Debt Is Others Living Your Life for You
Alarm goes off. Again, just like it does every morning.
Some mornings, it feels like it’s too much.
You want to roll over and go back to sleep, maybe take the day off. Maybe quit your job entirely and spend the next month hiking the Appalachian Trail.
But you don’t.
And not because you’re disciplined or critical.
You don’t because you can’t.
Because somewhere, in a gleaming office tower or a carefully manicured Home & Garden mansion you’ll never set foot in, someone is expecting your money. They’re counting on it. They’ve already spent it.
And you? You’re a fraction of a number in a single cell on a spreadsheet.
Money Is Time
That car payment? It’s not just $387 a month.
It’s 9.7 hours of your life every month.
At $40/hour (what you actually take home after taxes), that shiny SUV costs you nearly 120 hours of your life every year. That’s three full workweeks annually spent earning money that immediately flows to someone else.
Your mortgage? That’s not just $2,100 a month.
It’s 52.5 hours. Every. Single. Month.
That’s more than an entire workweek each month where you’re not building your life — you’re padding someone else’s profit margins.
That’s just the big stuff. The average American has almost $8,000 in credit card debt. At 24.59% interest (the current average), that’s $1,956 in interest payments annually.
49 hours — more than a full workweek — spent each year not on vacations, not on your kids, not on your dreams, but on making credit card executives richer.
Your debt isn’t just numbers on a statement. It’s your life force being extracted, hour by hour, day by day, compounding annually.
The Work You’d Choose
Let me ask you something: If you didn’t have debt, what work would you choose to do?
Would you still commute two hours each day?
Would you still be at that soul-crushing job?
Would you still tolerate that toxic boss?
Would you still sit through two hours of mandatory training berating you for awful things you’ve never done?
Without debt, your labor—your time—becomes truly yours again. You can devote your time toward work that fulfills you, not just work that pays the bills.
When I finally paid off my last credit card, I didn’t quit my job. But something profound shifted: I started speaking up. I stopped simply accepting things because I feared backlash.
Because I knew I could walk away if I needed to.
That’s what financial liberation gives you: not necessarily a different life, but the power to choose the life you want.
Breaking the Chains, One Dollar at a Time
No shame, no blame. We’ve all been fed the same pack of lies:
- “Good debt” is normal
- You deserve that vacation—in fact, you need it (even if you can’t afford it)
- Everyone has a car payment
- Student loans are the entry fee to a better life
The plan we’re spoon fed—the system everyone is taught is the magic potion to a happy life—encourages you to keep borrowing, keep owing, keep working.
But you can fight back.
If you were in a prison cell, and it took you years to tunnel your way free, would you give up and give in, since freedom was so far away? Or would you start digging?
Every dollar of debt you eliminate buys back minutes of your future life. Every interest payment you avoid is an hour of freedom secured.
If it takes years—and took me years—it’s worth it.
This is why I created Money@. Not just to help you organize your finances, but to help you reclaim ownership of your time, your energy, your dignity.
Because financial freedom isn’t the end goal. It’s the starting line.
The Life That Awaits
Imagine waking up on a Tuesday and knowing that this day belongs entirely to you.
You might still choose to work — most happy, fulfilled people do — but you’ll work on projects that light you up inside. You’ll create value because you want to, not because Visa is breathing down your neck, a little surlier every month.
You’ll make decisions based on purpose, not panic.
You’ll say yes to opportunities that align with your principles and your vision, not just those that come with a paycheck.
This isn’t a fantasy. It’s entirely possible, and it starts with one simple decision:
Stop letting others live your life for you.
Stop trading your priceless, irreplaceable time for depreciating assets and fleeting pleasures.
To start building a future where your money serves your purpose, not someone else’s profit.
Your Next Step
Take 10 minutes tonight. Just 10. Calculate how many hours of your life each debt payment represents.
Car payment ÷ Your hourly rate = Hours of your life per month
$525 ÷ $40 = 13 hours/month
Credit card minimums ÷ Your hourly rate = Hours of your life per month
$205 ÷ $40 = 5 hours/month
Add them together. Write this number down. Put it somewhere you’ll see it — maybe on your credit card itself.
Then ask yourself:
Is this purchase, this debt, this obligation worth that many hours of my one precious life?
Sometimes, the answer will be yes. A home for your family, education that opens doors, unexpected repairs on your vehicle — these can be worthy investments or necessary expenditures of your life energy.
Often — more often than we care to admit — the answer is, No.
That awareness is the first step toward freedom.
Ready to reclaim your life hours? The Freedom Bundle gives you my complete system to break free from debt servitude. My 90-Day Battle Plan provides the exact weekly steps I used to escape $74k of debt, while the Debt Destroyer spreadsheet shows you where every dollar goes and when you’ll be free. For just $39 this week (15% off), you’ll get both tools to transform from debt servant to freedom fighter.
