F*ck Finances

Nobody Told Me Dreams Were This Expensive

A small disclaimer before we begin: I started writing this one in the middle of the financial shitstorm I'm about to describe. So if parts of it sound slightly unhinged... they probably were. I've cleaned up the grammar. The frustration remains.

Also, we are about to say fuck…. like a lot.

Excuse my language, but once again...

F*ck finances.

A few years ago, I wrote a post with that exact title.

At the time, I was frustrated because I felt like nobody had taught me how money worked.

As adults, we're expected to understand loans, interest rates, retirement accounts, investments, taxes, mortgages, insurance, 401(k)s, and approximately seventeen other things that all sound very important but somehow nobody sat us down and explained.

Here you go.

You're an adult now.

Please select your health insurance, determine how much money 75-year-old you will require to survive, understand compound interest, establish good credit but don't use too much credit, save for emergencies without touching the emergency savings, and figure out whether you should be putting your money into a Roth something.

Good luck.

I wasn't completely without financial education.

My fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Segano, gave us checkbooks and taught us how to manage money before we were even old enough to drive.

I took a lifestyle math class in college that covered budgeting, loans, and basic financial literacy. To this day, I still think every student should be required to take something similar because as an adult I've used exactly zero calculus and a whole lot of budgeting.

But there were huge pieces missing.

Saving.

Long-term planning.

Retirement.

401(k)s.

Investing.

How all these things actually work together when you're trying to build an adult life.

And then there was my dad.

My dad is incredibly financially savvy.

My younger brother somehow got much more of that financial education.

Meanwhile, I spent a good portion of adulthood staring at financial paperwork like it had been translated from ancient hieroglyphics specifically to piss me off.

At one point, I asked my dad why my brother seemed to know so much more about finances than I did.

His answer caught me completely off guard.

"Honestly, I thought you'd have a man in your life to handle that."

Before anyone starts writing angry emails, let me clarify.

My dad is wonderful.

This wasn't malicious.

It wasn't intentional.

It was simply the perspective of someone from a different generation operating under a different set of assumptions.

And honestly, I don't resent it.

We all get different versions of our parents as they grow and change. My brother got a different version than I did, and I'm grateful he doesn't have to figure all of this shit out the way I did.

But that conversation did make me wonder how many women arrived at adulthood prepared to build entire lives without ever being taught the financial infrastructure required to support one.

So I started learning.

Budgeting.

Investing.

Retirement.

Saving.

The difference between good debt, bad debt, and whatever category my Amazon purchases occasionally fall into.

I thought education was the answer.

If I learned enough...

If I understood enough...

If I made smarter choices...

Surely money would eventually stop feeling so stressful.

Cute.

The Raise

Since writing that original post, life has changed.

I got a new position.

I got a raise.

I started making smarter financial decisions.

And for a brief moment, I thought:

"This is it. This is the part where I stop stressing."

Not rich.

Not yacht money.

Not private-island money.

I wasn't asking to Scrooge McDuck through a vault of gold coins.

I just wanted breathing room.

Enough money that when something unexpected happened, I could cover it without immediately figuring out which other expense had to take the hit.

No robbing Peter to pay Paul.

No turning down a spontaneous dinner with friends because spontaneous wasn't a line item in this month's budget.

No quietly excusing myself from a birthday because buying a gift would throw everything else off.

Nothing crazy.

Just enough savings that one bad month doesn't unravel everything.

Enough margin to occasionally say yes without first holding a congressional hearing with my bank account.

And then...

life happened.

Inflation.

Insurance.

Groceries.

Home repairs.

Vehicle repairs.

Vet bills.

School expenses.

The economy looked at my raise and said:

"That's adorable."

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems.

But damn if I wouldn't like the opportunity to test that theory a little more thoroughly.

Maybe even debunk it.

For science.

But Have You Tried Healing Your Money Mindset?

Of course, because I can't just have a financial problem.

I also have to apparently have a spiritual and psychological relationship with the financial problem.

You listen to enough podcasts, read enough books, or accidentally let your algorithm know you're interested in personal growth, and eventually someone will explain that your relationship with money is also part of the problem.

Scarcity mindset.

Lack mentality.

Money blocks.

Negative associations with wealth.

Limiting beliefs.

Your subconscious relationship with abundance.

Your ability to receive.

Apparently I don't just need more money.

I need to make sure I'm not energetically cockblocking the money I don't have yet.

Fantastic.

Because now I can be stressed about money and worry that being stressed about money is somehow the reason I don't have more money.

Feels healthy.

