Defining My Best Life
I recently shared a weekly gem on Instagram that asked you to think about what it would mean to live your absolute best life. If you saw that post, maybe you’ve been thinking about it since then. The concept came from Rachel Rodgers’ book, We Should All be Millionaires, where she takes the time to figure out how much money she would have to earn to be able to live the best version of her life. I was inspired to do the same for my own life, not realizing until I started doing it, just how powerful an exercise it really was. Here are some things that I learned from doing this, and also some details about what my best life would mean.
My best life is not as far out of reach as I think it is. The total cost estimate for my best life is about 3x what I currently earn. So, a lot of money, but not an insane amount of money. In creating my best life budget, I thought of all the things I could possibly need money for. So, not just housing and travel, but also self-care, personal maintenance, giving, saving and investing. My budget ended up being about half regular, recurring expenses, and half intermittent or one-time costs. Maybe for you, you realize that your best life is within reach too, maybe even that you could afford it now, if you changed your financial priorities. Maybe you’ll learn that in order to live your best life, your entire life would have to change radically. Take note of it, but you don’t have to act on it right away.
What really matters to me isn’t the same as what society (or at least social media) says should matter. Once I figured this out, it has been so helpful to me, because it helps me to say no to things that I don’t actually want. For example, I am not interested in owning an investment property, and therefore this is not included in my best life budget. This may change in the future, but I’m not building my life around that expectation. This goes against most of the get rich advice on the internet, but I do not care, because this does not matter to me. Being able to give generously and also to do fun activities does matter to me, however, and my budget reflects that.
There’s freedom in defining a goal. Because I have already figured out how much is abundance for my own life, I feel free in all of my other financial choices. I have defined what is important to me: having a nice place to live, being able to give money to family, not having to clean my own apartment, being able to travel often, having a sizable nest egg. This helps me ignore all the other stuff that gets advertised to me, because those things are not part of my goal, and it helps me check things off on my journey to my best life.
What I think and feel about money is important. For some of you, seeing above that my best life budget is 3x my current salary is paralyzing. If you’re like me, whose money ideology is “I can always earn more money” this might be inspiring. This is important for me to know about myself because it helps me define my limits so that I don’t spend money just because I can, but also so that I am able to spend money if I want to. Maybe for you, you learn that the idea of having all the money that you need is actually scary, because you think that having money means that you are a bad person. Or maybe the thing that makes you most comfortable is seeing a big balance in your savings account, so that you know that you can afford almost anything that comes up. How do those beliefs influence your best life budget?
I added something else to Rachel’s exercise, which I called Best Life Now. I looked at the budget that I’d created, and figured out what elements of that budget I was either already living, or could be living. For example, I have $200 in my best life budget for flowers, so that I could always have fresh flowers. That wouldn’t be a good use of my money currently, but I can definitely afford a $60 flower subscription instead, which delivers flowers to my doorstep once per month. Also, part of my Best Life Now includes having a $5 latte at work every day, and getting my nails done every three weeks.
Here are the line items in my best life budget:
Housing
Transportation
Savings
Retirement
Investments
Family
Tithes & Offering
Giving
Travel
Food
Experiences
Nails
Lashes
Hair
Housekeeping
Flowers
Fun Activity
Spa Days
What would your best life look like? What’s on your list? Let me know if you do this exercise, let me know what you learn from it!
