Till Debt Do Us Part

Apart from infidelity, financial stress is the single most deadly wrecker of marriages. Financial difficulty is the underlying reason for most marital squabbles. The love of money may be the root of all evil, but the lack of money is the root of bitterness. Money is the lubricant of love. Like it or dislike it, you cannot ignore money. Financial independence and freedom are the springboard to other freedoms. If you do not handle your finances properly, your love nest can turn into a matrimonial shouting festival.

Most of our worries revolve around money. We can do strange things for money. Some husbands abandon their wives and travel to another country to look for money. Spouses are forced to separate geographically because of job situations. Some women, including female students, housewives, employees, etc sometimes sell their bodies to survive in the rat race. Some good men do not do good things because of money. The list is endless. You have no clue what you would do for money when the chips are really down. If your child is in hospital fighting for dear life and needs money for the life-saving operation to proceed, you are in dire straits. Your dearly beloved values can fly out the window. You may find yourself doing the unthinkable.

I have gone to this length to show the impact and consequences our personal finance has on our lives. If we do not exercise proper control over it, it can cost us dearly. It can cost us our homes, businesses, values, friendships, marriage, sanity, and even our lives. It is a very heavy price to pay because of financial indiscretion. That is why it makes no sense to spend our future in order to please people in the present, buying what we don’t need with money we don’t have to please people we don’t really care about.

When money leaves your hands, does it ever come back? What has happened to all the money that came into your hands in the past 5, 10, 15 years? Is there any trace left in terms of returns?

Debt is a scary word, but there are two kinds of debt – good debt and bad debt. Good debt makes you richer while bad debt makes you poorer. The kind of debt most folks are used to is the bad debt variety – consumer debt – borrowing to consume rather than borrowing to invest. When we run out of money to spend, and we are not done yet, we borrow. This is spending tomorrow’s income today. When you spend tomorrow’s income today, what will you use to cover tomorrow’s expenses?

When we become aware of the consequences of our spending actions, we get to think before we spend. Is it really worth it? Why not wait until we can truly afford it? Who are we trying to impress? Are we spending our capital or our profit? If you look at it from a farmer’s perspective, are you consuming your seed or your harvest? That sad truth is that we consume our seed, making sure the harvest does not show up. It does not end there. We are consuming our freedom – our freedom to choose. That is a very heavy price to pay for momentary pressure.

If you can take your eyes momentarily and consider the consequences down the road of the spending decision you are about to make, it will become clear what impact your decision will have on your financial future. Delaying gratification is not fun, but a pill you must swallow if you want to enter into the joy of your harvest. It is called sowing and reaping. Seed – time – and harvest.