The Power of your Financial Decisions
Some Background
I’m a travel creator. My husband and I travel full time and we make videos on YouTube at Good Life Road. We’ve been living the slow travel life for 2 years now and we’re in our mid-fifties. A month in Tokyo, a month in Paris, a month in Puerto Vallarta, you get the picture. During our careers we had normal corporate jobs earning decent income, but nothing extraordinary, and we lived in one of the most expensive places you can live: southern California. I tell you this because it was entirely possible, even likely, that we would be stuck working our 8am-6pm jobs well into our late 60’s or even 70’s had we not realized the importance of designing our lives so that our finances could reflect our values and preferences and support us in living the lifestyle we wanted.
I like to think, and sometimes write, about life design because at the end of the day it’s the most important project any of us has. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately…
How We Came to Afford This Lifestyle
The most important mindset my husband and I had during our dual-career child-raising years (and even before that) was if it doesn’t matter to us, we’re not spending money on it. Don’t fall into the trap of upgrading or buying things that YOU PERSONALLY don’t care about. Even if you can afford them!
Any time we veered from that philosophy, even though we justified it, I regretted it eventually.
- no cable tv, just streaming
- Had two cars, realized we really only need one. Went down to one.
- Could have moved to a fancier place about 7 years before we did. Wish we never moved.
- Entertained at home instead of in restaurants
What We Saw All Around Us
Here are some examples of things our peers did, that we either didn’t do or rarely did, even though we had similar incomes:
- Leased high end cars and traded them in every 2-3 years for a new model
- Lived in homes at or slightly above what they could comfortably afford
- Ate out often
- Bought lots of new clothes, the latest phone upon release, etc.
- Went “big” on expensive short vacations that were hotel-based
- Remodeled their homes or upgraded their homes and home furnishings, or even put in a pool.
- Didn’t stock their 401k’s and Roth IRA’s as much as they could have because they were spending the money
What You’re Doing Now Effects Your Options Later
Money is freedom. It’s also a means for enjoyment. I see a lot of flagrant spending on socials and it worries me that in the fervor to “keep up” there are a lot of people giving up choices and options they’ll wish they had later. And as prices keep increasing, keeping up starts to look like the frog in boiling water.
What do you think the balance is? Are there financial lifestyle mistakes you made that you would do differently if you could?
