Your Finances: What Matters Most

What is important? 

A balance sheet consists of a simple formula where assets less liabilities equal equity.  This standard two-page financial statement details a business’s net worth.  For an individual, the formula is the same.  Assets less liabilities equal net worth (or equity). 

When you forgo spending and save money, you increase your ability to fund later investments and expenses therefore increasing your net worth.  We live in a world that teaches us to pursue shiny and look at our friends and neighbors while comparing our shoes and watches. 

Our friends and neighbors are conditioned the same way, and you can’t access social media without some sort of message that someone has a better life, more money, a better vacation or more successful kids. 

We are all responsible for our own financial lives, and if you don’t believe me, ask someone who has suffered hardship.  Your friends and golf buddies won’t pay your mortgage, and this is not a bad thing, but adulting means taking responsibility for your own path through the days. 

When your money is sitting in the account, and you see the numbers rise, it’s normal to say I could do some good with this, have some fun, or fulfill some need.  That money sitting in the account represents work that you do not have to do to support yourself and the people you love. 

That abstract balance on your investment report represents freedom and peace of mind.   That is what you are buying with your savings.  We all have the right and ability to decide what we want.  Do you want stuff, or do you want peace?  A few of us in this life manage to find the peace that financial stability provides.  A few of us manage to keep it, and a few of us manage to teach our kids to do the same. 

It’s your world.  What do you want?