Empowering Individuals to harness the power of money to work hard for them.

Why I started Reckless Penny

Hi, I’m Rowan.  I’ve spent a lot of my life living paycheck to paycheck and wondering why it is that I never get ahead.  I’ve been doing exactly what I was told to do growing up.  When you get to be an adult, you work hard and give your Employer your best.  You will get promoted, raises and life gets easier. Everything depended on your “work ethic”.  If you were lazy, you wouldn’t get anything, but if you showed up, were always helpful, cheerful, easy to get along with and knew how to do your job well, then the sky was the limit.  

My parents were raised to believe this was true.  Their parents were also raised to believe it was true.  You can go back generations in any working class family in America and probably find the same advise that I received.  

Save 10% of your paycheck and you’ll always have money.  Make sure you have a rainy day fund equalling at least 6 months pay.  Never live above your means and you’ll be fine.  These and other phrases brought to me by Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles and the nosy neighbor across the street if you gave her a chance.

Well guess what?  I did all that and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. 

I saved 10%, then had to turn around and use it to fix my car.  Or I had to use it to pay the deposit and first month’s rent on an apartment because the one I was currently living in raised the rent too high for me to keep living there.  Promotions were something I never got, because I didn’t have a College Degree.  Companies would rather hire someone off the street with a College Degree and have to train them to give them the knowledge I already had rather than promote ME simply because I didn’t have a piece of paper that 70% of working class America had.

I found a great job that paid the bills that I liked to do.  I was able to afford my living expenses and even had a little extra.  Then I had a family, and that disappeared really quickly.  Between one thing and another, the American Dream never seemed to show up for me and trust me, I tried it all.  Every scheme that came my way that sounded half way logical, I tried.  They all failed.

I learned my lesson and realized that “There is NO such thing as a free lunch!”.  Simply put, if it sounds too good to be true, then it is.  I didn’t fall for much of anything after that.  I tried doubling down at work.  I figured out I made more money working overtime at my “day job” than by getting a second job.  When the overtime wasn’t available, then it didn’t matter, did it.  I worked two jobs, I sold Avon for awhile.  

Nothing seemed to work and I still couldn’t figure out why.

Then I did the best thing I’ve ever done for myself and my finances.  I got a budget.  Yep, a simple spreadsheet.  That first budget had all the details on it.  Rent, Groceries, Gas, Car Payment, Credit Cards and I believed I had found the best thing ever.  However, after a couple of months, I realized that my Income didn’t seem to go as far as my budget said it should.  Why don’t have I have $200 left over after my paycheck, my numbers state it should be right here.  Then I realized that there are always more things we spend our money on that what is actually in the budget.  Lunches out with co-workers, dinners out with family, gifts for birthdays and holidays, that stop at the gas station that included a soda, hot dog and chips.  This list goes on.

I was frustrated with myself and decided to track every penny I spent.

It was exhausting.  

Keeping receipts, writing it all down.  Categorizing each and every purchase.  It was draining, time consuming and actually painful.  

But it did tell me one thing, my budget didn’t include half the stuff I actually needed to spend my money on and most of the stuff I actually liked to spend my money on.  So, I redid the budget with the actual numbers and I refused to us a Miscellaneous category.  Everything had to have a Category or I couldn’t spend the money.  It was just that simple.  Very quickly, my budget got back on track, I knew exactly where every penny was spent and I could even save a bit of money.
I also hated life, was depressed and felt burnt out all the time.

I was no longer doing the things that brought me joy.  I didn’t go out to eat with friends because what category does this go into?  It’s not entertainment, it’s not groceries and frankly I’ve got groceries at home so why not eat what I’ve already bought?  Why pay for a ticket to the movies when I can just wait and rent the movie.  It would be a good excuse to cook up some of those groceries and have friends over, right?  Hobbies?  Who needs hobbies, they just cost money and what do you actually get out of it?

Budgets, cutting expenses, watching your money.  No matter how you phrase it, it sounds a lot like a diet.  Who wants to eat celery every day when you can have french fries?  Who wants to buy used furniture when you can have new?

I found another great lesson, when you spend all your time analysing what you spend and trimming off all the fun to ensure you have enough to pay for the have to’s, you lose something very valuable.  The thing we are all put on this earth to do is to learn, make ourselves better, make our environment better and embrace joy.  Ensuring we have a good balance of needs and wants is good for us.  We feel like we have a reason to get up each morning and start it all over again each day.  We have joy in our lives and share that joy with others.  It’s easy to get along with people when you are happy.

This is what I want to bring to as many people I am able to.  This level of balance that allows us to live, learn and grow while leaving everything around us a little bit better than it was.  Not for a reward, not for recognition, but because we want to.