Part 2 of 3: Sources of Overwhelm–Finances

After school, the second source of overwhelm for me has been my finances. I’ve vacillated between saving and spending throughout my life and would still describe myself as “not a saver by nature but by nurture.” I’ve worked hard to develop a habit of saving, but it didn’t come naturally.

As  with school, I’ve also taken the goal of paying off debt and saving too far. And, while I might say I’m grateful for the outcome, I worry I took too extreme of an approach to paying off debt and saving.

Looking back, what led me to this extreme approach was the hope that all the work would pay off so I could live a slower life. About four years ago now, I listened to a podcast a in which Tim Ferriss interviewed Mr. Money Mustache (Pete Adeney). And while I’ve grown much more focused on others in the personal finance space (Frugalwoods, Tread Lightly Retire Early, A Purple Life, and Cait Flanders to name a few of my favorites), this was my introduction to the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) space.

I’ve gone back many times to listen to this episode. Not for the breakdown of the 4% rule, not for reviewing Adeney’s budget, but instead to listen to him describe biking to the grocery store. Maybe it’s my love of food and disdain for the way we’ve designed much of our world for cars and not human beings, but the description he gives of riding his bike with the trailer hitched behind to the grocery store always gets me. After filling the bike trailer with food, he comes home and cooks for friends. Each time I’ve relistened, I realized again and again how close to the perfect day this would be, for me.

Maybe it’s my love of food and disdain for the way we’ve designed much of our world for cars and not human beings, but the description he gives of riding his bike with the trailer hitched behind to the grocery store always gets me.

This was one of the first times that money was framed to me as a tool used to access freedom. The simplicity of a life with fewer demands drew me in. I have always loved my work as a speech-language pathologist, but I did worry if I would have the energy long-term to sustain myself through it. I’ll share more eventually—but know for now that my job required a lot of different forms of energy from me: physical, mental, and emotional. I worried I would not be able to give the necessary amounts of all of those energies throughout my life and wondered if I needed to plan for an eventual shift away from my job as a clinician. Granted, I did not fully know what I wanted at the time—Did I want to work intensely for 10-15 years and save enough to retire early? Did I want to add side hustles to speed it up more? Did I want retire to a tiny house off-grid? I wasn’t entirely sure. I just imagined a life with more space and less of the kind of exhaustion I was beginning to feel from all my energies being drained by work.

When I looked through my finances, what came first was paying down my student loans. While I wouldn’t say I was financially irresponsible before I listened to the podcast, I still was enjoying having my first real job (a salary! getting paid biweekly instead of monthly!), and while I did save, I was more focused on spending then paying any extra to my loans. I started joining financial groups, listening to more podcasts, and talking to more financially literate friends and family about how to go about it. Within a couple months, I decided to take on a second job (again, very lucky to love what I do) both for the additional income and to provide experience in an area of practice outside of my main area.

Beyond the second job though, I went through a mindset shift that was very black-or-white, all-or-nothing, in terms of paying off my debt. Money either went to pay down my loan balance, or I felt it was a waste, and it was hard to allocate it anywhere else, though I did let myself spend in some areas, just in a much more limited way.

Here are a couple of ways restricting my spending really harmed my mental and emotional well-being:

Limiting my social support

I quickly identified “going out” as an often large and unnecessary expense during my loan payoff. An uber, the train, drinks at a bar, a restaurant meal—I could easily spend what I considered to be a lot of money. And while I didn’t cut it out entirely, I did restrict myself to a degree that was not healthy for me. I fell back on being an introvert—and I did many things alone at that time that I loved—sitting out on my apartment balcony having a beer while writing and going on walks at a local nature preserve were a couple of my favorites.

But I still regret not having been more social or tried to make more connections during that time. I would “allow myself” to go to my book club once a month, which would be at a local restaurant. Outside of that, I did maybe one more social thing per month. I was often too tired form work, so it wasn’t too hard to do, but I do think it was damaging to be so limiting.

Especially living in a time now in the pandemic when social gathering is limited, I regret having lost time when I could have gone out more with friends, grown connections, and explored the world.

Working so much I grew to dread a job I loved

While I was grateful to even be able to take on a second job, adding it to the demands of my first was a challenge. It made my days longer at my first job and halved my weekend to Sunday. I would start feeling overtired by Wednesday and struggled to regain my energy through the rest of the week. I often didn’t take breaks throughout the day, having them only if clients canceled. I started to see my time as valuable only if I was making money to pay down my debt.

I know it was a privilege to even have the opportunity to take on a second job. Especially one I loved. But in doing so, I slowly watched how my love of my job could slip away, with the demand of being scheduled to do it too much. I’d cut myself off from breaks and from the ability to have more flexibility with my time.

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I was still a human being who needed to live and care for myself at this time. I did try to allow for things like essential medical care, including continuing therapy for my anxiety. And, don’t get me wrong, I was not perfect, and I did splurge on “unnecessary expenses”—I’ll write about these more in the future. But I still delayed things I deemed “nonessential” and restricted myself in unhealthy ways.

All in all, this time was a bit suffocating, and it was by choice, which I know is a tremendous privilege compared to those who live in poverty and are forced to limit their spending out of necessity. And while I’ve mostly shifted away from such an extreme approach to my finances, I’m still dealing with some of the after effects of my own feelings of imagined scarcity.

It’s challenging, because I’m grateful for the way I was able to reframe my spending as a way to think instead about how it can buy me time and rest—to drive my own bike trailer to the grocery store one day. I’m grateful I was able to pay off my debt and to transition to where I am now in a PhD program. It allows for a better balance of work I love without overdoing it (I know many in PhD programs would disagree with this, but it’s the right balance for me).

But I wouldn’t take the same approach if I had to do it again.