And look, I actually believe there is something to this.

The way we grow up around money matters.

The things we hear about money matter.

Our experiences with having it, losing it, needing it, watching other people control it, or never feeling like there's enough absolutely shape how we relate to it later.

But it is really fucking hard to heal your money mindset when you fucking need money to exist and the lack of it is stressing you the fuck out.

There.

I said it.

Because sometimes scarcity isn't a mindset.

Sometimes you actually don't have enough money for the thing.

Sometimes the bill is real.

Sometimes the emergency is real.

Sometimes the grocery total really did go up.

Sometimes the car actually broke.

Sometimes apparently it rains inside the replacement car, but we'll get there.

So where is the line between financial responsibility and scarcity?

Between preparing for reality and expecting disaster?

Between saving for tomorrow and being so afraid of tomorrow that you don't let yourself enjoy today?

Because here's how my brain works:

Just because that money is sitting there unused doesn't mean the future won't assign it a job I can't see yet.

That's what savings feels like to me.

It's not unused money.

It's money waiting for instructions.

And that's part of why spending can still make me anxious even when I technically can afford something.

Especially large purchases.

I will research them into the fucking ground.

Reviews.

Comparisons.

Prices.

Reliability.

Pros.

Cons.

Probably a spreadsheet if you give me enough time.

And as my recent car experience has so graciously demonstrated, even the best-laid plans can still get completely fucked up.

So yes, I'm working on my scarcity mindset.

But I would also like to formally ask:

Can I have an emergency fund without manifesting the fucking emergency?

Because I have questions.

The Cost of Existing

Let's set dreams aside for a second.

Just existing is expensive.

I have two growing boys.

I swear they eat recreationally.

Every trip to the grocery store feels like I'm funding a small sports team.

I walk out with six bags and a receipt long enough to qualify as a short story, only to discover approximately 36 hours later that apparently there's "nothing to eat."

Then there are the animals.

The dogs.

The cats.

The endless parade of creatures that somehow find their way into my orbit because apparently I suffer from a complete inability to leave a sad animal behind.

At this point, I understand why people start homesteads.

Feed ourselves.

Grow our own food.

Live off the land.

Financial freedom!

Except then I remember who I am.

I would immediately fill the homestead with rescue animals.

Then I'd need more land.

More fencing.

More feed.

More veterinary care.

More money.

More work.

More coffee.

Possibly another homestead.

This is what I mean when I say spiral.

The Car That Wouldn't Die... Until It Did

And speaking of spirals.

My car.

I had finally paid it off in December.

Do you know what having no car payment feels like when you've been making one forever?

Freedom.

Suddenly that money could go somewhere else.

Savings.

Bills.

Experiences.

Literally anything besides sending hundreds of dollars every month toward the privilege of owning the thing already sitting in my driveway.

So when repairs started piling up, I kept trying to keep it alive.

Not because I thought the car would last forever.

I knew eventually I'd have to replace it.

I just wanted a couple of years.

Enough time to enjoy being payment-free.

Enough time to save.

Enough time that when I did buy another car, I could make the decision because I was ready, not because a dying vehicle had me financially held at gunpoint.

So I repaired it.

And repaired it.

And repaired it.

At some point, I was trying so hard to preserve the financial freedom of not having a car payment that I was slowly shackling myself to the cost of keeping the car alive.

There's probably a financial lesson buried in there somewhere.

I don't want it.

Eventually, I had to accept reality.

The car had reached its expiration date.

So I did what responsible adults are apparently supposed to do.

I researched.

And researched.

And researched some more.

I compared vehicles.

Reliability.

Mileage.

Cost.

Features.

Long-term ownership.

I tried to make the smartest decision I possibly could.

I bought the replacement.

And it rained inside it.

People say it can't rain all the time.

Until it literally rains in your new car.

At that point, what are you supposed to do besides laugh?

Because crying probably causes water damage too.

The Dream Spiral

And all of that is just the cost of maintaining the life I already have.

Then there are the things I still want to build.

Every version of the future I want seems to come with a cover charge.

And that's the frustrating part.

I don't want more money because I want more stuff.

I want more money because I want more possibilities.

More possibilities to experience.

To grow.

To dream.

To make.

I want to help Tristan grow his business.

I want to grow my own ideas.

I want to build charities and nonprofits.

I want to save animals.

I want to take classes.

Learn new skills.

Travel.

Write.

Create.

Help people.

Leave the world a little better than I found it.

And every one of those things costs something.

Money, obviously.

But also time.

Energy.

Attention.

