Have You Arrived?

Episode Transcript

​

The Mom Training Podcast with Diana Ballard

 

Diana:  Okay, first of all, I want you to know that I’m recording right now with all my family awake. My husband’s home, and so, if you hear stuff in the background… Because I’m a mom. Alright…

 

   I want to throw something at you. I have a passion burning in my chest right now, about this topic. So, my husband just lost his job, due to COVID. And as it is scary as well, I also feel so grateful for the preparation that we have and that we're going to be okay.

 

   We could last many, many months, right now. I mean, if everything goes normally… If cars break down, medical things, obviously, would take a lot more. But if everything goes smoothly, we can pay our bills for quite a while. Now, I want to tell you some mindsets that people have been giving me before this big crisis happened in America and to the world.

 

   We just bought a new little house… “Oh, your husband just got a real job...” We had just graduated school… “You've arrived. You've arrived. You're not desolate anymore. You can buy things that you haven't been able to buy before. You don't have to buy used; you could buy new. You could pay cash for it.”

 

   Yeah, I sure freaking could. I sure could… But… “You could have got a bigger house… Why haven’t you upgraded your husband’s car?... Why are you still living like paupers? Why are you still living the way you have for years and years?”

 

   Well, I'm going to tell you right now, for this very instant, right now. The reason why every single thing that we buy is used… Why we just bought a new kitchen table for $50 and refinished it ourselves… Bought chairs that were six of them for $50. Do they need help? Yes. Do we have to repaint them? Yes. Did we have to sand down, stain, polish this table? Yes. I mean, are there little nicks in it? Are there scratches from who knows how many other families have owned something? Yeah.

 

   But I'm going to tell you, right now, I have not arrived. Meaning that it's not my time to buy the most expensive beautiful rug that I can or to just decked out my room and make it perfect. Buy the most exact, beautiful decoration or have side tables that match that are perfect.

 

   The side tables that are next to my bed right now are from when I was a little girl. A little girl. They are scratched up. They are brown. Everything else in my bedroom is white. But you know what? We're about to sand them. We’re about to sand them down, paint them white, put some new handles on them.

 

   Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on things, have we forgotten how to utilize things that are old? Have we forgotten how to take care of what we have, so that it doesn't get ruined? And who are we to think that we've arrived?

 

   I guarantee most people listening to this podcast right now, do not have $100,000 or more in the bank. And even then, and even then, unless you still live like exact paupers… You have no mortgage or whatever... It's still, you have not arrived. Like there is not a time to just throw all care financially to the wind.

 

   Okay, maybe… Maybe down the road in the future, millions and millions of dollars spent on whatever you want. But the people that have millions and millions of dollars don't spend their crap. They keep their crap, which is why they have the money in the bank.

 

   So, I want you to look around your house right now. If you're in financial struggle right now, how much did all those things cost you?

 

   And the reason why we're talking about this, is I've been interviewing moms right now. I've been talking to lots and lots of moms, especially because my husband lost his job, which is our main source of income. He’s the one that pays the bills. My stuff, that I do on the side, is for fun stuff like vacations; me being able to do anything that I want to. But our main source of income is now gone.

 

   We are not the only ones right now in the world that have had that happen. But because of living within our means, which I feel like is not talked about – people don't even know what that looks like anymore.

 

   You want to learn? Come over to Mom Training and figure it out.

 

   People are struggling right now, are losing their cars, are losing their homes, are having to sell everything that they have. It's embarrassing. It's your pride, that gets hit. These moms that I'm talking to, a lot of them are like, “Can I tell you a secret?... My husband lost his job too, a month ago and we’re really struggling about to lose everything.”

 

   Oh, gosh, dang… Gosh, dang! That sucks.

 

  And then they also tell me that they wish they would have saved more money. Their houses are perfectly decorated in the most beautiful neighborhood. Awesome new cars that they have just lost because they're not paid for. They’re tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a car that they pay $400 a month for, and they can't do it anymore. Gone. Bye-bye. Now they have no vehicles. They are surviving off of food stamps.

 

   Praise the Lord, for that system right now, for people that just don't know how to manage their finances. Let's be real. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of people right now that are learning, that they did not know how to manage their finances. They thought they were doing fine.

 

   When everything was flowing smoothly, they were fine. But managing your finances, preparation is more than just being fine when you have everything flowing smoothly. If you do not have three to six months’ worth of backup, like complete; pay all your bills stuff… You’re like, “Diana, that’s so much money. Why is that?”

 

   Why is it so much money? Is it because you're head over heels in debt? Because you decided to buy a humongous house that the bank told you that you could, and you’re like, “Oh, we could fit that in. We can fit that in our budget…” Except for the things you don’t expect; doctor's visits, you need to fix something on the house… Having to travel because someone else has a death in the family.

 

   I mean there's things that take your money other than what you can calculate, exactly… When we were buying a house, they told us that we can get something… I think it was like 50 to $75,000 more than what we paid for it. No way. No way. No way.

 

   We bought the crappiest house on the block, that needed so much freaking work and we’ve put in elbow grease with it. You have no idea how many people told us, “Just buy something nicer that you don't have to fix up, that's already done.” Yeah, and pay the price? And have our money completely drained every single month.

 

   My kids sleep in the same bedroom. All three of them are in one room. Me and my husband are in another. We have an office in the basement that we just finished. It was a nasty, disgusting, ugly, dirty, gross basement that my husband finished with his own hands.

