My financial paradox

Hi, my name is Anna and I freak out about money.

Come the first of the month, you'll know where I'll be, sitting on my couch paying bills and having a moment of panic because being an adult is really expensive. I find that very frustrating. As an achiever, I have a bunch of financial goals I want to complete and with all of them I feel like I am making no progress. Every month I am reminded of this and my achiever self gets super annoyed.

I have to constantly remind myself that yes, I am fine and yes, I will meet my goals eventually. But real life happens and one must learn to roll with the punches.

I grew up unconsciously and consciously learning a financial paradox. Often I think that I am very similar to my father. This is just one way how; I freak out about money and paying bills and not having "enough." The paradox here is that my dad was also the one who taught me how to save and budget like a champion. I think I inherited all my worst and best attitudes and habits towards money from him.

Right. Things are fine. But when unexpected medical related bills come in, I find it very hard to use my emergency savings, which exists for such moments like this. I get nervous that if I use this savings something stressful will happen like my car will completely die or I will lose my job. I know it's ridiculous. Maybe this is partly my anxiety, but it takes me awhile to rationalize my way out of this kind of thinking.

Things are a little tight right now due to my journey to discover what is wrong with my leg. (I am currently trying to save up for an MRI. Yay...) I've decide to make some monthly cuts that I really am not happy about making, but feel if I can temporarily make some changes I will feel a little bit better about my immediate financial future.

I want to try and walk that fine line of my financial paradox. I want to enjoy life (and do things like meet up with my friends and Levent in Istanbul) but also want to be frugal especially right now with my leg and my college loans. Yet, I don't want to do either of these things with a sense of panic and anxiety.

That's it. I have no insight on how to sustainable do this. That's why being an adult is tricky.

Now let's look at a calming photo of a Kansas sunset

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