Making the Best of a Difficult Situation
Making the Best of a Difficult Situation
My daughters started virtual school last week and the care and effort the teachers put in to make this a “real” school year is astonishing! Nothing is ever perfect and there have been some minor hiccups, but it was a great week.
The attitude and mentality you approach a situation with generally dictates your outcome. Laura and I could have infected the kids with negativity and complaints about this less than perfect situation. Instead, we chose to focus on the positives and asked a variation of:
“What if the worst thing that ever happened to you turned out to be the best thing that ever happened?”
My 3rd grader set up a bike-riding group with her friends, so they all meet at our driveway for recess and ride bikes for 20 minutes! And then they rotate hosting daily picnic lunches.
This is an incredible way to look at the problem and come up with the “best thing” solution.
What I’m Listening To
The newest episode of The Mad Fientist podcast with Morgan Housel, author of the recently released ‘The Psychology of Money’ is a must-listen. It is so jammed packed with essential quotes and ideas that I hesitate to spoil them, but I wanted to pass along Morgan’s thoughts on the benefits of FI:
“It’s not that a fancy car or a nice house is not going to make you happy, but you tend to get accustomed to it. Whereas controlling your time is something that gives most people an enduring level of happiness. And every day that you can wake up, every morning, and say I can do whatever I want today…is going to give you a lasting level of happiness that…tends to be enduring over time.”
ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week:
- Marques said, “This week we called our internet provider and reduced our monthly internet bill by $20, while simultaneously increasing our speed from 100MBps to 200MBps. $240 made this year.”
- Amanda said, “This week my family and I paid off our Prius and refinanced our house, shaving 1.65% off our initial interest rate. This frees up more than $600 extra each month for us to invest and save!”
- Austin said, “Transferred my largest taxable account from Edward Jones with T. Rowe Price funds into Vanguard's VTSAX! Also got a library card for the first time since I was 10. Checked out the Simple Path to Wealth instead of buying it. Amazing book by the way (shout out to JL).”
- Juan said, “I have been using the Wish App to purchase gifts. Wish sells a lot of unbranded items at a much cheaper price point. This has been a great option for kid’s gifts, saves a ton of money, and everyone is happy.”