{"id":205,"date":"2014-08-28T16:30:09","date_gmt":"2014-08-28T06:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janineprince.com\/?p=205"},"modified":"2014-08-28T16:47:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T06:47:21","slug":"sober-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janineprince.com\/home\/sober-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"A sober assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/janineprince.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/one-simple-rule.bmp\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-204\" src=\"https:\/\/janineprince.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/one-simple-rule.bmp\" alt=\"One simple rule $\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/span>Before we move off the topic of debt, there are some positive things to share. I find this subject quite emotional \u2013 as I\u2019m sure many people do \u2013 so let\u2019s clear the air a little with some practicalities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; line-height: normal;\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-211\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/janineprince.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/one-simple-rule-bw.jpg?resize=300%2C252&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"One simple rule $ image\" width=\"300\" height=\"252\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/janineprince.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/one-simple-rule-bw.jpg?resize=300%2C252&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/janineprince.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/one-simple-rule-bw.jpg?w=562&amp;ssl=1 562w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>In my past, I\u2019ve been through the experience of some<a title=\"Desire\u2019s dark side\" href=\"https:\/\/janineprince.com\/2014\/08\/22\/desires-dark-side\/\" target=\"_blank\"> credit card debt <\/a>going bad (which happened to coincide with some poor decisions about tax also coming home to roost). Out the other side of that experience I\u2019m cautious about spending money I don\u2019t have on hand. \u2018Vigilant\u2019 would not be too strong a word. \u2018Terrified\u2019 might even be appropriate on some days! I worry about it. I don\u2019t really have much now and yet still I worry about it.<\/p>\n<p>I worry about you having it. I do. It is too much. Debt is hurting us. It is one of the heaviest shackles stopping us from living a life of deliberate liberation, and it is voluntary.<\/p>\n<p>Some people seem to think of credit card debt as a kind of charity to themselves. \u2018Thank you credit card for helping out for the cost of a pad thai on Saturday night!\u2019 You might be out of cash and craving those sweet noodles, but actually, unless you\u2019re as scrupulous at paying yourself back in full and as quickly as you\u2019d expect any of your friends to be, in reality you\u2019re in a Ponzi scheme with your bank, and the house never loses.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about getting out of debt. That\u2019s a pretty obvious next step conversationally but let\u2019s not go into paying down or clearing it off, not budgets. Not haggling over interest or swapping balances and accounts. Not how to expand or grow your income or start a business on the side. Those things are all great tactics and they can really help you but I\u2019m not the right person to talk about those. Honestly, there\u2019s just huge amounts of useful information and lots of knowledgeable, well-meaning people to help you with all those things online already. Hit up Doctor Google with a few simple questions and you\u2019ll be inundated with options and links. It is easy to find an approach that works for you. Just be aware of anything that people are asking you to pay for!<\/p>\n<p>What is there left to talk about? There\u2019s a key truth to debt that hardly gets any headlines. You could be forgiven for thinking that it is a secret. It wasn\u2019t bad luck that gave my phone\u00a0number to a collection agency. It wasn\u2019t not having education or a job or support if I\u2019d asked for it or an understanding of how to do a budget. I was lazy, busy, a bit selfish, maybe arrogant that I could do it differently \u2013 you know &#8211; normal. Even so, when faced with the bottom line, despite having the kind of habits that meant a lotto win would end up as more debt, I knew this truth and I bet you do too. It is just one simple rule and it works. I warn you now, it\u2019s a tough one. It is not sexy. It is not huge glittering fun.<\/p>\n<p>It is this: <strong>live within your means<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>I know, right? Bor-ring. I can feel your eyes rolling back in your head. Stay with me on this one. I think it is radical. Daring. In this age of rampant entitlement, what could be more personally and politically powerful than to disengage from the consumer culture except on occasions of deliberate choice? Okay, that might be a bit of a long bow to draw, but think about it. Why do we immediately reject this obvious truth? Because it requires decisions and choices. It implicitly asks us to do without some things. Our fear of missing out (so common now it just goes by \u2018FOMO\u2019) immediately gives us an eye-twitch but reality is all about limits. We are finite beings on a finite planet. Our time is finite, our income is very clearly finite. Knowing this, doesn&#8217;t it seem almost childish to continue to believe in &#8216;later there&#8217;ll be more&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not to say that there&#8217;s no such thing as hard work that pays off, or ideas that meet a need and create happy customers, or great services and products you can build and grow from your own capacity to learn and create. It is just that winning lotto isn&#8217;t a plan. There is no magical unicorn going to come along and poop golden nuggets onto your welcome mat. Once we face our limits we get to make informed decisions about how to spend our time and the resources we already have. It is not just reasonable, in this day and age it is revolutionary.<\/p>\n<p>Next week I\u2019ll share a tool that will give you a glimpse through your blind spot, or a whisper from your fairy godmother about your particular secrets and self-destructive habits with money. You can skip it if you\u2019re scared, or ask someone to hold your hand.<br \/>\nWe can get through this together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before we move off the topic of debt, there are some positive things to share. I find this subject quite emotional \u2013 as I\u2019m sure many people do \u2013 so let\u2019s clear the air a little with some practicalities. In my past, I\u2019ve been through the experience of some credit card debt going bad (which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,4,1],"tags":[37,36,47,40,48,38,5,9,44,29,23,39],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-not-writing","category-thinking","category-uncategorized","tag-boredom","tag-choice","tag-debt","tag-denial","tag-finite","tag-freedom","tag-learning","tag-simplify","tag-stuff","tag-time","tag-tips","tag-wealth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A sober assessment - Janine Prince<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/janineprince.com\/home\/sober-assessment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A sober assessment - Janine Prince\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Before we move off the topic of debt, there are some positive things to share. 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