 

   Now, I understand that our circumstances are not always the same. But what I'm trying to tell you right now is you have been lied to, that you have arrived. You have been told that- “You've made it. You're here… Oh, it’s okay to have a little bit of debt. It's okay to have a little bit of credit card debt, just go ahead and buy that decoration. Oh, your house deserves it. You've arrived you can pay all these bills. You’re perfectly fine.” No.

 

   Are you perfectly fine? Are you perfectly fine? Now, there might be some of you that have not lost a job, that have not hit financial struggle right now. But I'll tell you what, we weren't expecting this either. It's the end of October right now. The COVID stuff happened in March. We thought we were free and clear. Man, we’re feeling blessed, man.

 

   We do feel blessed that we had a job this long. But you know what? Businesses are still struggling. Businesses are still making cuts or just starting to make cuts because they're like, “We can't do this anymore. We can't keep a bunch of people around.” So, they're cutting edges everywhere now.

 

   Are you going to be next? And are you prepared for it?

 

   I just can't even… A lot of these moms that I've been interviewing, do have the perfect house. They look like they have the perfect life. And they are in pain right now. They are hurting and embarrassed and so scared right now. Because this whole lifestyle that they’ve built on stuff, this whole lifestyle that they have built on their house and the way their house looks and the way they look with your family. The match all their clothes together…

 

   Think about the Instagram picture perfect stuff. You have no idea what's going on with them right now. You have no idea how their finances are, and that they might be falling apart right now.

 

   That’s the biggest thing that I've struggled with, honestly. With you know, is my social media presence is… I don't want an Instagram picture perfect house. And I don't know how to hold that up. Because I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars for that. I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars for new clothes. I wear… My clothes are so old, that I mean, you’d shudder to know how old they are. And that there's holes in them in certain places.

 

    You know what? That does not matter to me. You know what matters is, right now. Right now, we are stable and prepared for this crisis. My pantry is stocked. I have a three months’ supply of food or more. We have enough money for months. I mean we will be okay for a long time.

 

   Do I want to drain all that? Heck, no. Is my husband looking for a job? Heck, yes. Are we cutting back on spending even more? Heck, yeah. Okay. We're not being stupid. But the whole point in learning how to manage your finances and live within your means is not for the moments when things are flowing smoothly. It's not. Not at all. Not one bit.

 

   It's for these moments right now, where life gets sucked from you in some sort of way. Some rug gets pulled out from under your feet. This moment right now is what you've been preparing for. This moment right now is why you've been working on your finances and living on a budget and doing percentages. This moment right now is where you're tested. This moment right now, is where you show what you’re made of.

 

   Is this stuff actually working? I praise the Lord, like hands up and down. Like, “Oh my gosh, thank you for teaching me from interviewing all these hundreds of moms, from interviewing all these hundreds of moms to find out how I could organize my finances, organize my family, organize my life. Create my life.”

 

   But specifically, right now, my finances. Because we are going to be okay because of living this system. This Mom Training system that has been created from hundreds and hundreds of moms over the years, to set us up right now to be prepared.

 

   Now, if you don't feel prepared, if you're like, “You know what, this sucked so bad, I had nothing to show for it” … Gosh girl, you can't have that happen ever again. Let this painful moment be something that teaches you, that stretches you, that pulls you away from consumerism, from keeping up with the Joneses. From feeling like you have to be in a certain house, and it has to look a certain way, and you have to dress a certain way to feel good about yourself.

 

   Let's be real. A lot of pain is happening right now in the world. And it's because there was a lack of preparation, a lack of saving money, and tons and tons of spending it, tons and tons of debt, tons and tons of stuff. If you're getting a spanking right now in the financial department, learn from it and then find information that's going to make it so that never happens again.

 

   This is why Mom Training was created. Because this stuff is not taught. Specially for families, especially for moms, you got to know this stuff. And gosh, too bad you didn’t know the stuff two years ago, so you’d be prepared and not be struggling financially right now.

 

   There has to be a change in how we do our finances. We can’t do this again. We won’t. And hopefully, the pain will remind you, to never do it again.

 

   Let us remember that the voices in our head, the people talking to us, that tell us that we’ve arrived, is falls. The things that are telling us that, “Oh, you can afford it… Oh, it’s not that big a deal. You can pay off your credit card later”… Thousands, and thousands, and thousands of dollars later? Right.

 

   You are worth more than stuff, than a huge house, than a perfect rug in your kitchen. You and your peace, your financial security, the strength of your marriage, the rearing up of beautiful, happy, good children, is worth more than the stress that you’re feeling right now, because of your lack of knowledge in finances, and managing your finances. It’s time to make some changes, and you know that because it’s changing you no matter what.

 

   This is a rough period of life for a lot of people. Don’t give up on becoming better. Don’t give up on learning what you need to, but it might be time to accelerate your learning. It’ll save you more time and energy than you’ll even realize… and money.

 

   Come over to Mom Training and join us. You can’t do this anymore. It’s not healthy for you. The anxiety, the depression, the stress, the fights in your marriage is not healthy for you anymore, and never was. But it’s reached a whole new level now.

 

   We got this. We can do this. And I’ll see you next Tuesday on The Mom Training Podcast.

​