Do you ever wonder what your life would look like if money weren’t a limiting factor? Like if you won the Powerball tomorrow how would it change? Would it stay the same? Could you make that life now?
I’ve been learning about budgeting and creating a rich life by spending money on the things that matter and pulling back on what doesn’t. As a self-proclaimed homebody, I find what matters to me is vastly different than others. No extravagant European vacations calling my name but talk to me about couch upholstery, linen sheets, and more houseplants. Always more houseplants.
Once in a while, I like to write and share about things off the beaten path, in a little series I like to call the “Dirt Road Diaries.” It’s a collection of posts about the musings of life, living intentionally, life in the country, and making memories.
It’s been a while since I’ve written a Dirt Road Diaries post but I was inspired after listening to episode #35 from the A Beautiful Mess Podcast, titled “Rich Life Chat with Ramit Sethi.” I’ve listened to this podcast episode more times than I care to share and am perpetually reading through Ramit’s book “I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Before we go too far, this is not a post about personal finances, investing, or any of those things. It’s about living a rich life and how this self-declared homebody is designing a rich life.
What Is The Rich Life?
When I worked full-time in marketing and my eldest was in daycare, I dreamed about a day when that wasn’t our reality. To get through the hard days with impossible deadlines or getting yelled at by a colleague, I would dissociate and fantasize about being at home with my daughter, slowly cooking meals together, sourcing our food from the local co-op or farms, growing a big garden in the backyard together, and living a slow intentional life together.
That my friends is a rich life. It’s an ideal life tailored specifically to you and only you.
It’s also about spending extravagantly on what you care about and mercilessly cutting back on what you don’t. Kind of like a minimalist mindset to money.
So for me, who values the homebody life and quality time with my family, my rich life includes spending money on special wallpaper for my daughters’ room and not spending on dinners out.
Why Knowing Your Rich Life Is Important?
For me, knowing what my rich life looks like is motivating. SOOOO much more motivating than the goal of paying off our mortgage. Just think about it. What’s more motivating…getting to spend money on a gorgeous kitchen range or paying an extra thousand dollars off the mortgage? I’ll take the range for $1,000, Alex.
I’m in a season of sacrifice. Of balancing caring for my family with trying to grow a business. Waking up at 4:30 or 5:00 am, before my family gets up to write words. Or missing out on bedtime reading (my favorite) because it’s been a week since my last post and I need to finish writing.
Knowing that if I put in just a little extra effort to squeeze in work time, means I may be able to buy organic, local groceries without worrying about the price. Now THAT is motivating to me as part of my ideal, rich life.
And a rich life isn’t about money. The money is a tool for living the life you want the way you want. For me, it’s a slow, simple, country life with my family.
While I’ve always dreamt about my rich life, I’ve never written down what it looks like. Getting clarity on goals can be extremely helpful to help determine where resources should go, to motivate to grow that business, to help measure progress, and to make decisions in general. Sooooo…
What Does My Rich Life Look Like?
Oooooh, the fun part. The dreaming part. While my rich life shifts some here and there, for the most part, it’s stayed the same. Let’s go.
Raise My Kids At Home Instead Of Daycare
My number one. I want to be there for my kids as much as I can. Hosting play dates, spending an afternoon at a playground, gardening together, or lazing at the local swimming hole on a random Tuesday morning.
I dream of a day where my daughters’ friends come over after school, and sit at the kitchen island, as I prepare an epic snack board. Any excuse to make a snack board!
Renovate And Decorate Our Home
I am so passionate about DIY, renovation, and creating a meaningful, thoughtful home. What often limits me on doing the things I want is budget and time. I can only imagine what it would be like to 10X our home renovation budget. But the more I blog, the bigger our budgets are getting (or the quicker we can get to a project).
When dreaming about a bigger renovation budget, I see a custom-designed, post-and-beam barn/garage built into the hill where the original once stood, a studio outbuilding, new windows for the first floor, a dreamy 48″ range in the kitchen where we custom build the cabinetry around it, and more. Oh and the tools! And the workshop! Le sigh.
But it is amazing what we can do with limited budgets, like our most recent bathroom renovation.
