The Dear Readers of this blog may have gotten the sense that I have been transformed by discovering FIRE. Maybe it’s because just about every post on this blog focuses on that. Maybe.
All aboard?
Anyway, if you’re a reader of FIRE blogs generally, you may have read a post (or a million of them) addressing the subject of the blogger’s significant other and/or friends not being at all as enthusiastic about FIRE. A lot of these posts end with a question of how, if at all, to get said others revved up.
The oft-suggested solution seems to be one or a combination of the following: (1) give it time, (2) ask the other person(s) what’s important to them/what they’d like to spend more time doing, and then explain how reaching FIRE can help accomplish that, (3) take the person to FIRE group meetups/events, (4) magic beans. One of those may not be a real suggestion. You’ll have to guess which.
You may also have read posts about how the blogger went all in in pursuing FIRE, only to later discover that a side-effect was sacrificing his or her own happiness and sometimes makiing family/friends unhappy to boot. Bloggers seem to more frequently agree on the possible solutions for this problem: (1) reassess and pull back on the pursuit, and (2) magic beans.
Dear Reader, I have run into both issues outlined above. The Missus doesn’t have a fascination with personal finance and is not as fired up by achieving FI as yours truly. And she also thinks — not without good reason — that a certain blogger to whom she just so happens to be married may be waaaay a bit too focused on pursuing FIRE.
Thing One, the Elder and Thing Two, the Younger, also have been known to roll their eyes when dear old dad talks about personal finance, saving money/cost benefit analyses, and FIRE. They also have been impacted by dad’s money-related decisions, or at least by the “no” or “maybe, but . . . ” that he often responds with when asked for something that comes with a cost.
To her credit, The Missus is naturally pretty frugal. And, by and large, she and I agree on where (not) to make and spend money. On the rare occasions where we disagree, we talk it out and usually come to an amicable agreement.
Things One and Two generally get what I’m trying to do when I raise the issue of making/saving/spending money, too. Namely, to get them to realize that there are financial and other implications to any number of things one might do or not do, and to start to understand the quantitative and qualitative impact.
Head games
But while my focus on FI has undeniably fast-tracked our journey to the destination, it’s not been without adverse — tho, I think, surmountable — consequences. Specifically, The Missus and Thing One have not been able to enjoy things they’d like to have spent money on and really do align with their (and, frankly, my) priorities (Thing Two, so far, generally doesn’t seem to be ruffled or affected by my focus). Perhaps worse is that every time they want to spend money, there’s a little invisible me wormed inside their brain wagging his finger, and they feel like they have to forego the purchase or that the not-invisible version of me will wave his not-invisible finger at them in the real world.
On the one hand, I’m heartened that there’s pre-purchase thinking going on. That should mean fewer mindless purchases. Or, at least, some cost-benefit analysis calculations going on that otherwise might not have occurred.
But, frankly, there weren’t a lot of mindless purchases going on anyway. And those that there were not only were relatively low-cost but generally aligned with The Missus’ or Thing One’s legitimate values and priorities. So that invisible me inside their brains is just a tiresome nag who prevents The Missus and Thing One from getting what they’re entitled to: unadulturated joy from a purchase. They also mildly dread the possibility that I’m going to actually wag my finger at them once I find out about the purchase, either because I think the purchase was unnecessary could have been had for a lower price.
This is all a work in progress, and I’m learning of the adverse consequences of my actions as we go along. I’ve made some tweaks over time. Generally this has meant me shutting my big mouth, and, in some instances, easing off the FI gas pedal.
It’s now clear that my adjustments have been inadequate. So, I plan to tweak our spending/saving numbers and whittle down the savings intensity. Perhaps even to a degree that makes me twitch, which admittedly is a low bar.
I won’t pretend that this will be easy for me. It won’t. But I recognize the significant cost to others of the consequences of my actions to date. Doing my own cost-benefit analysis, I know that making the adjustments I’m anticipating making is the better choice.
So, Dear Reader, we boldly will rearrange now that it’s clearly time to change.
