The struggle of moving from an exciting hobby to an obsession back to a hobby
The darker side of my personal financial journey means all the time I spent reading about finances and redoing my budget is time I wasn't using to get better at my hobbies or skills for my career. I also wasn't as interesting as a conversationalist, because most of my topics related to money, which often is an uncomfortable subject for people. Another issue I ran into was depression if I wasn't able to save as much as I thought I ought to be saving. Like a dieter that tried fad after fad, I would save every penny I could, become miserable because I wasn't using my money to enjoy life, then would break and spend a lot of money because I was miserable. Then I'd be depressed that I had spent money on myself when I could have saved it and made cheaper choices or not gone out at all. Something had to change, because I was starting to be insufferable to myself and others.
This is why it's important to follow advice from people like Ramit Sethi or David Bach or JL Collins. Do the work to set yourself up for success, then only very periodically check on it to make sure it isn't off the rails. After all, the kind of people who get the best returns for their portfolio are dead people, followed closely by people who forgot how to log into their account. While I hope to not be in the first category for quite some time, I doubt I'll be in the second category.
I'm doing better these days, but still find financial topics interesting, and I'm always optimistically reading to hope there's something that I've forgotten that would increase my net worth greatly (there isn't) but most of the time, I find something else to occupy my time with. The last day of the month, I update my spreadsheet, but it only takes me about 15 minutes, then I'm done. There's nothing else to do unless it's February and I'm contributing to and allocating my IRA. Everything else is set. My habit is mostly broken, and I am going back to reading The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday.
This is why it's important to follow advice from people like Ramit Sethi or David Bach or JL Collins. Do the work to set yourself up for success, then only very periodically check on it to make sure it isn't off the rails. After all, the kind of people who get the best returns for their portfolio are dead people, followed closely by people who forgot how to log into their account. While I hope to not be in the first category for quite some time, I doubt I'll be in the second category.
I'm doing better these days, but still find financial topics interesting, and I'm always optimistically reading to hope there's something that I've forgotten that would increase my net worth greatly (there isn't) but most of the time, I find something else to occupy my time with. The last day of the month, I update my spreadsheet, but it only takes me about 15 minutes, then I'm done. There's nothing else to do unless it's February and I'm contributing to and allocating my IRA. Everything else is set. My habit is mostly broken, and I am going back to reading The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday.
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