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After a discussion at work, this analogy has been in my mind for weeks. I wanted to share it with you today in hopes that you’re encouraged along your financial journey.
In rock climbing, various climbs are rated in terms of how difficult they are to complete. This is normally done on a scale from 5.0 to 5.15 in varying levels of difficulty (via Outdoors with Dave).
Each climb is rated based on the most difficult section of the route, which is called the “crux” of the climb. The crux requires the most skill to complete and offers the most danger. This single point is generally what separates a 5.8 climber from a 5.9 climber. Sometimes a route may even include more than one crux.
If a climber is looking to improve and move up to more difficult routes, their focus needs to be on completing the crux of the climb.
In business, the crux is the biggest pain point that customers are feeling. If the company can solve for this, customers will be happy and other pain points will often sort themselves out.
So what does rock climbing have to do with personal finance? I think framing personal finance in this analogy can be very helpful.
The Climb in Personal Finance
Along your personal finance journey, you will encounter various obstacles. We certainly did during our debt payoff journey of paying down $55,000. Some of these challenges included unexpected vet bills, car repairs, and a job layoff.
These circumstances were difficult, but I wouldn’t consider them the crux of our personal finance journey. For us, I think the crux was finding a budget that worked.
Our financial turnaround was sparked when I finally landed a full time in May 2015, and then became a salaried employee that August. I started learning as much as I could about personal finance, tracking our expenses carefully with Mint, and writing out a monthly budget.
Those first few months were challenging. There were discussions between my wife and I, and various tweaks to the budget that were necessary. After about three or four months, we found a budget that worked. We have been using a variation of this same budget for the past 3 years, adjusting when needed.
Finding a Budgeting Framework
I would consider finding that budget framework to be a crux of our journey. Once we put that into place it became a matter of cutting back on certain expenses, growing our incomes over time, and persistence in throwing as much money as possible towards our debt. None of it was easy, but it was worth it.
I think there are plenty of examples of what a person’s crux would be in their personal finance journey:
- Getting organized
- Tracking expenses
- Building an emergency fund
- Learning about investments and starting to save your retirement
- Paying off debt
- Struggling through a difficult job
- Unexpected hardship
- Paying off the mortgage
What is the crux of your personal finance journey? Think through and reflect on this. If you’ve been trying to get started and get more organized, what has been holding you back? Once you’ve defeated it, I know you’ll be able to make the rest of the climb.
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