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Your Mind is a Powerful Wealth Builder

KayMarie Baird
3 min readJan 3, 2024

Stop and listen, then start building a life you love.

Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash

I’ve spent years rationalizing debt.

I’ll get out of it eventually, I told myself. I’m young, single and it’s normal for everyone to have at least $50k in debt because of college.

Since 2016, I’ve been in five-figure credit debt. Older adults in my life spent 25 years paying off a combination of mortgages, bankruptcy, car loans, and credit card debt. This month, I’ll be 29 years old.

People I know and love have spent the entirety of my life paying debt. That’s wild.

In the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, I’ve outlined my plan to get out of debt in 1–2 years. Here are some of the tools I will use

Getting in touch with (not controlling) my emotions

After a breakup, I once spent $300 in the name of retail therapy. Safe to say I don’t have any of the clothes I kept, as they were not made to last.

Whenever I get the impulse to spend haphazardly, I instead use that on an investment or a debt repayment.

If I can’t do that, I have a cooling-off period to spend time with myself. Why do I want to spend this much? What will I do with this purchase? Is it worth the labor to earn this back?

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KayMarie Baird
KayMarie Baird

Written by KayMarie Baird

Hi, I'm an ISFJ and Certified Financial Education Instructor™. Learn financial literacy for introverts -> https://www.financialbutterfly.com

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