Photo by Echo Fine Art and Photography 

Focusing on Financial Wellness

Lauren Daugherty, Herron School of Art and Design, IU Indianapolis

After a couple years of mindful saving and spending, my husband, Rob, and I are completely debt free! No student loans, no credit card debt, and no car payments. We live on less than we make, are saving some for a down payment on a house, and are saving for retirement. All of our money is our own — we decide what to do with it. Now we get to spend our time and money doing things with our family (including our dog Georgia) and friends that we really enjoy!

How We Got Here
Rob and I started this financial wellness journey in preparation for our marriage (we are coming up on our 2 year anniversary). We wanted to start our marriage on the same page with our finances and continue that on our journey through life together.

We saw how much money we were wasting on payments and interest every month. We were tired of being controlled by our debt. After doing some research on getting out of debt, we built a financial wellness plan that would work for us. It focused on small, achievable goals — and little by little, we paid off debt while saving for emergencies and retirement.

(Editor’s note: Not sure where to begin? Schedule a one-on-one meeting with an expert from the IU Office of Financial Wellness and Education.)

It took us a couple years of missing out on some concerts, buying new things, going out to eat, and a lot of other things, but those sacrifices in the short term were well worth the benefits we are seeing now. Yes, it does stink to say “no” sometimes. But now we are able to recognize and focus on those things that are really important to us. And on the flip side, we don’t spend as much money on the things that we realized don’t matter as much to us.