Merry Almost Christmas!
Can you feel the extra warmth and coziness in the air? This season is so magical and wonderful, and can also be filled with some anxiety and frustration, especially regarding finances. Beneath the iced gingerbread cookies and start-topped tree there can be an underlying current of wanting and needing more. More money for more gifts for more happiness stuffed into bigger stockings on Christmas Day. Luckily, along with living and believing wholeheartedly in minimizing that feeling of needing more, we also have worked hard in our family to create a culture of self-sufficiency, and together with the financial tools at Capital One can continue to set and achieve goals to live within our means and pay off debt wisely with debt consolidation.
After 4 years of Law School at a wonderful, expensive university, you better believe we know a little something about debt. In fact, because of when we went to school, our student debt has a higher interest rate than our home! By about double. The payment is built into our budget in a way that doesn’t feel too expensive, but stepping back I can see how it will be such a relief when that is all paid off.
The feeling of debt is heavy, and during the holidays it can be tempting to ignore the reality of a financial situation in order to meet personal, processional, or social expectations. I don’t even enjoy shopping and I get wrapped up in all of the marketing, email blasts, sales (oh! the sales!) and all of the sudden find myself feeling that I need every single thing.
The truth is that I know for myself that less feels like more, and simplifying my life, my list, my holidays allows me the space and peace of mind to enjoy everything so much more. Less is more. It really is! The intentional LESS expands with the peace and joy and calm of stepping out of the rat race and being still for a moment, sitting in gratitude.
Capital One, which whom we have managed our finances for years, has a whole box of financial tools to help keep things simple. Their debt consolidation program allows people to gather loans from different areas of life (student, credit card, personal) into a single, simple monthly payment, and may even lower the overall interest rate. Keep it simple. The process of making financial changes can feel daunting, and by visiting capitalone.com, you can quickly and easily get a customized rate, and estimated loan amount, and even begin an application, all without impacting your credit score.
Although we haven’t yet used these specific resources ourselves, we have been happy with the overall experience working with Capital One and I’m often playing around with our numbers to see what options are available to simplify our finances.
I’ll start with staying in my Christmas budget, leaving those extra cute sweaters and boots on the shelves (who needs sweaters and boots in Texas, anyway?) And enjoy what really matters this holiday season. My family, cultivating love and joy into my home, and focusing on gratitude for all I already have, which is more than enough.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
