Welcome to another installment of my “Forward Looking” series of posts, in which I cover things that I’m either looking forward to experiencing, or seeing how they’ll unfold, when I FIRE.
Carl up and listen
Hear ye, hear ye. Let it be known that a newish FIRE podcast—Mile High FI Podcast—is now available for your listening
I give all FIRE podcasts the time day. But this one I’m giving a little more time, because one of the hosts is the illustrious Carl Jensen. a.k.a. Mr. 1500 of the 1500 Days to Freedom blog. Carl’s a fantastic blogger, quick and deft with the funny, and an all-around good person. His podcast co-host is Doug Cunnington. I’d not previously known of Doug, but I look forward to learning more from and about him.
Anyway, when I learned that Carl had started a podcast, my immediate reaction was: “Excellent. Let’s check it out.”
And so, it was done.
Stuck exchange
So far there are only a few episodes of the podcast. Each covers basics. One titled, “How To Find A FIREy Partner,” features Carl’s wife, Mindy—a.k.a. Mrs. 1500, and a co-host of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. It was an exchange in that episode that gave rise to this here blog post of mine.
The exchange was prompted by a question from Doug, who asked if the 1500s have adjusted their spending now that they are far wealthier than when they first got together more than 20 years ago. To give some perspective, Carl—who’s in his mid-40s and reached FI and quit his full-time job a few years back—publishes a monthly net worth update on his blog and recently disclosed that the 1500’s net worth had crossed $4 million (Carl called it quits form his old job when the 1500’s net worth was far lower).
Mindy started, saying, “I think that we are still cheap as hell. We will always be frugal in that we’re not going to buy things that we don’t really care about. We are spending more money on quality items, rather than just buying the cheapest thing. Because it lasts longer.” She then related a story about Carl buying a somewhat expensive, but durable, pair of shoes that he wore daily and got his money’s worth from, and her having bought a cheap pair of shoes that she wore seldomly and that deteriorated after six months.
Carl chimed in, remarking that, ironically, he may be even more frugal now that he’s got far more time on his hands than when he was working his stressful, full-time job. To illustrate, he said that when looking to book a flight, he might spend a long time looking for cheaper airfares in order to save a few dollars. Then Mindy jumped in, relating a story in which Carl booked a flight for him, Mindy, and their two kids from Denver to Jacksonville, Florida. To save $20 (per ticket, Carl exclaimed in his defense), he booked a flight that had two connections before heading to Jacksonville. That route was six hours longer than the quickest route they could have booked.
After that incident, Mindy said that she laid down the law to Carl: “We’re never flying this way again.”
But then she made the comments that got me thinking: “My time is more valuable than $20. And having that mindset is really freeing. But you have to get to the level where you can afford to ‘overpay’ by $20 on a flight to save all that time. When we were in our 20s, that would’ve been fine. We had a lot of time. We had more time than money. But now we have more money than time. And, that’s a phrase that actually comes up a lot in our daily lives. [Carl will] say something, and I’ll say, ‘We have more money than time. Just go buy it.’ Or, ‘Pay the extra for the thing,’ or whatever it is. Because you can’t get your time back. Why would you spend so much time doing something when it’s not going to make a difference in your overall financial situation? Like, when we were first starting out and had $100,000 net worth, buying a $50,000 car would have been 50% of our net worth. That’s insane. We’re not buying a car now that costs 50% of our net worth. I would definitely have a conversation about that. But [now] a $50,000 car, in the long run, doesn’t dent us at all.”
Carl responded precisely as I’d have: “Frugal habits die hard.” But I’d likely have added, “Very hard.”
Might shift
In short, Mindy’s made a critical and productive shift of mindset. Carl, I think mostly has. But as his remark about habits dying hard would seem to show, not entirely. And in that, I empathize with him.
I think there’s a continuum on which those like us travel. On one end is maximizing frugality. On the other end (at least on the healthy end of it) is the mindset that Mindy describes, in which one does a balancing act and, for example, is willing to let time beat money if the circumstances dictate.
I’ve never been as extreme on the frugality front as Jacob Lund Fisker, of Early Retirement Extreme. But, speaking for myself—and echoing Carl—it’s hard for some of us to change. Maybe Carl’s remark about frugal habits dying hard is right.
But why?
