fbpx
This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our full disclosure policy for details. Thank you for your support!

Find this useful? Share it so others can find it!

Ok, close the door behind you I have a little confession to make.

(Deep Breath) I’m nearly debt-free and I’m starting to worry.

Ok..truth be told… I’m in full freak out mode for some reason.

7 years ago we were almost debt free. We could have done it soooooo easily. Our house was almost paid off, our vehicles were paid off…

Truth TimeThen we decided to build a home that we would eventually retire in. Not the smartest financial decision in a lot of ways. Though we were great at justifying it to ourselves. To be fair I’m doing most things with the long run in mind, and the house seemed to make sense.

Then we got pregnant… again (which is awesome, two kids is way easier than one for some reason).

Then we had our debt. Over $320,000 in a shiny new mortgage. Yikes!

Click here to see debt free living is like?

I didn’t like it, but I slept fine at night.

You see, I’m really good at paying off debt. I can handle the long game of debt repayment, it’s guaranteed. Sure it’s not always the smartest financial move. But there is a certainty in it, put extra down on the mortgage and it comes off your principle. It’s a low, but guaranteed, investment return.

 

I’ve been doing it for a while. I hate debt, and I love to kill it. My banker even asked me at one point “Why build now?” and I said, “Because I suck at investing, but I’m great at paying down debt. I’ll focus on what I’m good at to build my wealth. That way I can learn about investing while we pay it down”

 

Now that huge focus of 6 years will be done (4 of them laser focused). While part of me is thrilled to no longer have payments (seriously they are a huge pain), there has been this growing pit in my stomach.

 

Don’t get me wrong it’s a great problem to have.

But I thought I would be feeling some type of relief or elation. Instead I feel like I’m staring into an abyss and have no real clue what to expect.

 

Soon there will be no debt to focus on, only wealth building, and that’s great. Don’t get me wrong. But I don’t have a ton of experience with the growing assets side of things.

 

Most of the time, my thoughts on personal finance are pretty grounded and well thought out. You can look at debt repayment and see how it’s going to go, there are no surprises. With investing and growing money, there are a more ups and downs (just see this months Net worth report).

 

Oh and the other thing is, like I mentioned earlier, I used to suck at investing. But I’ve spent the last 6 years learning about it and dabbling a little with stocks, options and real estate evaluating.  Now it’s time to put those to use. With markets being in such turmoil, I’m starting to see some good buys out there and they keep getting better.

 

In a strange way… It’s kinda like graduating high school, you can’t wait to be done with it, and see what the world will look like when you don’t have this burden, but at the same time that burden has become your normal.

Really the more I think about it, it’s just about leaving the current normal and making a new one.

I guess it’s time for a new normal!

Ok, I’m all better now, you can open the door now. Thanks for listening!

One quick question: Am I crazy? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Find this useful? Share it so others can find it!