i’ve recently picked up books again after hitting weird point in this post-pandemic world where i feel like maybe the way the world changed is still a little too isolating for me. after hearing ramit on a podcast or two, i decided i liked his simple philosophies and wanted to see what the hype was about, so i picked up “i will teach you to be rich” by ramit sethi.
i would be remiss in not sharing up front: i’m only halfway through and this book has completely changed how i think about my money. you see, i began to notice lifestyle creep (in addition to inflation) as i was getting raises, bonuses, and other streams of income; it never felt meaningful enough. [let me note: part of that is because every time i get a raise, so does the government. income taxes got me salty, yo. tax the rich rich, not the middle class.] ANYWAYS, i felt like i needed a framework to help me 1. diagnose my spending habits and 2. readjust them to better serve my what ramit calls “rich life.” so far, here are the big themes i’ve taken away (and honestly, it all made me feel MUCH better about what i had already been doing).
theme: get clear
it doesn’t matter if you make $50k, $500k, or $5M a year; if you don’t know what you want out of your life, you’ll never feel like you have enough. this is truly what my driving motivation was for diving into this work, if i’m being honest. i keep advancing in my career and making more money, but i’m not sure what feels like “enough” to me. joey and i are pretty good at taking a step back often and saying “WOW younger us would be so proud; we are so lucky and grateful” but there’s always more work to do on mindset and feeling fully content.
theme: investing is your ticket to make your money work for you
let’s be honest: investing, the stock market, and anything remotely related to that world has always seemed like a real walled garden where the knowledge only belonged to blue suits on wall street. my biggest aha was that it’s actually pretty simple, and even us lay people can understand it. if you want to get to the point where your money is doing more than just sitting, invest. i’ll be sharing more on what i’m doing that has been relatively easy in a different post, but know that it’s not scary and it’s totally do-able and accessible.
theme: figure out what your rich life entails
this one is a super simple concept, but i’ve had such a hard time thinking about it. the idea is to figure out what’s important to you, spend your free cash flow there, and cut in areas that do not mean much to you. i am still working on my own version of an inventory to try to help frame this up, because i feel like i’m moderately attached to many categories (wellness, eating out, shopping, etc.) but not passionate about any of them. the idea, though, of truly understanding what’s important to you and saying ‘no thanks’ to everything else is AMAZING (and honestly needs to be carried through the rest of our lives)
update: it looks like he’s coming out with a journal! i’ve already pre-ordered my copy.
money is such a weird topic, tbh. i wish we were all much less attached to it, but it feels so personal. my hope is that i’m able to share topics around money, wellness, style, mental health, career, motherhood, food, and other topics that don’t get talked about as much. i was so thrilled to sit at dinner with my two gal pals a few weeks ago and we shared what we made – revolutionary. you know why? because we are all hardworking career women with little kids at home, also primary parenting much (if not all) of the year, so to be sharing this important context can only help improve the lives of other women out there. i’m here for it.