People come to me for advice, or simply to have money conversations, because they say I’m good with money. The truth is, I’m actually good without money, and dangerous with money.
Over the past decade or so I’ve trained myself to stop being the guy who picks up the tab saying “I’ll pay for it in X years!” and instead be the guy who says “I already paid for this X times over.” I’ve ruthlessly cut expenses, eliminated debts, forced massive savings, and honed a mindset of delayed gratification and instant calculation. I wouldn’t say I’m boring or cheap. In fact to most people I’m spontaneous and generous, but little do they know that I’ve already analyzed the costs ten different ways and made my decision well in advance.
All that said, I’m currently getting paid a lot of money at my job, and with my goal of being freed by 50 (He said it! He said the title in the post!) I’m saving more than half of it. While watching a video on YouTube this morning about where people spend their money, I started thinking what I’d do if tomorrow I just shut off all of my automatic contributions for the rest of 2021 and let the money instead pile up in my checking account. The truth is, I have no idea.
I realized a couple of years ago that every quarter when I receive a windfall of RSU’s (restricted stock units), it never occurs to me to go on vacation. This is mostly because I have had three babies in four years and no one in their right mind would want to travel with that, but also because I just don’t think of it. Usually I buy myself a little something off of my Amazon wish list between $20 and $100, and I’m happy. Every windfall is well planned in advance, and divided up between paying off a debt (I’m out of those), funding a renovation (almost out of those too), or investing in stock.
People generally don’t see me spending money, or when they do, it’s so much money (like a new kitchen) that they almost look right over it. Since I’m not destitute and I’m always talking about stocks, the assumption seems to be that I’m good with money…which I am.
But back to the idea of halting my savings for the next four months. What would I do with the money? Well my truck needs about $600 worth of work to pass inspection. And my ride-on mower needs a battery. I need to fix a broken garage door panel…aaaaaaaaannnnnddd that’s it. Even if I really pushed myself to come up with lavish things to spend on, the thrifty side of me would still kick in and force me to take it down a notch. I probably still wouldn’t go on vacation. The most likely thing that I would do is buy another family car, since we’ve realized having only one car that we can put the kids in is getting too cumbersome.
The fact is that even if I knew that I had $30k with absolutely no purpose coming in this year, I just wouldn’t have a clue where to spend it right now. My list of wants and needs would barely break $3000 even if I threw in some speaker upgrades and hardcover books. A long time ago I stumbled upon a quote from Thoreau which was: “I make myself rich by making my wants few.” Although I still want things like lavish vacations or a beach house, I’m content to enjoy one small purchase every three months or so while I wait.
There will come a time when my mindset changes. When I move from hyper-accumulation to abundance. We’re close, but this is not that time. Until then the big vacations are going to have to wait…or at least until my youngest doesn’t routinely scream loud enough to break glass.
Freed by 50 