Financial Headwinds on the Path to FI

I’ve been see­ing some thoughts pop up on Twit­ter over the last few months that have sparked an idea in my brain. Obvi­ous­ly, every­one’s jour­ney to Finan­cial Inde­pen­dence will look dif­fer­ent. But what are some of the ways our paths dif­fer? Our jour­neys are dif­fer­ent because we’re all fac­ing dif­fer­ent finan­cial head­winds. Let’s look at some of the finan­cial head­winds I’ve faced on my jour­ney so far. 

Early Days

Wayyyy back in the old­en days (ok fine the late 2000’s), ya girl was in high school. I had the basics tak­en care of for me cour­tesy of my par­ents like food, shel­ter, some clothes, and lunch mon­ey. Every­thing else I want­ed was on my own. A major finan­cial head­wind for me in high school was pro­vid­ing the mon­ey for my own cell phone plan — and a pay-as-you-go plan at that. $60 a month does­n’t seem like all that much now, but it was a major drag for me to scrap up that kind of dough each month. Things got slight­ly bet­ter when I got my first job at Toys R Us, but my head­winds increased right along with the increase in cash flow. Sud­den­ly I need­ed to have mon­ey to pay my car pay­ment ($150/mo for 18 months), insur­ance, and gas.

My class­mates did­n’t under­stand what I was going through as they were fac­ing either no head­winds at all or even a sig­nif­i­cant tail­wind, help­ing them to suc­ceed. I once had a con­ver­sa­tion with a class­mate who was com­plain­ing her lit­tle sis­ter got a nicer car for her 16^th birth­day than she cur­rent­ly had. I don’t remem­ber what car her lit­tle sis­ter got but I dis­tinct­ly remem­ber her com­plain­ing about dri­ving a 2 year old Jeep. I offered to trade her cars. When she heard I drove an old­er POS Dodge Neon that came with the afore­men­tioned car pay­ment, her nose wrin­kled up and I got an “ew no way” in response. Her tone was on par with Alex­is Rose in Schit­t’s Creek. To this day, I doubt that par­tic­u­lar class­mate has any more empa­thy for those in dif­fer­ent finan­cial situations.

Over­shad­ow­ing the oth­er finan­cial head­winds in high school was, of course, the loom­ing moun­tain of how to pay for college.

College

I was incred­i­bly for­tu­nate to have all my efforts in high school pay off in the form of a full-ride aca­d­e­m­ic schol­ar­ship for col­lege. With my mil­i­tary stipends com­ing in each month, the degree to which I felt the head­winds less­ened dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Head­winds were still there, but much more man­age­able than before. 

I was nowhere near strug­gling in col­lege like some of my friends. They had to pay for their own hous­ing, food, school, books, car, phone.…. every­thing. Those are some hur­ri­cane-lev­el head­winds to over­come. Because of my expe­ri­ences in high school, I was in a bet­ter spot to under­stand the dif­fer­ences between me and my friends. I made sure to pay for activ­i­ties I sug­gest­ed like going to see a movie with a friend or cov­er­ing their drinks for a night out. 

Early Career

It’s at this time in my life that I start­ed to tru­ly under­stand how my priv­i­leges in life led to few­er head­winds for me. Even though I had few­er priv­i­leges than some peo­ple I had grown up with, I still had a lot going for me. I had got­ten a glimpse of it in col­lege, but this stage of life real­ly drove home the differences.

I did­n’t have stu­dent loans. I did­n’t have fam­i­ly that need­ed sup­port­ing each month. I did­n’t have a child to take care of. I did­n’t have expen­sive health issues that imped­ed my abil­i­ty to work and earn mon­ey. My car was all paid off and rarely had mechan­i­cal problems.

The lack of major head­winds at this stage in life real­ly helped me get ahead in life. 

Adulthood

Now, my head­winds are more like tiny breezes on a nice sum­mer day. I have to pay $300 a year for glass­es or con­tacts to be able to see. I pay $50 a month in med­ica­tions to help man­age my ADHD. I am a woman, so a lot of prod­ucts I buy charge a pink tax or are just straight up some­thing men don’t have to wor­ry about like fem­i­nine prod­ucts or bras. (Men, you do not know how good you have it!!!)

Conclusion

On paper, two peo­ple who earn $100k should be able to save exact­ly the same with the same amount of income, right? 

Wrong! 

A great exam­ple was pro­vid­ed by my friend Matt Lane on Twit­ter recent­ly. He earns what most peo­ple would con­sid­er to be a high salary. How­ev­er, he also has a lot of finan­cial head­winds against him at the moment. He lives in Wash­ing­ton, DC, a high cost of liv­ing area. More like super high if you ask some­one who lived there for a year (psst that’s me. DC is super expen­sive!). Child­care for 2 chil­dren is $4,600 a month. $2,000 a month goes straight to stu­dent loan repay­ments. Add in $2,300 a month for a decent apart­ment and that’s $106,800 before you add in oth­er neces­si­ties of life like food, clothes, dia­pers, trans­porta­tion, inter­net, phone, and oth­er basics. So yeah, he might earn a ton of mon­ey, but he’s also expe­ri­enc­ing severe finan­cial head­winds against that high income. 

So before we read a Mon­ey Diary on Refinery29 that makes us tsk our tongues and raise our eye­brows, remem­ber income is just one part of the puz­zle and some­one might be fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant head­winds that you aren’t. Or, what is the equiv­a­lent of a light breeze for you might be the equiv­a­lent of the Weath­er Chan­nel reporters stand­ing on the shore before a hur­ri­cane makes land­fall. I’ve been for­tu­nate in life to face favor­able winds and I only hope the same for every­one around me! 

As always, thanks for read­ing! Are you fac­ing any sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial head­winds? Sound off in the com­ments below!