The life you keep postponing 🌿

Welcome to Inner Equity - my weekly newsletter about building financial confidence on the path to the life you want 🏡

Each week, we break down one meaningful money concept and leave you with an exercise that you can use to put it into practice.

This week, we’re looking at the parts of your life you’ve put on hold until you reach a financial goal 👇️

If you’ve been telling yourself you’ll enjoy life more once you earn more money, it’s worth getting specific about what exactly you’re waiting to enjoy.

Some things need the money. Others have only been waiting for your attention.

Say you and your partner are saving $500 a month for a $6,000 trip a year from now. Twelve months of saving, and you’ll have two weeks away together.

You talk about slow mornings, long dinners, and finally having time for a proper conversation (one that isn’t about what needs fixing in the house).

Meanwhile, you spend most evenings next to each other on the couch, answering emails and looking at your phones. 

There’s time for a walk after dinner, but you usually decide to get a little more done instead.

The trip has become the place where you expect to reconnect, and the evenings between now and then have become something to get through.

You can keep saving for that trip. But the conversation you’re looking forward to having over dinner in another country could also happen in your kitchen tonight!

That’s the part of financial planning many of us overlook. 

We get specific about the thing we’re saving for, but spend very little time looking at what we expect it to give us.

A paid-off house might mean permission to slow down. A bigger income might mean you can stop feeling guilty about an afternoon with your kids.

The goal has a number attached to it. The permission often doesn’t, which makes it easy to keep postponing.

You get the raise, but now there’s a renovation to pay for. 

You finish the renovation, but work has picked up, and it seems silly to turn down the opportunity.

Each decision makes sense on its own. A few years can pass that way without you ever consciously deciding that work should take every evening.

Of course, money changes what’s possible. 

If you’re struggling to cover rent, more income would bring real relief, and a quiet walk won’t pay the bill.

But even when there’s room in the budget and time in the day, you might still feel that enjoying yourself has to wait until you’ve done enough.

What counts as enough on an ordinary Tuesday? 

Have you ever decided, or do you just keep going until you’re too tired to do anything else?

There’s a practice here that has very little to do with spending. It’s noticing when your attention has left the life you’re actually in.

You’re having breakfast with someone you love, but thinking about the income you’ll need next year. You take the afternoon off, but spend it mentally catching up on work.

When you notice that happening, you can come back to the conversation. You don’t have to finish solving next year first (even if the unfinished business is uncomfortable).

You don’t have to feel perfectly relaxed to enjoy some of what’s in front of you.

 You can still have a good dinner with a mortgage balance and a few unanswered emails.

Set aside 20 minutes this week with a notebook and your calendar.

1. Finish this sentence: “Once I have __________, I’ll finally let myself __________.” Use the answer that comes up first, even if it sounds a little unreasonable on paper.

2. Write down what you hope that future moment will feel like. If your answer is “a vacation,” go one step further: time with your partner, a break from being available, a chance to explore?

3. Separate what requires money from what you could make room for now. The flights might need another year of saving; an uninterrupted hour together might need a conversation about putting the phones away.

4. Put one small version on this week’s calendar. Name the day, the time, and any cost, including $0. Choose something that fits your current responsibilities, and write down what you’ll set aside so you can be there for it.

When that time comes, notice any urge to postpone it again. You’re practicing making room for something you value while the rest of your life is still unfinished.