emergency Fund, but you haven’t looked at it in a while, you need to look at it and determine if, with inflation if that Emergency Fund amount is still one you think is best. Do you need to beef it up a little? There’s no right or wrong there. Your EF may be fine, but as I said in the last email, we can’t just stick our money on autopilot and forget about it. We have to pay attention to our money.
Again, I can’t tell you what to do with your money or what will make the best sense for your family, but I can tell you that you must look at your money through the lens of how you can make that money work for you, your family, and your future. Instead of sticking your money on autopilot, challenge yourself this week to think differently about your money and ask yourself how your current money is working towards your future self and goals. Then make any necessary changes to put it back on track.
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