I Have a Confession

We all have strengths. We all have weaknesses. The combination of the two make us who we are as people.

As you may already know, one of my strengths is financial literacy. I am financially competent and able to make decisions suitable for my goals. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean I always make the right decisions. We all make mistakes and sometimes what we intend to accomplish with our decisions doesn’t always translate to reality.

My Weakness

So I have a confession…

Despite having a sound understanding of personal finance, one of my biggest weaknesses cripples my progress and adds resistance to my journey to financial freedom and wealth building strategy. And this weakness is…

Nice Cars.

That’s right. If you know anything about personal finance, hopefully it’s that the biggest expenses for us as average consumers is shelter, transportation and food. So already, this means having a car – any car is already a big portion of my expenses. Turn that “any car” into a “nice car” – even an entry level german sedan, and you have yourself an exponentially higher expense for that transportation category of your expenses. Premium fuel, higher insurance and higher maintenance costs to list a few.

But there’s nothing I can do. Luxury cars are just as important to me as is frugality (first world problems, I know). I cannot change that, no matter how responsible I want to be, because it’s just a part of me. It is my passion. I’m sure many of you can relate to that in one form another, whether it be nice cars or traveling the world.

Why It’s OK

There’s nothing wrong with having expensive passions if you can find a balance. Yes, I tend to splurge a large sum of money on cars. But I do not spend money on extravagant vacations, expensive meals and fancy clothing. I don’t intend to purchase a mansion or to travel the world in a short period of time. All those cost savings can be reallocated to MY passion instead. As an example, the amount of money the average consumer spends on dining out alone can be exceed $2,500 a year. I would rather just eat at home for a fraction of that, and spend it on my passion instead!

The Lesson

The lesson to learn here is, while personal finance and expensive hobbies (nice cars) don’t mix, we can do our part in making the ends meet by balancing out the opposing forces. We can sacrifice areas of our budget that are less important to us, in order to care for areas of our budget that are more important, without causing as much harm to our financial wellbeing.