Wheel of Life

Wheel of Life

A topic I come back to a lot.

Today I was feeling flat so utilised the wheel of life template to remind myself how good life actually was.  And it is really good.

I scored my life 7 or above for Career, Friends & Family, Significant Other, Personal Growth, Fun & Recreation and Physical Environment.

My wheel of life has 2 areas with a score lower than 7 (5 years ago this was usually the opposite; I rarely had more than one or two areas above 7!).  And luckily for me both of these areas are within my control.  Probably way too much detail for my blog, but it feels helpful to me to write it all down.

Money

The lowest score for me is my ‘money’ sector.  This is self inflicted and can be fixed by me too.  I earn good money, but I am not good at saving.  I also have high expectations of myself and how much I save and invest.  But I have very clear goals to get to a point where money stops causing me stress.   

Where I am at:

• We have a mortgage that takes up 50% of my monthly net pay.  DH could not pay the mortgage if I was out of work.  Income protection insurance (which I do have) only kicks in if you are physically unable to work.
• I have an over draft, a personal loan and a car loan
• I have little job security and no savings
• We have not had a proper holiday in nearly 2 years
• We have a long list of thing we want to do to make our house a home

The choices that got me here:

• I am a contractor so I do not get paid if I am not at work, and I do not have a lot of job security (who does these days!).   I base my budget on working 40 weeks per year to compensate for these two facts.
•  I do get paid more as a contractor but I have let my expenses get to the stage where I need my contracting rates to cover expenses.
• I borrowed money to make improvements to my previous house three years ago and the loan is still being paid off
• I took out a car loan 2 years ago to buy a new car instead of buying something older
• My DH was out of work for quite a while and even now is only ‘casual’ so does not have a steady income.  I continued to assume he would get a job ‘any day’ for a year.  I should have started battening down the hatches and saving money instead.
• We moved to a lovely house last year and that came with a bigger mortgage.
• I chose to spend money on some new furniture when we moved in instead of creating a bigger mortgage buffer
• I chose to take time off over Christmas with the associated lower pay packets

What I am doing to fix it:

• I made a budget based on my income alone and do my best to stick to it.  DH’s earnings are a bonus rather than a necessity and can go towards our mortgage.
• We plan to put our tax returns towards my over draft and to boost our mortgage “buffer”.  My goal is to have 3 months income on the mortgage (or 6 months mortgage repayments) plus airfares to the UK in case of emergency (such as DH’s Mum getting ill.  She is 75).  To reach this goal may also require next years tax returns.  But reach it we will and feel a lot more comfortable for it.
• I pay approximately 20% extra off the mortgage each month to contribute to the buffer.  This was 30% before interest rates went up!
• I pay extra off my personal loan each month (approximately 300% extra)
• I pay the minimum off my car loan as this has early pay out penalties.  Once the personal loan is paid out then that money will switch to the car loan and pay it out early but not so early we get penalties.

Health

Health is the other area I score below 7 in.  Again this is in my control.

The things that bother me are:

• My weight
• My hip
• My blood pressure

The fixes for these are interrelated:

• My weight is improving through my mindful eating.
• My improving weight will improve my hip and my blood pressure
• My hip requires core work and stretching.  I need to really work on this. 
• Improving my hip will enable me to exercise more which in turn will help with my weight and my blood pressure
• My blood pressure is well controlled with medication but I also plan to have a treatment strongly recommended by my doctor relating to correcting a misalignment of my upper cervical spine.  This she believes will also help my blood pressure.  The therapist who she recommends is on leave until Monday so I cannot yet make an appointment.

So there we have it.  Life is great and the things that need improving are within my control.

So why do I still feel flat?