In my case, I suspect, because of searing events in my youth, and my experience paying off pretty massive law school debt. Dozens of consecutive years living lean by necessity bore a deep hole in my brain and in my being.
And even after allegedly becoming an adult and paying off the law school debt, there was saving for an emergency fund. And for a higher (even if not crazy) mortgage payment. And for the needs of Thing One (The Elder) and Thing Two (The Younger). And for our retirement funds.
And so on, and so on.
And then, just as we’d started to build a fair amount of good space between our income and expenses, I discovered FIRE. That was fantastic. But it’s kept the frugality train running at a steady clip for the last five years. So, the space didn’t just not grow, it tightened more than it otherwise would have. Sure, we lived far better than we did in our early 20s. But the ballers we could have been had we spent an amount closer to what we actually took in, we were not.
Light, my FIRE
Only within the last year have I started having an organic shift of mindset toward Mindy’s, and honestly started to acknowledge that the oncoming light I see down the tunnel not only isn’t a freight train, it’s not a train at all. Actually, it appears to be daylight.
This has been exceptionally hard for me to acknowledge and begin coming to terms with. Genuinely embracing it will take longer. How much longer? Dunno. After all, it’s a new-to-me position to be in. And one I’d never really had the privilege—and, oh, is it suffused with privilege—to experience. Much less, enjoy.
I’ve made some progress along the way, to be sure. For example, when moving house, it’s been decades since I last rustled up some friends and did a DIY move, rather than hire movers.
Also, I used to buy somewhat inexpensive (if at least reasonably fashionable) shoes and clothes for work. But, like Mindy, I learned the hard way that quality is hard to come by at those prices. So, I significantly ratcheted up the amount I paid for those goods. That’s paid off. The newer shoes and clothes will last years longer than the stuff I used to buy. Truth told, now that I work from home and only rarely wear those items, they’ll all but surely last me until and unless I size out of them.
I also more readily pay for other conveniences I might not have splurged on in the past. And, I’ve loosened the purse strings ever so slightly on other items. But in almost all cases, I almost always first look for a deal to lower or, in the beat case scenario, eliminate the cost. I just may not spend as much time doing so as I once would have. See? Progress. . . . Right?
Right?
But it’s strangely hard. Which just sounds like plain madness. I mean, who has trouble spending money? What American has trouble spending money, fer cryin’ out loud! Spending money is our thing, you know!
I guess I (and Carl) do.
Once I FIRE, I’ll get to see how this organically plays out. If our net worth dips only a bit after a year of me loafing around not working, or if it stays roughly stable or increases (and the odds, at least, favor these latter scenarios) I suspect that’ll go at least some way toward getting the deepest part of my lizard brain to believe the reality of the incredibly fortunate position we find ourselves in. That is, I think I’ll get to where Carl is now: the sports coat that is FI fits, but still feels a little stiff and uncomfortable over the shorts and t-shirt of frugality and saving that had all but become clothes permanently affixed to my body.
And in the end . . .
I gotta admit, although I’m anxious to get to the point where I let go much more my concern about money for the reasons I’ve discussed, I have another reason, too. Although you’d not know it by looking at our budget, which, to illustrate a bit, is far, far higher than the published budgets of Mr. Money Mustache and other extreme optimizers and/or savers with similar family compositions, I have a reputation as being cheap. To my mind, I’m highly frugal, but by no means a cheapskate. There’s a giant difference to my mind, and one that I think a lot of our friends and family who think me cheap don’t appreciate.
Nonetheless, I don’t think it’d take much change in my behavior to alter the perception. And I think these changes I’m hoping will occur will go a long way toward achieving that end, and not cost much. Mind you, at the end of the day, I don’t care what these people think of me. Rather, it’s just plain annoying to have them thinking it and ribbing me about counting every last dollar. Or 20.
We’re struggling with the same thing! We just spent over $5k getting our house ready to rent out, and nearly everything we paid someone to do was something I could have done myself. And it was really hard for us! A lot of deep breaths and conversations about how our circumstances had changed since our 20’s and this really was the smartest use of our time and money. But, man. We just couldn’t turn off the cheap parts of our brains. I think what matters is that it’s at least still painful. It should be. We should never forget how hard it used to be to come up with that kind of cash. As long as it’s painful though, I don’t think we’re in danger of getting soft and wasteful. Or that’s what I tell myself :).
Right on. As they say, “no pain, no gain.”