You can tell what someone values by where they spend their money.

If they value family and they take the family to the beach every year, that makes sense.
If they value personal freedom and spend the money to add a home office to their house, that aligns with their values.

It’s when your spending and your values don’t align that life feels crappy.

When you follow society’s rules instead of your own heart, that results in inner discord.

When society says you need a certain size house, but you like small and cozy, a big house feels like an albatross.

When society says you should eat brunch out with your friends every week to be social, but you would rather spend your money on day trips to festivals, you start resenting your eggs benedict.

Even when the folks in your neighborhood ask you to donate to send relief to the folks who are flooded out of their homes in Appalachia, if you value something more, that is not spending in correlation with your values.

You are in harmony when you spend your values.

Even when other people have different values.

You are not a bad person by not giving all your money away.
And you are not a good person if you give everything you own to charity.

There aren’t right values and wrong values.
There are YOUR values.

Synchronizing what you value and what you spend is the path to financial peace and happiness.

My sister and brother-in-law escaped Banner Elk, NC.
Banner Elk is a small town in the North Carolina mountains that has been devastated by Hurricane Helene and the 15” of rain that fell around it.

They were trapped with all roads leading out having been washed away.

No power, water, toilets, phone or wi-fi, and with a limited amount of food.

They finally found a way out that involved driving over electrical wires, snaking along crumbling roads, squeezing between gaps in the fallen trees and all with no GPS or maps.

They told me after they made it to my house that had they known what the escape entailed, they would not have tried it.

In these moments, we know what life is about.

It’s not about the car crushed under the tree.
It’s not about the house that has just floated away.
It’s not about all the stuff that is covered in mud.

It’s about being alive and being with the people you love.

It will take money to rebuild our mountain towns but it’s not until you are in a real pickle that you REALLY appreciate the small things that money can buy.

The drink of water.

The flushing of the toilet.

The ability to contact a friend.

I am grateful for my houseguests.
And I am searching for a way to keep this perspective for as long as possible.