We were doing everything right. From earning good grades in high school to getting into a well-respected college. In the gaps between parties, we studied diligently to get through courses, obtained the degrees required to land decent jobs, and launched ourselves into the “real world.” Old beater cars were traded in for new ones; we deserved them. We got engaged and got a cute golden retriever puppy to prove that we could actually keep another living thing alive. After getting married and having a baby, a larger house was purchased – one with “enough space” to raise a family – a proper home. We had a second child. We enrolled our children in a top-notch preschool. A floor-to-ceiling kitchen renovation. Another brand new car. And on and on. My wife and I, at 31 and 33 years old, found ourselves living paycheck to paycheck and had somehow racked up nearly $30,000 of soul-crushing debt – in addition to two mortgages. Over the course of several years, we had trapped ourselves under a plie of suffocating monthly payments. Endless recurring monthly fees amounted to a large portion of our paychecks leaving our account almost before it had even arrived. Although we were able to make all of our monthly payments on time without fail, it wasn’t a comfortable place to be. Simple questions such as, “Do we have enough money for me to buy clothes for work?” quickly turned into arguments. Conversations about monthly bills were either nonexistent or unproductive at best. Although the life we had built for ourselves projected great curb appeal, the day-to-day stress of maintaining it was accumulating exponentially. But how much would our freedom cost? Relief finally presented itself in the form of a financial education course held at our church. Childcare was included as well – a welcome two-hour break each Tuesday night for nine consecutive weeks. We arrived on day one, workbook in hand, eager to showcase our financial expertise. What we found, however, was that each of the other six couples were experiencing situations that were strikingly similar to our own. The real work began when we were assigned to return with a completed monthly budget on the second week. Adding up all of our debt on paper proved to be a gut-wrenching task. It hurt. How could I have allowed this to happen to our family? The total was simply astounding to me. I could literally feel the air being sucked out of the room as I presented my wife with the grand total. As our debt stared up at us from the sheet of printer paper on which it was recorded, the next startling realization was that, in over a decade together, we had never completed a real budget. Ever. We had yet to proactively plan what our dollars should accomplish for us. Instead, we had always reactively attempted to cover our prior spending decisions with each paycheck. We set out to do just that, giving every dollar a job for the month. The largest black hole into which money had seemed to simply disappear was our spending in restaurants. After tediously sifting through and categorizing spending for the previous three months, after checking and double checking math, a sum of $1,200 per month was the average. Could this actually be correct? $1,200 was the cost of being “too tired” at the end of the day to cook food we already had at home. Trips to fast food restaurants on most workdays were, little by little, contributing to an annual aggregate of $14,400. The silver lining to this realization was that we could pay off half of our debt in a year just by not eating out! We identified many other areas in which we could reduce spending in order to payoff debt. Every recurring monthly fee was ruthlessly evaluated. Gym memberships were cancelled; instead, we worked in the yard, rode bikes with the kids, and Melissa joined a (free) workout group. Our $140 cable bill was cancelled and replaced with a good old-fashioned antenna for local channels and a much less expensive Netflix subscription – an immediate savings of $125 per month. Credit cards were replaced with cash for our more discretionary spending categories, assuring that we would be more likely to feel pain as actual dollars left our hands rather than mindlessly swiping a card and counting the costs at a later time. On the opposite side of the equation, we increased our income as well. There’s always a great place to go when you’re broke – to work. By simply adding an extra day onto my usual 3-day week, I was able to increase my paycheck by greater than 33% after overtime rates and shift differentials were calculated. This is one of the many unique advantages afforded to nurses along the path to financial independence. Even though I worked overtime most weeks, I still enjoyed a three-day stretch away from work every week. Over the next several months, interesting things began to happen to us as a family. We inherently spent more quality time together while cooking meals rather than getting takeout three or four nights per week. Because our efforts were focused on the same target, disagreements and fights about money became fewer, allowing us more time to concentrate on simple things in life with true value. Budget meetings became less of a chore and more of a necessity. They naturally led to more open dialogues about how to make our hard-earned paychecks work better and smarter for us. With a boost from a large tax refund and a paycheck that included overtime hours, I made the final payment on February 24, 2017, a little more than a year since we’d started our journey. I stayed up until midnight that night; I knew the check would show up in my account at 12:01 a.m. A few clicks later, it was done. I soon realized that it didn’t feel much different to be officially debt free (aside from the mortgages) than it felt the day before. The real shift had occurred incrementally along the climb out of the hole rather than at the end with the final step. The true advantage is that sizeable portions of each paycheck now go toward funding our future dreams rather than past decisions. We had bought our freedom.
