You’ve decided that you no longer want to save any of your income toward FIRE each month. Instead, you’re going to spend it.
How would you use your new disposable income?
TheSavingNinja propose a thought experiment each month (ok, it’s been in hiatus for a while now). I’ve read some of the previous thought experiments (and even participated in one myself – and also one “unofficial” one), and after the good TSN posed a new Thought experiment (#11) for this new year, I decided to re-join this fun little venture!
The premise of these thought experiments is to allow your thoughts to flow as freely as possible – so no planning, and a limited amount of editing. I have been told before (to my face) that I’m the master of bullshit – so here goes 😛
The end of an era
Ok, so my fling with the FIRE movement lasted for about 3 years before I grew tired of it – just like all of my other previous “projects” before this. I’m a restless soul, what can I say?
I “joined” the movement, because I thought it could help me re-take my freedom. A freedom, which I felt had been stolen from me. The question is: who – or rather, what – stole it?
I’ve been pondering this question a lot lately, and so far I’ve only come up with one plausible answer: Adulthood.
Looking at my daughter growing up with all her naiveté and worriless child play, has made me realize that the feeling of “freedom” is a state of mind. One that gets harder and harder to hold on to as we age. First we get married, then we have children, a big house, expensive holidays and expensive toys and a job to pay for all our expenses.
When I look at my friends, my coworkers and my family, I realize that I’m the only one who doesn’t seem to enjoy “living free”. They live to live (as they say), and I (apparently) live to save.
We live in a 1st World country, and I have few wants. I have a pretty decent well-paying job – in an office, with a pretty nice view of the suburbs. It’s fairly stress less, compared to other occupations. Why shouldn’t I “enjoy life” like my peers?
I remember a time when I used to live like my friends. Back then I didn’t give much thought into my purchases. I’ve always been good at saving money, which enabled me to make larger purchases a couple of times per year. A nice holiday with the wifey, a nice new stereo, a projector or a new laptop. A car, even. Cars have always been somewhat of a passion of mine. Somehow that time seemed more simple. Hell, I even felt a lot more free back then…
The other day I overheard a couple of colleagues talking about what car they would buy, once they had saved up enough cash for it.
Leasing is for losers. You’ve got to own that shit outright – that’s the gangsta’ way. If you buy that car, you’ll be the king of your town!
(These are younger colleagues – and this exchange of words actually happened to me in real life!).
Delayed gratification is for losers (apparently?).
I’ve grown tired of feeling like the outsider. I’m done “holding back”. The time for living is NOW. Screw it, I’m done chasing FIRE!
Spending the dough
HELLO, TESLA MODEL Y!
Oh, you sweet, sweet dream of an electric transportation vehicle! I’ve dreamt about you since the first time Elon Musk tweeted about you!
FINALLY, I get to call you mine!
Finally, I get to rub it in my neighbors face that he could only afford a Model 3! HA, what a loser! 😛
“What’s that, honey? You want to go to Thailand for two weeks during Christmas and New year?!” – DONE!
Well that was a quick €75.000. I still have €50.000 left 😀
Being a saver of nature, I think I’ll keep that in the bank for a rainy day. I know the wife certainly has many projects she’d like to see done around the house.
“What’s that honey, you want an extra bathroom?”. Ah yes, maybe it is a little “old school” to just have one toilet in the house – I mean, we are 3 people after all. I certainly would love to have my own bathroom! Let the girls share one, and I can have my own!? – DONE!
“What’s that honey, you want a new kitchen too?!”. Hmm, it does look a little dated, doesn’t it? I think our house could do with an update to the main kitchen area, yes. – DONE!
Oops, the piggy bank is empty now!
Oh well, there’s plenty more where that came from! 💸 💸 💸
After thoughts
So, I’ve spent my entire Total Balance on stuff that is considered fairly normal in todays society. It took me (us) almost 4 years to accumulate that much money. It took 5 minutes to spend it all.
The above mentioned “items” are actually something that we DO want. The Tesla Model Y is undoubtedly my dream car, and while I could easily afford it on my salary, I (we) have made a conscious decision to not WASTE money on transportation. I drive my little Renault Zoe to work every day knowing that one day I won’t have to. One day, my investments will grant me access to my dream vehicle. I can live with that – it’s not always easy, but I’ve gotten used to it by now.
What is however not easy though, is continuing to save on “everyday luxury”. Food is our households great passion, and we do get occasional takeout, but I’d like to be able to “go out” more (STUPID pandemic) and enjoy a nice restaurant meal. This is actually something that we want to prioritize. I have absolutely no quarrels sporting a 5 year old iPhone, and I do not need fancy clothes (I never have), but being able to go out to eat (or take mini trips) whenever we don’t feel like cooking – this is something I would definitely spend my increased cash flow on (since my new FIRE-less life saves me about €1200/month that I can now channel into my new frivolous spending habits!).
For me it always has been, and always will be about finding the right balance between spending and saving. Going extreme in either direction is not in my nature. I was once a mindless spender, and I do not want to go back to that – but sometimes I do want to be able to make a purchase without having to think about the consequences for my Total Balance.
I’m Neo and I’ve (somehow) opted to take the red pill. There’s no going back now…
Follow the thoughts
These are some of the other bloggers that I follow, who also participated in this thought experiment:
Model Y… drool.
I thought cars were more expensive in Denmark than Sweden, but 75k dollars for a Y and a Thai holiday sounds cheaper!! Still an excruciatingly large sum for a car. Buying a Tesla only seems sensible to me if you’re in the USA earning 4x as much and paying less tax and less for the car. I can’t stomach the value difference; I’ll probably only get a Tesla if we move.
I’d love to see a post detailing your grocery food shop so I can compare it against Sweden. How is the price of Parmesan over there? 🙂
I think it’s dangerous to compare cross-country expenses for a guy like me, who is unlikely to move anywhere else. – But for someone like you, I can see the attraction 😉
I’m jealous of the ISA, SIPP and matched pension contributions that you guys have in the Uk! We don’t have that here in DK.
Everything is normally more expensive here than anywhere else haha!
I couldn’t tell you the price of Parmesan, as we only buy the cheap one from our local store when we eat Cesar salad – and that’s maybe once a month 😛
I often ask my wife “how much did you pay for this”, and she typically replies “I don’t know – I needed it”; meaning that there was not other (better/cheaper) alternative at the time, so caring for the price was a mute point (apparently). This is how she does most of our shopping haha! I always look at prices, but she is not wrong in that sense that unless you want to go to a different store, you have to pay the price if you want to bring the item home with you.
When you have kids you value time much more than the potential of saving 10kr on some random item that you need to cook dinner 😛
That being said, we have a grocery budget of 6000kr (8200 sek) per month – and we always overspend…We try to save where we can, but we like to snack and eat primary organic veggies, so that just all adds up…
The best thing about this post is the way it shows you would change very little in your day-to-day life. A few one-off trophy purchases blows your savings, but the best you could come up with in terms of recurring spending was going out to dinner more often.
That says you’re pretty close to living the dream, well done Nick.
I suppose you are right 🙂
I think our different approaches to this experiment clearly shows that your perspective changes, depending on where you are in life. You’re further in the journey, and from what I read you’ve been living your dream life for a while. Consequently you don’t have any (big) wants (except for maybe that beach house? 😛 ).
As long as our basic needs (and then some) is met, we don’t really have much to complain about in this part of the world, do we?
Nobody really NEEDS a Tesla, so the fact that I still dream about it just tells me that regardless how much you have, you still dream about having more. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere 😛
Happy new year to you and the family! 🙂