Compare and Contrast

I ended my last post—about the second-best money I ever spent—with a reference to the best money I ever spent: that being what I spent to hoodwink woo and marry The Missus.

I didn’t explain why that was the best money I ever spent tho. Welp, time to do that now, Dear Reader.

Let me pay you a complement

First off, The Missus is an absolutely wonderful lady. In every sense of the word. Every.

Absent her presence in my life, people who know or get to know me twist their faces in angry contortions when they see or think of me. Very angry contortions. With her in the picture with me, they merely scratch their heads in complete confusion as to her inexplicably questionable judgment in choosing a mate. Or, more to the point, how I managed to trick get her to pair up with me. Surely there’s some logical, if wild, backstory. Otherwise, it just don’t add up.

But another reason it was the best money I ever spent is that we complement each other well. That’s a euphemistic way of saying that we’re pretty different people, with different strengths and weaknesses. 

For example, The Missus considers it a challenge—which she most assuredly intends to win—to talk to every human being she comes in contact with. Every. Single. One. Me? I have a nosebleed-heights high slightly higher bar for whom I want to talk to. 

Also, The Missus reflexively sees the good in humanity. Me? My arms are all but permanently raised in the air because I constantly throw them up from seeing all the stupid dumb things that people do. 

The Missus likes sweets. Me? Salty. 

The Missus runs cold. Me? I start sweating when the temperature breaks the freezing mark. 

And so on and so on. . . . And so on.

Mind set

These differences mostly are nature-based. But there’s more nurture-related differences, too. To wit: our childhood money-related histories.

As I related in my Money, Man! series, money scarcity and I go way, way . . . way back. And we’re still pretty tight. 

The Missus? Not so much. Mind you, her experience with money is healthy. Surely healthier than mine. I’ll add—because it bears pointing out—that she’s no spendthrift. Nope, she’s fiscally responsible.

These dynamics have played out in interesting ways. I have a long history of being a tightwad conservative when it comes to spending. The Missus always has had more generous purse strings. 

You might therefore find it paradoxical, Dear Reader, that I’m the one who latched onto the concept of FIRE so tightly and FIREd with few if any qualms. What with the attending no job and no employment income and, at least in concept, the lack of complete certainty about future expenses. 

And, just as strange, that not only hasn’t The Missus not stopped working, she was (and largely remains) at best skeptical of FIRE generally, and of my FIREing specifically. Heck, it’s fair today that she’s downright nervous about what I’ve done. Considerably nervous. Not for nothing, but I think it’s gonna be a battle to get her to leave full-time employment before she becomes eligible for Social Security many years from now.

What a paradox, no? What explains it?

Past and present future

I’m not sure I know for sure. But I’ll take a stab. 

Once I discovered FIRE, I quickly learned and understood that FI is a thing, that FIREing is just a math problem, and that retirement is not strictly an age issue. Sure, there’s a bit of a leap into the unknown based upon lack of complete clarity about future expenses. But even that uncertainty can be put into what I consider to be reasonable focus. There’s expected investment returns, and outside income potential, and Social Security, and Medicare, and that research shows that after a certain point in most people’s lives their expenses tend to go down. And so on and so on.

Knowing all this, and having finally built our wealth to the point that even I considered it the mighty protective fortress I’d long craved—certainly against run-of-the-mill financial perils, and really against far rarer versions—I was comfortable making the leap. I also knew burnout and wanted to preempt it from yet again creeping ever further into my silly little brain. Frankly, I was ready for something new, too. Especially in light of the fact that I had confidence that even if our finances tanked, I had the means to course correct for as long as it took for them to rise up from the depths.

My confidence has proven to be warranted. Since FIREing, our finances did in fact go south (even if not super south) and I’ve taken several measures to successfully course correct. I generally instinctively bristle at acknowledging my own victories that I played a role in achieving. But I’mma pat myself on the back for this one.

I haven’t vanquished my scarcity mindset. I probably never will to be honest. But I have kept its most pernicious aspects at bay since FIREing. Namely, those aspects that had me convinced that only through a full-time, (reasonably) well-paying job that I held until the earliest age I could collect Social Security, at a minimum, could I reach and maintain financial security. 

No small part of my success stems from my having almost always been a contrarian, skeptical—at best—of the “wisdom” of what’s considered “normal.” In fact, the radically contrarian nature of FIRE, backed up by math and logic, is precisely what drew me to it in the first place. 

Against the grain of truth

The Missus, I think, rebels against, or even disagrees with, the notion that FIREing basically is just a pretty simple math issue and not an age issue. And one that we’ve essentially solved for. Essential to this, I think, is that she’s spooked by the inherent lack of complete certainty as to future expenses. 

In concluding this, I realized something. My scarcity mindset was most powerful in the past and my abundance mindset now is in the ascendant (even if it’ll never overtake my scarcity mindset). The Missus, however, has had a far greater abundance mindset . . . so long as we both worked full time. But I think she instead has a prospective scarcity mindset. This seems to stem in part from—and probably is exacerbated by—the fact that she’s not a natural contrarian like me and is far more inclined to see the wisdom in crowds/what’s “normal.” This isn’t at all meant as a criticism. Just an observation. 

But here, too, we complement each other well. The Missus’ caution and skepticism keeps me even more alert to our financial fortress’ structural integrity. But my focus on an alternative lifestyle (and, simultaneously, on the structural integrity of the financial fortress) shows her that another way is possible, even if she’s not yet fully bought into it.

There are other benefits, too. The Missus likes to work, so she gets to scratch that itch while simultaneously allowing us to lower the sum we need to take from our investments, which I like. We also get to take advantage of The Missus’ employer-sponsored/subsidized health insurance and employer match for employer-sponsored retirement plan contributions. That gives The Missus peace of mind from having access to these valuable resources, and me from, again, having to tap our investments less at least in these early days of my FIRE life.  

The Missus’ working full time also allows her to have the peace of mind she realizes from at least one of us having a job, and from having me have the flexibility to, for example, take care of weekday stuff for Thing One (The Elder) and Thing Two (The Younger). While I can enjoy a great FIRE lifestyle. 

All mostly a win-win. 

And in the end . . . 

I hope to get The Missus to join me in FIREing far earlier than, left to her own devices, she likely otherwise would. Not today. Not tomorrow. But hopefully within the next few years. As for The Missus getting me to get back to full-time work, she’s got scant chance of making that happen. No, having now experienced the FIRE lifestyle, I quite like it, thank you very much.