Grow A Massive Garden Full Of Vegetables
Gardening is my passion. Maybe my biggest passion after renovating. The more time I spend in the garden, the more fulfilled and safe I feel. There’s just something about learning how to grow food that gives me this sense of security.
Growing food is a huge value for me and our family, growing food together. With a bigger budget, it’s easier as I can build a potting shed to store my equipment or other systems to make it easier to scale up our food production. Or just make it a more beautiful space to be in.
Source Local Organic Food To Supplement Our Garden
Local agriculture and supporting our food systems are vital to our family and community. This looks like shopping at our local co-op which sources local food as much as possible, signing up for a meat CSA with the farm across the river, and walking down to the organic farmstand at the end of the road on a nightly basis.
In my rich life, I do these things without batting an eye at the cost. While we do these as much as we can, our current budget doesn’t entirely support going all in. We still shop at BJs on the regular and buy our chicken in bulk.
Run A Business With Extreme Flexibility
I always hated the idea of working my tale off for someone else, just to turn around and give that money to a daycare. And while I loved the idea of being a stay-at-home mom, I also enjoy having work of my own. I needed a business on the side so I could keep working in a flexible capacity to be there for my children.
Blogging is a perfect business for the flexible life I crave. I can do blogging in small increments when children are home and scale up when they’re at school. It’s the business I want to power our rich life and earn passive income in seasons when they come first.
Road Trips For School Vacations
I dream of taking epic road trips with our children. And by epic I mean EPIC! Like, driving to California to see the Pacific Coast Highway. Making stops along the way to visit state or national parks, concerts, historic sites, or anything that pulls us.
Or maybe it’s a drive to Florida for spring break with a pit stop in Nashville to eat the eats. The trip is all about the experiences along the way, the random roadside diners, and recommendations from the locals.
It’s the one element of my rich life that strays from the homebody life. But when I think of how I want to travel, it has a homebody element. Renting AirBNBs for extended periods, creating a home base, or even pulling a camper (our home away from home) to do the National Parks circuit.
Give Generously
In my rich life, I give generously without thinking twice about it. Last weekend we had some friends in our community suffer a tremendous blow. I wanted to give everything we had towards their GoFundMe account but couldn’t.
In my rich life, I want to donate what I want to those in need. To give generously to our community. I love this community and the people in it and am working hard so I can be in a place of giving without limits. Well, some limits, just much larger limits.
Summer Lakehouse Home Base
My final, yet biggest, rich life moment is owning a small lakehouse that can serve as our home base in the summer. It would be a fixer for sure because you know how much I love DIY and design, and super tiny. I’m talking 800 square feet or less.
One of those vintage, camp camps by the lake where Colby can fish his heart out, the kids splash in the water, and there are backyard s’mores after dinner every night. A place where the screen door squeaks and the stove is too small to cook anything substantial inside, so it’s grilling every night. A place to invite friends and family to gather, soaking in the summer nights.
How I’m Already Living My Rich Life
You guys…I’m already there (insert random song break and sing it with me). I’m alllll-ready there…take a look around…I’m the sunshine in your hair…..uh….now it’s getting weird. Let’s call it good there.
I love that I’m already living parts of my rich life although on a much smaller scale than I envision. But with every blog post I write, every page viewed, and every month the blog earns just a little bit more, the budgets for my rich life are growing.
I’m incredibly fortunate and privileged that my husband’s salary covers our basics. Things like the mortgage, bills, savings, investing, groceries, and the bare minimum of living. What it doesn’t cover are the extras. The rich life things like adventures, house projects, home decor and furnishings, and more.
How To Find Your Own Rich Life?
So I’ll leave you with encouragement to define your rich life, find a way to budget for what matters most to you, and cut back on what doesn’t to make your rich life a reality. I highly, HIGHLY recommend starting with Ramit Sethi’s book or blog. Or both.
What a beautiful post! Focus on what is important to you!
This post really hits home, I’m a homebody myself!
Wonderful concept that I will be using! Thank you. Funny to think about how different a “simple” life can look between individuals. You dream of a “super tiny” lake home for summer that is 800 sq ft…. My kids and I live full time in a 700 sq ft space. It is indeed small, but enough. It is a lovely, sunlight-filled space. My “dream” space for full time living might be 900-1000 sq ft.