A couple months ago I wrote about how my quarter life crisis helped us discover the Financial Independence (FI) movement. It’s crazy to think, but we’ve been pursuing FI for five years now!
Today I’m sharing several lessons we’ve learned after five years of pursuing FI that have dramatically impacted our relationship with money, and helped us on our journey. Whether or not you’re into the FI space I think you’ll find these lessons applicable to your day-to-day life.
Lesson 1: Internalizing “Enough”
When we discovered the FI movement I needed a lot of initial self-education. I understood the mathematics, but was generally naïve to my relationship with money, how I spent it, and how I could improve my spending habits.
One of the first books I read was Your Money or Your Life, which I highly recommend regardless of your interest in FI. While there are a ton of valuable messages in the book, one specific chapter focused on the concept of “enough,” which spoke to me. The concept of “enough” helped me change my perspective on how I spent money.
Everyone has their own interpretation of “enough.” For me, the concept of “enough” helped me appreciate what I had right here and now, and eased the desire to acquire more, newer things, trade up, etc. as we increased our income. To me, “enough” helps combat the desire to “keep up with the Jones.”
The best example I can give you is our home, which we moved into in 2011. We (and by “we” I mean he…) spent the first 5-6 years renovating the heck out of the place to meet our needs. Twelve years later there are very few areas in our home that haven’t been touched.
Yet after all this work, several years ago we searched for a new house that would be much bigger and inevitably more expensive to meet the next level of our wants (a three car garage, a more robust kitchen, a basement for an in-home gym, land to fence for our dog, etc.).
Thankfully we realized buying a bigger and better home was not what we wanted. Instead we purposefully decided to appreciate the home we had, and doubled down on making the space more of what we needed. Simply put, we came to accept our home was “enough;” not perfect, but met our needs in a way that was affordable and generally supplemented our quality of life.
The word is ‘enough’. Enough for our survival. Enough comforts. And even enough little ‘luxuries.’ We have everything we need; there’s nothing extra to weigh us down. It’s appreciating and fully enjoying what money brings into your life and yet never purchasing anything that isn’t needed or wanted.
–Your Money or Your Life Book Summary
Key Takeaway
Internalizing the concept of “enough” helped me dial back my spending and look intentionally at the things I spend money on. The concept of “enough” helps me spend in a way that aligns with our desire to be financially independent. It’s not about deprivation, but instead appreciating what I already have and making intentional choices when I decide to spend money.
To me, that feels really good.
Lesson 2: Money is a Tool
Another lesson of pursuing financial independence is that money is just a tool to help you live your best life.
Before our journey to FI began, I idolized people who I knew had lots of money (or thought so, hah!). My first boss in my HR career drove new, expensive cars on rotation, wore perfectly tailored clothing, and traveled to exotic places. I dreamed of living a life like that.
At the time, lots of money equated to happiness and a perfect life; no struggles or worries.
Through the past several years I’ve learned money isn’t the goal. Money doesn’t buy happiness or a perfect life. It’s not the golden ticket society wants us to believe it is.
Money is simply a tool that can give you more options to live your best life. And I firmly believe it’s good to have options!
Sure, you can use money to buy fancy clothes, take nice trips, or eat at the best restaurants.
But money can also give you the options that will make a longer-term impact. Have you ever wanted to bow out of a job that isn’t working for you without having another job lined up, take time off to care for a family member in need, or leave a toxic relationship?
The first time I realized money is truly a tool was actually when I quit my job last year. Well on our path to financial independence and knowing his income easily covered our expenses, I realized the financial cushion we had built gave me the option to take a break from work. While quitting was scary, it felt incredible to know I could make such a drastic lifestyle change without negatively impacting our overall financial state (except a decrease in our savings rate, of course).
Key Takeaway
We are taught to work hard to make money, and then work harder to make even more money.
Instead of constantly working hard for money until your deathbed, let your money work for you as a tool to open up options so you can life your best life.
Lesson 3: Enjoy the Journey
Look, I know we’re all fixated on the destination. I’ll be happy when I… Get the promotion, run a marathon, hit a particular milestone, reach a certain weight, and on and on…
I’ll be the first to admit I’m super-duper guilty of struggling with this, even to this day.
For example, when we first started our journey to financial independence, I dreamed about a day I wouldn’t have to work, and we could travel all the time and it would be PERFECT. That was all we talked about.
I became so fixated on the destination I sacrificed making the day-to-day enjoyable. Why? Because I just wanted to reach FI dang it! But that was years off… Probably 8-10 years is what we estimated back in 2019.
Slowly over the first few years I realized fixating on achieving FI was not serving me.
Instead, we had to find small ways to start living our ideal life now. A couple years ago we started to use small life experiments to test theories of what we’d enjoy when we reached FI. Each small experiment helped us learn, and we used those learnings to make intentional bold moves to keep us moving forward and help us enjoy the day-to-day.
So while we may not be at the point where we can travel in our RV indefinitely, we can schedule month-long RV trips strategically throughout the year. While we can’t both quit our jobs, we can make the decision it’s okay for me to quit my job to explore what else is out there.
Key Takeaway
We are programmed to think life will be so much better or even perfect once we do or reach “fill in the blank.” But that just isn’t how it works.
Maybe I’m growing wiser in my old age (approaching 40 quickly), but I’m convinced the key is enjoying the journey to the destination.
If I’m not enjoying the journey, then I’m sacrificing the time in between for something that may or may not happen, or even bring me the joy or satisfaction I think it will.
Don’t sacrifice the time in between being miserable. Enjoy the journey!
What key lessons have you learned while pursuing financial independence? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
We’re back from two weeks in Alaska! The only word that comes to mind when I think of Alaska is “wild!” Read more about our two-week Alaska adventure!
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I love what you said about finding small ways to live your best life now. That’s what we’re doing too. Although we’re not ready to retire, we can still make small changes now while we’re still working. I love thinking about them as bold moves to keep moving forward.
I can’t wait to hear more about your trip to Alaska! I absolutely love it there – by far, one of my favorites places.
The concept of “bold moves” came from the Choose FI podcast episodes with Dominick Quartuccio. Listening to those episodes helped me think through what “bold moves” I wanted to make for 2022. In the past I believed it was best to put my head down, work crazy hard, and grind it out until we arrived at our destination (FI, in this example). But then I/we realized there were changes we wanted and COULD make that would help the journey be more enjoyable. Thankfully I’ve really leaned into and have the opportunity to make the journey more enjoyable. And, I’ve realized more and more the journey is the place we spend most of our lives–so it needs to align with the life we’re trying to live!
Alaska was amazing and I’m working on the content now!
Defining “enough” is so critical. If you don’t know what enough is, you’ll never find peace and contentment. Enough gives you permission to slow down and stop. You don’t need to keep playing once you’ve won the game.
Your Money or Your Life is a great book. MMM also has a really good article about hedonic adaptation which shows what happens if you don’t know what enough is.
Agree! When I was working in HR I vividly recall telling myself, I’ll be happy when I’m an HR Generalist… When I’m an HR Manager… When I’m an HR Director… When I’m an HR Consultant. The goal post was always moving.
Thanks for mentioning the Mr. Money Mustache article on hedonic adaptation