Hey Reader,

Thanks for being here!

Nick’s sharing his favorite retirement planning tool on YouTube — and we’re talking about what to do when progress just feels like dirt.

Let’s dig in.

🎥 What's New

​Stop Guessing What You Can Afford —
Know For Sure​

​

💲 Money Minute - From Nick

One of my favorite memes is the miner who turns around just inches before hitting diamonds.

You’ve probably seen it —

It’s the perfect picture of what budgeting often feels like.

Day after day, week after week, you’re doing the work:

• Tracking your spending
• Paying down debt
• Investing a little more
• Trying not to overspend

And yet… it mostly just feels like dirt.

The hard part about financial progress is that you rarely feel it while it’s happening. Most of the growth happens long before it shows up in your bank account.

Progress is slow and incremental.
Until one day, you look up and realize you’ve hit diamonds.

So if you’re feeling worn out and wondering if all your effort is just a waste...
​
Trust the process. Keep digging.
- Nick

⚓︎ Craft Your Money Story - From Hanna

The past twelve months have been some of the most productive, positive-trajectory months of mine and Nick’s entire marriage.

And yet, if there were a Spotify Wrapped for my most-used phrases the past year, this one would be at the top:

“I’m feeling discouraged.”

Thankfully, Reagan Rose's Well Done Workbook recently reminded me of the Emotional Cycle of Change. And I realized...

I'm in the Valley of Despair.

Since moving in June, Nick and I have made several intentional change — at home, in our routines, and in our work.

And while we have experienced some benefits from those changes, we're still in the messy middle with a lot of them.

We’ve made a lot of progress fixing up our house — but several rooms still aren’t finished. So we’re living in more disarray than I care for.

We’ve consistently published YouTube videos for the past month — but it takes time for the algorithm to reward that consistency.

Waking up early makes my days go way better — but when bedtime rolls around, I'd rather sit up late with a snack and watch something fun.

So when my head hits the pillow at night, I often sigh and confess to Nick once again, "I'm feeling discouraged."

Thankfully, he’s always happy to remind me of our “why.” And revisiting our life vision helps me squash the lies the Valley of Despair tries to tell.

I share all this because, just over a month into the new year, I suspect I’m not the only one in the valley with a new habit.

And the thing about the Valley of Despair is that it's a fork in the road:
​It's where we choose our hard.

Either we turn back (like Nick’s miner)
and return to emotional stages 1–3...
​OR
​We press on toward success and fulfillment.

If we turn back, we often spiral into feeling like we're one of those people who just can't ever change.

But if we press on, we bolster our confidence to stack one positive change on top of another for the rest of our lives.

Consistency is hard.
But staying stuck in old habits that aren't serving us well is harder.
​
As Reagan Rose puts it, "As long as you are confident that your goal is still the best way to honor Christ in this season, you must trust God and keep going."

If that’s you right now — keep going, friends.

You're closer to diamonds than you think!

Until next week,
Nick + Hanna