Money is important.
On the previous version of this post, you would have seen me evangelizing about early retirement. Early retirement, or as it should be better stated, financial freedom, is still a very achievable and worthy goal. However, I have since discovered some other things.
Past a certain point, money ceases to be an immediate stressor. This is relieving.
Past another point, money ceases to be a topic in your mind. This is freeing.
And in that freedom we should not constrain ourselves too much. Money will flow. I have learned through recent experience that if you make yourself useful to those around you in some way, money and other things that make life easier will come. Something about “If you build it”. For example, I am still an advocate of strategically minimizing the need for transportation through the careful positioning of your house, job, and other controllable factors. However, I have absolutely no issues grabbing my lovely girlfriend, getting a cheap hotel in the mountains, and heading out there for the night on a whim with my car which I park in heated underground storage. Our favorite restaurant is the type that is more expensive than your run of the mill family diner, yet we still go considerably too often to the point where we recognize all the waiters and get to comment on how the complementary bread compared to the usual. We booked a trip on a whim to go down to L.A. to visit some good friends of mine. Do you know, much to my surprise, how much stress the expense of this caused me?
None.
I still have a large amount of money working for me, due to the diligence of my past self. I make a considerable amount from my jobs, the skills for which I worked for years to develop, but I will never work at the expense of spending less time with those I love. Perhaps there is something to be said for a phase of intense saving. But we are past that. We do not buy luxury cars on a whim – but we have one that is cheap and efficient and one that is reliable and efficient. When we go to view showhomes, we keep prices in mind (though we are not at all afraid to visit a home with a golf simulator built into the basement to make fun of it). When I visit family for coffee, I order the usual coconut London fog instead of a $2 tea, because this keeps me sane.
It is important to plan in this life. And I have plans still – complex webs in my head for every possibility. But these things do not need to happen instantly. If my girlfriend got pregnant, I would have the money to support a family for years without working. If my father needed some strange non-government funded emergency surgery, I could help him out and not sweat it. If the car dies, I could simply get a new one. Should I lose all my jobs at once, I’d have food on the table for years to come. This state is incredibly fortunate on the broad spectrum of human experience, and I appreciate it every day. But I do not need to give up the now.
We will likely book another trip very soon this summer to Rome – you can expect photos when that happens. She loves it there, and I have never been. Plus, I’ll get to say the phrase “when in rome” constantly to pester her. We will book the budget hotel, but still have a private room at the end of the day. But before this Rome trip, we will enjoy many cheap nights spent cuddling and watching a movie with the expensive, but still grocery store bag of chips and the mashed potatoes I made at home, but with the best possible cheese I bought from the store to make them amazing. And, though I continue to invest and my investments continue to grow quickly, I will think little of money during this process.
And I have been better for it.
Sean