Financial Seasons Yields Strategy: How The Pain Helps You To Pivot

We have been experiencing an insane shift in the weather and wealth lately. It can be 70 degrees one day at 45 the next and when it comes to wealth - the unemployment rate is telling us what we’re seeing in the news isn’t happening. But when it comes to different seasons of our life, we can get context clues from things that we succeeded in and sucked in. Call it a balance to the imbalance that life is giving some of us right now.

I’m going to use myself as an example. Why? Transparency is a tactic; it gives people insight from a real place on how to restructure to move forward. I pride my platform on not only the insights I have for people to move better (especially with money), but give examples. No jargon or judgment here. 

I saw this tweet some time ago and it was REAL. 

I spent about 3-4 years living in overdraft. I moved to Texas & was still only getting paid $15/hr with a masters while I was obtaining hours. This week I just went shopping for myself for the first time in 4-5 years. Not just buying one outfit for an occasion— I went shopping.

— #ThreadTherapist (she/her) (@ATMwithJacy) February 26, 2023

*Pause* One of the things I feel is going to be different about this murky recession is that Community will be critical to people's survival. I said this on other platforms recently, but the examples keep stacking up. Imagine having the perspective and platforms we have now, back during the 2008-ish recession. Whew. 

The tweet talked about how the woman went through a tough season and how it impacts her now. That trigger tracked her from one season of her life to the next.

But seeing her tweets, brought me to reflect on my own season. If you want more context about my season and how it set me up to not only create what you’re experiencing now but heal from that financial trauma, read this post.

As you can see, I talked about how being on Food Stamps helped me learn how to budget better when it comes to grocery shopping. But when most of us have to seek help or assistance to survive, it can have us thinking about what we perceive as a low, but we have to try to look for leverage in it. 

I was in the grocery store recently and a lady who gets food stamps seemed ashamed. Told her don't be - being on food stamps years ago taught me about budgeting for food. This whole thread was so good, but made me think back to my own growth with $. Conversations help so many ppl

— Nadia Vanderhall (@NVKnows) February 27, 2023

The thing when it comes to seasons is that some of us can’t get past the past (say that three times fast) and it can keep us there. The core thing about it is that IF we stay in the timeline and trauma that the previous season gave us. What I want more of us to do is to use that as a playbook on how to handle the great things there’s to come. 

The conversation around lifestyle creep is more than TLC doing the dance and us following along, it’s also about some people not healing and growing from that tough time. Do you know the saying of how if you can’t handle $10, you can’t handle $100? That’s the baseline for the lifestyle creep. But, the thing that comes with moving from one season with that insight to build better for the next is to know that it will take time and tactics to get to that thriving that we hope for. 

You will mess up. You will feel like you’re going to mess up even more. You will feel like you’re not doing enough. The thing with this cycle is to keep going, collect data and continue to do the work. Here are some additional tips: 

Honor that last tough season. Take what you learned from it to see what can be used in this next level. What worked well, what didn’t, and what helped me succeed? 

• Take those insights to help build your life. For instance, you might’ve had to thrift more than buying new, but did it help you know what quality feels and looks like? Only to then try to find it for less? 

• Getting help to move through the hard. I’m not just talking about working with me, but other people as well. This could be a therapist or life coach. When you analyze the pits and pains of your life in what you’re experiencing now, you can find your team to keep you on track. 

• The formula can change for the better. Don’t think that you still have to operate in fear to drive through this next level. Take the ingredients and see what needs to be done to make the cake better. But you will not be able to do that without doing the work; no matter how much you feel that work is working for you. Life is still life-ing us ALL, but we have to reverse engineer the path of where we’ve been to where we are to go to where we want to go. 

Community is most definitely going to change the currency cycle. What are some of the things you had to experience that helped you better understand the season you’re in now?