Plain Advice

I have a friend who is living under a heavy load of debt. Her husband is self employed and they are struggling to keep their heads above water. The creditors are calling incessantly, and my friend is playing the choosing game… groceries or pay the credit card? I know that alot of her daily stress is attached to the financial problems she is having.

This friend told me today that an opportunity has come up for her family to receive free housing for up to 2 years. This would mean she could

• Sell the house
• Get enough cash from the sale to pay the debts
• Possibly get enough cash above and beyond what is owed in debt for a decent down payment on another house
• Save $1000 on mortgage/rent payments every month,which could be saved toward the down payment on a new house
• Because the debt is payed off, she saves $700/month (so we are at $1700 savings/month from their current expenses)
• My friend and her husband have a chance to rebuild their credit, which has taken quite a beating lately
• Most importantly, there would finally be a light at the end of the debt and bad credit tunnel

Sounds like a no-brainer, huh?

Here is where it gets tough for my friend.

• The house she would be living in, rent free, belongs to her mother (who doesn’t currently live in the home)
• Her mom is known to be extremely picky about the cleanliness of the house, the maintenance of the yard, etc. My friend enjoys the freedom of dictating her own cleanliness standards (of course… who doesn’t?)
• My friend is worried about feeling like a child instead of an adult, always having her mom to answer to when it comes to the home.
• Her mom may not allow them to have their dogs in the house.
• My friend would be moving to new school boundaries, so her kids would have to change schools.
• The kitchen is small
• She doesn’t like the wallpaper

Are these concerns valid? Yes. But the question I posed to my friend is one I think it is worth asking ourselves whenever we resist the opportunities for change in our lives:

“Is not living in your mom’s house, not having to answer to her for a year or two, not being able to have your dogs in the house, not having to move your kids to a new school, not having the small kitchen and ugly wallpaper worth staying in your current financial situation long term?” Of course, when posed that way, the question is pretty easy to answer.

This is not only about my friends situation. This same question can be posed about a variety of things.

“Is eating a donut (pizza, icecream, whatever…) whenever I feel like it worth continuing to experience all the problems that result from being overweight?”

“Is avoiding failure by never trying anything new worth the opportunities that I might miss out on if I were willing to take a risk?”

“Is not having to deal with the pain that talking about my childhood may invoke worth possibly never healing from those things I keep hidden?”

I think you probably get the idea.

When opportunity knocks, there are always excuses not to welcome it with open arms. There will always be a downside that you won’t want to deal with.

Before letting these “negatives” dictate your decision, make sure you weigh the value of staying in your comfort zone, as opposed to the value of what you might gain if you were to take the opportunity. Sometimes it is this shift in perspective that will help you take a much needed leap.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.