Sacrifice.

Patience.

Sleep.

Sometimes sanity.

Nobody tells you that part.

They tell you to follow your dreams.

They don't tell you dreams have monthly payments.

Concert Math

Some people have retail therapy.

I have concert therapy.

If I start acting hangry, there's a reasonable chance I either need groceries or I need a concert.

Possibly both.

Music has always been one of the few things I can spend money on with considerably less guilt.

Because I don't remember most of the things I've bought.

But I remember shows.

I remember standing in a crowd singing every word with thousands of strangers.

I remember road trips to festivals.

I remember watching my son see a band he loves and feeling myself tear up because I got to witness him having one of those moments.

The expression on his face was free.

The tickets, gas, lodging, food...

Not so much.

Unfortunately, Ticketmaster does not accept my insurance.

But I remember the moment.

And honestly, that applies to far more than concerts.

The Best Investment I've Ever Made

The best investment I've ever made wasn't a stock.

It wasn't a retirement account.

It wasn't even technically a financial investment.

It was experiences.

The trips.

The adventures.

The memories.

The stories.

I remember the road trips I took with my dad.

Though his passion for genealogy resulted in more graveyard visits than any child should reasonably experience.

There is probably a therapist somewhere reading this and nodding knowingly.

But I remember those trips.

I remember feeling like the world was bigger than my hometown.

And now I find myself looking through pictures of my own boys.

Sometimes they're smiling.

Sometimes they're actually bonding instead of actively attempting to cause one another bodily harm.

And I think:

I hope they remember this.

Sometimes I think:

I hope they remember me this way.

Some of our best experiences have technically been free.

Singing together in the car?

Free.

Gas?

Not free.

Jumping into a peat bog?

Free.

Getting all of us to Europe so we could jump into said peat bog?

Very fucking not free.

Laughing until someone can't breathe.

Free.

Getting ourselves wherever we were when the stupid thing happened that we're still laughing about years later?

Probably cost something.

Money doesn't create the memory.

But sometimes it buys you access to the moment where the memory gets made.

And those are the purchases I've never regretted.

What I Hope They Learn

That's another thing that's changed since the first time I wrote Fck Finances.*

I'm not just trying to figure this out for myself anymore.

I'm trying to decide what I want my boys to learn about money.

I don't want them to inherit my fear around it.

I don't want every purchase to come with anxiety.

I don't want them thinking money is something that disappears the second you stop watching it.

But I also don't want them thinking that because they can afford something, they need to buy it.

I want them to save without being afraid to spend.

Spend with discretion.

Understand how credit works.

Understand retirement before they're staring at middle age wondering why nobody explained a 401(k).

Invest.

Plan.

Prepare.

But also live.

Experiences over things.

And most importantly, understand that just because money is sitting there doesn't mean it has no purpose.

Sometimes its purpose is simply giving you options when life changes the plan.

I know having dreams to finance and experiences to choose from is its own privilege.

I'm grateful for that.

I've lived in places where even what I have now seemed completely beyond me.

I know what it feels like when there genuinely isn't enough.

And gratitude for where I am now doesn't mean I'm not allowed to admit:

This shit is still stressful.

The Fine Print

That's what I've learned since writing the first version of this post.

The problem was never just finances.

Financial education matters.

Money mindset probably matters.

Saving matters.

Investing matters.

Making more money certainly doesn't seem like it would hurt, despite what Biggie warned us.

But underneath all of it, I think what I've actually been trying to buy isn't stuff.

It's breathing room.

Choice.

The ability to say yes sometimes.

The ability to handle a no without everything falling apart.

The ability to absorb the unexpected without immediately rearranging the rest of my life around it.

Peace.

Safety.

And I'm starting to suspect that last one is a much bigger conversation than money.

But that's probably another post.

For now, I'm still learning.

Still saving.

Still spending.

Still occasionally staring at my bank account like it has personally betrayed me.

Still trying to figure out where responsible planning ends and scarcity begins.

Still dreaming things that apparently all require startup capital.

And despite all my complaining...

I still want the businesses.

The nonprofits.

The rescue animals.

The road trips.

The concerts.

The classes.

The experiences.

The dreams.

Nobody told me dreams were this expensive.

But if I have to choose between having too many dreams or not enough...

I'm choosing too many every time.

Even if groceries continue their quest to become luxury goods.

And if anyone figures out how to unblock their money flow without energetically cockblocking their emergency fund, please let me know.

For science.

With love (and whatever loose change the future hasn't assigned a task yet),

Your Builder,

Lauren