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When I heard that Alan Donegan’s PopUp Business School was coming to Charleston, I was ecstatic to put things mildly. Well-reviewed within the Financial Independence (FIRE) community, Alan’s two-week course is designed to inspire entrepreneurs to a quick debt-free start making money doing what they love. The popular program has been iterated and refined over a number of years into a process that I was sure would change my life; I had no idea just how accurate my assumption would be. I arrived with an iron-clad idea: to teach CPR classes to groups of ten people and earn a profit of $750.00 for each four-hour class -- the perfect concept for a lucrative side hustle. As a well-connected nurse living within fifteen miles of four nursing programs, a medical school, and seven local hospitals, the pool of potential customers with a legitimate need is practically endless. Combined with an enviable three-day work week in the emergency room, this rapidly developing idea would accelerate my slow jog toward the financial independence finish line into a sprint. On day 1, following a few thought-provoking exercises designed to motivate students to begin immediately, one of the first action items I was instructed to complete was to make a list of ten things that excite me. My top three items were:
Over the next few class days, my money-making idea began to grow and take shape. As I commenced to reach out to local professional contacts, the realization that demand far exceeded supply was becoming starkly apparent with each positive response. It isn’t difficult to see how multiples of $750 combined with an extraordinary savings rate would quickly move things in a positive direction toward FIRE. At some point during the middle of that first week of the PopUp Business School, I had some fleeting thoughts of the items on my Excitement List I made the first day of class. Quality time with family. Excitement of continuous learning. Complete freedom. Almost without pause, my genuine thoughts of excitement were replaced with those of dollar signs. $750 per class. $2,250 every week. $117,000 of EXTRA MONEY each and every year, all for the small price of 12 hours per week. Compounded over 10 years, that extra income would become a sum of nearly $1.8 million. Enough money to buy my freedom. I get to walk with my seven year-old boy and nine year-old girl to the bus stop every morning, usually while sipping from a cup of cheap coffee. It’s truly the highlight of my day. When I return home, I crawl back into bed with my wife and dogs for a bit. I work in my yard and garden in the morning before it gets too hot. I take naps during the middle of the day. I’m learning to do some woodworking in my garage during my free time. The kids get home, and I get to help them with their homework. Usually, at least one of them has somewhere to be; gymnastics practices, chorus rehearsals, hockey practices. It’s not very often that I’m presented with enough foresight to avoid making a bad decision. When I thumbed through my PopUp notes, I seemed to stop on the Excitement List every single time. There it was, staring me in the face.
The following morning, I made what seemed to be a much longer than normal drive to class with a knot in my stomach. How would I go about expressing my concerns with Alan and his team? While remotely hopeful that the experts would have some groundbreaking wisdom to impart that would assuage all of my insecurities, I was somehow sure that my growing discomfort would be met with some type of disapproval. There is a one-word definition for this type of feeling: Fear. However, I’m quickly finding that true progress is rarely made when I take the easy way out. At the first break, I took a deep breath, swallowed the growing lump in my throat, and asked for a few minutes of one-on-one time with one of the instructors. I shared my concerns about my perceived time-management crisis. I expanded upon my fears that, if successful in developing my business, I would be forced to give up valuable time with friends, family, and my other passions. My concerns were met with a shockingly simple question: “Do you like teaching CPR?” The reply, after a brief stare-down during which I understood that the inquiry wasn’t meant to be rhetorical: “Well, um, yeah, I’ve done it before and…” As I stuttered and stammered, attempting to craft a response that would be greeted with a subtle head nod and some positive reinforcement to extricate me from an uncomfortable situation of my own making, I began to recognize that I had allowed my desired end to justify the means. Simply put, my “why” -- making a lot of money -- wasn’t a very good one. As long as I put dollars first, the “how” would never materialize, and I knew it. Over the next several days, the PopUp folks encouraged me to keep coming. I continued to show up, day after day, at first because I had met a few friends in the group that I enjoyed talking with. I had also heard some pretty good ideas that I wanted to hear more about. By the end of the course, I recognized that I simply enjoy discussing the details of Financial Independence. This post is the result. I have a non-traditional work schedule working in a job that I love which enables me to spend huge amounts of time making long-lasting memories with my family. Simply taking a three-day block of vacation time results in nearly two consecutive weeks away from the emergency room when I travel or simply need a mental break. I am well-compensated for the work that I do as a nurse. I don’t have consumer debt and am ruthlessly intentional about my spending. I currently save 55% of my income. Alan and his entire team ultimately led me to the realization that my life is already pretty damn good. I’ll eventually get to the point where I no longer have to work if I choose not to, but you’d better believe that I’m going to enjoy the process of getting there. I found after going through this process that starting this type of business is not for me. As a matter of fact, Alan wrote a fantastic post on his blog titled Are you willing to pay the price? that discusses the related details of this type of decision. If you are even remotely considering starting a business, I would highly recommend Alan and his Popup Business School team. |
Steven MurrayER nurse pursuing financial independence. Archives |