Posted by Dave on May 22, 2013
This is a guest post by Dave, who is also looking to retire no later than 45, but unlike Tim has no kids and doesn’t want any. Dave is from Ontario and is working towards his CGA certification.
I hate to admit it, but I’m forgetful sometimes. There are days when I leave the house and for some reason, forget to lock the door. The crime rate in my city is fairly low, so the risk of theft is minimal, but it’s probably not one of my best ideas. My wife and I laugh when we stop to think what we would really lose if someone came in and emptied our house of everything we owned. Our condominium insurance covers the contents of our house for $20,000 – we would have a hard time spending half that amount of money to replace clothes, furniture and electronics stuff.
Most of the money we spend in a year (from reviewing our “non-fixed” expenses) is traveling, driving around the province to visit friends and family. Our spending around the house is minimal, at best – other than attempting to increase her clothes collection. My TV is over 10 years old, and I dread moving it around (it’s a beast). Our furniture is serviceable and comfortable and works for us.
When we started down an Early Retirement path, we knew we would have to prioritize our spending away from typical “luxury” items to shift that money to paying down all debt and eventually ending up with enough money invested to be financially independent. If all goes well, we will achieve financial independence by the time I’m 45 (11 years from now).
Besides our house, our personal balance sheet shows very little in the way of assets. Everything we own can be replaced with a few calls to Kijiji sellers. I have maintained my “student” lifestyle, which does provide a certain level of freedom – a lack of attachment to “stuff” has definitely assisted significantly in our financial plans. If anything, we would probably enjoy our home more if we emptied it all out and started over again.
My wife and I talk about all of the things we could spend money on, and prioritize away from items that we didn’t care about and spend as little as we can on things that do. I think our decisions are a little different than a conventional household because we have a significantly shorter window available to us to achieve the financial goal, which forces us to optimize much more.
I’m not really sure whether my spending patterns would be a lot different without setting the goal I did, but I find having even a moderate goal in mind forces me to think and make do with what I have, whether it’s a conscious decision or not.
What kind of stuff do you just stop caring about in order to increase your saving level?
Posted by Tim Stobbs on May 17, 2013
At some point in my teen years I had a realization. So I took took that very annoying fellow around the back and shot him in the head. Then I kicked the corpse into a shallow grave and dusted off my hands and said “Good riddance to that.” I shot and killed ‘Normal Tim.’
You might be wondering why I’m casually writing about murder, but in this case I’m referring to part of my personality. Back in your teenage years you might recall that desperate desire to just fit in and be normal. I called that part of myself ‘Normal Tim’ and the bloody annoying prick was just driving me nuts so I had to get rid of him. Hence the summary execution and no funeral.
The realization that lead to this situation was: I was just never going to be normal so I had to stop trying to be normal. It was exhausting work for me and pointless in the end. I’m just too much of a natural non-conformist to play that game. Unlike everyone else around me I never stopped asking “why” like a two year old. Why do people pay so money for clothes with funny ‘logos’ on them? Why can’t someone hang out with both the geeks and cool kids? Why are we doing geometry proofs when someone has obviously already figured out this works? At the time I annoyed more than a few people with my questions and comments.
Now ironically I paid a fair bit of money to do that same thing. I attended a meeting last week where I was asked for my feedback afterward. I replied, “The meeting was a waste of time as process around the meeting has over taken any reason on why you have the meeting.” Then I proceeded to provides a few examples on what the meeting could be used for and oddly enough I saw nodding heads.
People are aware of bullshit around them, but often don’t bother to give themselves permission to see it. So I ask questions to common things like:
- Buy the biggest house you can afford. Why on earth would I do that? I don’t need that much space (even with two kids and a dog).
- Eating healthy costs more. Why? Um, are you shopping in the same stores I am? Cabbage is cheap, so are apples, potatoes and lots of other options like kale. Healthy doesn’t have to equal expensive, or do you not know what ‘in season’ means?
- With the kids you will need two cars. Why!?!? I barely drive the one I already have and my wife works from home. Did all the buses and cabs stop running in the city?
Then there is my personal favorite “But you can’t retire before 45!” Why? I’m not normal, so why shouldn’t my retirement plan assume I’m working until my sixties? Hello, I haven’t had a ‘normal’ life for most of my adult life.
I’m not saying life has always been easy after getting rid of ‘Normal Tim’, but overall I’m a lot happier just being myself rather than who people think I should be. So when do you give up on being ‘normal’?
Posted by Dave on May 7, 2013
This is a guest post by Dave, who is also looking to retire no later than 45, but unlike Tim has no kids and doesn’t want any. Dave is from Ontario and is working towards his CGA certification.
I have a problem with being too much of a saver. I love board games and video games which require resource management, but I am constantly beaten by opponents who are willing to expend resources (for example armies in the board game Axis and Allies) while I continue to collect various items. I would much rather not expend a resource, whether it’s trivial like something from a game, or money that could be used to pay down a mortgage.
For an individual looking to accumulate assets as quickly as possible, I don’t think being a “saver” is a terrible quality to have. I think that this facet of my personality is fine for the most part, but there are some things that this doesn’t help with.
I am currently allotted 22 days of vacation each year from my job. I enjoy time off as much as the next person, but I seem to have a hard time spending this “scarce” resource. Over the past few years, I have carried over a few days per year (my company limits the ability to do this, as they attempt to keep a “work-life balance”). I have had to use the days because I needed to take time off to study for the accounting courses I was taking. I guess in the back of my mind, taking a day off to do nothing seems a little wasteful.
Having a scarce number of days available to do things, I feel the need to have to do something – a trip, a project, a golf day, or something else exciting. I do these things rather than just hanging out around home and doing “nothing” (reading, watching movies, cooking), which is what my main goal most of the time.
I realize that this is the most ridiculous “problem” I could really talk about, but it will be interesting to see how I react when it’s time to spend retirement income. I have relatives that have become really miserly post-retirement and seem to become obsessed with ensuring their retirement fund is not spent, to the detriment of any enjoyment they could be having.
I think that the resolution to my stinginess in retirement is to ensure that I budget appropriately and work with the knowledge that I’m fine as long as I stay within that amount…I don’t have to keep saving after I retire. I’m not really sure how I’ll fix the similar problems I have with getting my butt kicked at board games.
Do you over save? Do you think you’ll continue this trend in retirement?
