What You Shouldn’t Sacrifice to Reach Your Riches
Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!! Let’s talk about love for a hot second, specifically how love, especially the true kind, generally requires sacrifice of some form. You love yourself, you love the world, and you’d definitely love to have that financially free life you’ve been dreaming about.
To get that amazing life you’d love, however, what should you be willing to sacrifice?
My answer is: a lot, but not everything. There are at least five non-negotiable parts of life that you should never sacrifice for riches or lose in your pursuit of happiness:
Your Mental Health
In the finance community, one of the biggest problems is sacrificing your mental well-being to earn a bigger paycheck. This is actually a global phenomenon that’s hurting the working class worldwide. Putting in more hours at work might be great with overtime, but it’s not worth it if it causes you too much stress. Alternatively, your mentality will suffer if you attempt lowering your expenses to an unsustainable level. Cutting your spending down to the bone might cause you to saw right into said bone, and we don’t want to do that. You cannot enjoy the fruits of your labor if you’re suffering from unmanageable stress.
Your Family
Whether this is your family of blood or family of choice, they’re an integral part of your life and are absolutely priceless. Sometimes family members fall on hard times and need help to get by. Sometimes your kids will be part of amazing programs that have a high admissions cost. Being financially supportive in those situations isn’t equal to financial abuse or manipulation; if you’re being taken advantage of, these people are not your true family. True families love you without strings attached; don’t neglect those relationships in the name of getting ahead at work. If you do, you’re putting a price on their love and declaring you’re happy to sell it.
Your Good Friends
I speak from experience on this one. Being a miser leaves you very lonely, as no one wants to be friends with a cheapskate. Cheapskates are never more than fair-weather friends who care more about the sticker price of a lunch with you than, you know, actually spending time with you. People don’t like feeling like they come second to money. Don’t become that person in your social circles; life is so much more enriching with folks that genuinely enjoy being around you.
Your Health in General
This includes your standards of living. I’ve read some horror stories about folks like Hetty Green, who felt so insecure about finances that she refused to heat her apartment or eat a nutritious diet. Don’t make yourself sick due to bad living conditions. You’re doing it wrong if you neglect your health because a multivitamin or exercise equipment doesn’t fit the budget. Heck, spending money now on health will save you an unholy amount of money later in life! Never enable unhealthy habits that’ll bring you preventable illnesses.
Your Satisfaction with Life
Done properly, pursuing financial stability makes your satisfaction with life go through the roof. If it instead leaves you down in the dumps, there’s something very wrong going on. The whole reason for financial stability in the first place is so you can enjoy life without worries over how you can afford it; if you take that enjoyment out of the equation, what’s left to work for? Overall life dissatisfaction leads to nothing but misery for yourself and the people around you. You deserve much more than a lifetime of that.
Looking over this list, I’m struck at how I could change any reference of money to relationships. If your significant other chips away at any one of these line items, that’s a massive red flag of an unhealthy relationship. The ideal significant-other relationship is one where you both grow together and work well as a team. Same goes for money too, but don’t confuse the two. Money’s not gonna hold your hand or give you a hug when you’re down.
Have you caught yourself sacrificing something you shouldn’t have? What was your approach to reversing that problem?