we were looking at the same numbers and seeing two completely different problems.
he wanted to cut the grocery bill. i was already buying the cheapest version of everything. he wanted to drop the subscriptions. i'd already been through the list three times. he wanted to find somewhere cheaper to live. i was already living somewhere that didn't match the version of home i truly wanted for my life.
THERE WAS NOTHING LEFT TO CUT!
and i remember sitting there thinking โ we are not solving the same problem. we are not even in the same conversation.
because his solution was less. less spending, less comfort, less breathing room. shrink until the numbers work.
my answer has always been more.
more books. more readers. more receipts. more proof that what i'm building is real and worth paying for.
and i need you to understand something. this is not a dig at budgets. cutting can be smart. but there is a floor. and when you are already on it, the only direction left is up. you cannot save your way out of not having enough. at some point the question stops being what can we remove and becomes what can we build.
people who cut their way to stability never feel stable. because the number keeps moving. there's always something else that could come off. the scarcity doesn't go anywhere โ it just gets quieter for a while.
i refuse that.
not because i'm greedy. because i understand that the version of me who is financially free is a better mama, a better woman, a better builder of everything i came here to build. she needs resources. and resources don't come from shrinking โ they come from creating.
this is about the two kinds of people who show up when money gets tight:
one looks at the outgoing column and starts crossing things out.
the other looks at the incoming column and asks: what else can i build.
i am the second person BUT i haven't always been the second person. it took intentional unlearning & learning.
and the distance between those two approaches is not just financial. it's philosophical. it shapes how you move, what you build, who you become.
if this landed, check out the books i write. every one of them is about reclaiming something that was taken โ including your sense of what's possible. Shop Here.
Talk Soon,
Santana Chevel ๐น