Things I Wish I’d Known about Finance: It’s Okay to Fail

From the time I decided to become an attorney, my brain was always wrapped around the future.  Everything in life was set to mesh well with getting into and succeeding at law school.  That included finances.

Always careful to only take the exact amount of student aide to cover what my scholarships did not, I knew I didn’t like the idea of all that interest accruing.  I didn’t move out, I chose to stay living at home, where I could study, work, and not have to pay rent (plus I like my parents a lot, and staying wasn’t nearly the drag for me as others seemed to think it was).

After diligently planning out a savings system (make this much, put this percent in savings, keep this percent for buying books), I failed.  I began working full time at the university bookstore while I worked on my dual degrees, and found I was addicted to textbooks. 

My oh-so-perfect plan to save money so I didn’t have to work while going to law school started jumping out of my wallet.  I could not get enough books to read.  Of course, it’s easy to tell yourself in college that reading textbook after textbook is a great investment in your future, but I was out of control.

As soon as a new book hit the shelf that even had a pretty cover, I was up at the register justifying exactly why I needed to have access to the information inside. 

Then I got home, took my treasure out of the bag, and realized I failed again.  Every failure was one more day I would have to work while in law school.  One more hour I wouldn’t have for studying. 

Finally, I gave up trying to save my money.  I had never failed at anything, and it bothered me so much to continuously fail at something I had planned out for myself, I just didn’t even want to try.  How was I ever going to conquer law school if I couldn’t even conquer my own finances?

Then, I got engaged.  I immediately went to work setting up the best savings plan I could think of for the two of us prior to marriage. 

We both failed.  Miserably.  We already had a credit card and a respectable amount of college debt. 

All this time, I lied to my friends.  I told them that I had stuck to my plan, because I couldn’t bear to see their disappointment when they realized their “perfect” friend had failed at something. 

It took me years to realize that sometimes failing is okay.  Just because you fail at saving from time to time, it doesn’t mean you’ve completely lost sight of the trail.  Just because you failed, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure.  You just tripped, and it’s okay to admit it and then head out again. 

That’s what I wish I had known about finances.  There will be times you fail to do what you planned, but it’s really not the end of the world.  For me, the fear of failure was the ultimate deterrent from financial planning.  Once I realized that it was okay to fail from time to time, I was finally able to succeed.  Go figure.

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