What motivates your finances? What is the purpose that drives you to reduce your debt and make more money?
For me, the one thing that keeps coming back when I ask myself those same questions is the idea of freedom. The start of my own personal finance revolution started with some realizations. I realized that the financial path I was on wasn’t getting me anywhere else but broke. I wasn’t going to hit the lottery or discover some miracle money maker that would make me a millionaire. But, that isn’t my purpose. It’s merely the keystone that sparked my current journey.
When I began my journey, I decided that I needed to learn how to handle my finances. The one name that kept reappearing in my reading was Dave Ramsey and his “Total Money Makeover” book. So, I bought it and read it. And, something he said in that book brought my true motivational factor to the front. Yes, I wanted to have less debt and make more money. But, what I really wanted, was freedom.
He spoke about being debt free and having the freedom to tell your boss to “take this job and shove it.” What a thought. So many of us have to go to work every day to make enough money to pay our bills. But, what if we minimized those bills and had the freedom to do whatever we wanted to do to make money?
That is what motivates me to remove myself from the debt treadmill, and join the select few who have the freedom to pick up and do something that they enjoy! What a freedom!
What about you? What really motivates you to become debt free?
I started this blog to share what I know and what I was learning about personal finance. Along the way I’ve met and found many blogging friends. Please feel free to connect with me on the Beating Broke accounts: Twitter and Facebook.
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Dave Ramsey spoke to me as well… the funny thing is, I’ve only recently realized just how simple financial solutions are. I always thought money was so complicated, it’s really not.
My biggest motivation is this… Just imagine what you can have your income do for you vs. shoveling it out each month to pay for debts.
I’m beginning to love budgets and love putting my dollars to work for me =)
I am self-motivated and goal oriented! I don’t have any debt except for a small mortgage. My retirement savings is on auto-pilot. That is I have it deducted from my paycheck. What keeps me motivated? I like seeing progress toward my goals. I check to see how I am doing periodically which could be daily, weekly, monthly.
For me, it’s the idea that I don’t want to be old and poor. That drives me to avoid debt, thinking about how that would feel.
Definitely the idea of freedom. We cannot freely choose a lot of things right now because of our debt. It limits our lives, restricts our choices. So there… my motivation is freedom.
I am motivated by the desire for freedom. I don’t like being tied down to things that hinder me from doing what I want. If I save right, and live debt free, then I can use my money for the things I want when I want.
For me, I think it was being sick and tired of constantly falling behind. I hated being in debt, and not having money to do the things I enjoyed. It’s amazing what a difference focusing on my finances has made. We’re down to just the house now 🙂
It is being in control. Having debt means someone else controls your life. I can’t bear that!
I think we’d all like to “take that job and shove it”. That’s motivation enough for me.
You know, my motivation is the combination af all mentioned above. To my mind it is impossible to separate these types of motivations. One follows the other and throughout the life people are moved forward by some of these reasons. I believe one’s motivation changes based on unique situations though. At the very least, as we all become wealthier, the focus has to change from survival to other reasons like fun, quality of life etc. But still the article is great. Thanks.