How comfortable are you with the idea of "enough"?
When I was hustling my way towards an income number that would get me closer and closer to the next goal (buy 4 more doors, net $100K/year in passive cash flow, replace W2 income), I noticed we were consistently moving the goalpost. It made sense; as our lives changed, so did our expenses. We told ourselves that naturally, as we became savvier investors, we'd want more money to invest; since we had kids, we'd need more savings for them, and obviously our expenses will increase.
What we didn't acknowledge were the thousands of micro-movers in our budget- the changes we made in our lifestyle, without even realizing the overall increase they would have on our spending.
🍺 There was this one winter when Ryan and I developed a palette for strong, dark beers.
We'd indulge in one or two after a hard day of backcountry skiing. We'd treat ourselves to one every now and then after work in the hot tub. The thrilling and occasional purchases of these delicious and expensive stouts started becoming more frequent until they were an accepted staple of our winters, and our spending.
The extra ~$70/week spend on some fancy stouts was not going to derail our financial plan. But, that invisible 🥸 habit was joined in force by others: the organic, low-sugar granola that the kids actually loved but was 3x more $ per bag than the regular stuff, the over-priced gym we'd take the kids to on Saturday mornings when it was too cold to do anything outside, the (I swear last) streaming service we'd sign up for just so we wouldn't have to buy that one series we'd heard about...
To be honest, if I could go back and make corrections, I wouldn't just slash these expenses.
It's OK to want outside of basic necessities. Many of these things were bringing us joy that wouldn't be worth removing in order to save an extra $100/week. But falling into the habitual practice of grabbing something off the shelf, clicking "Yes" to the subscription upsell, or reaching for the treat in the pantry without making the time to ritualize it is when our joy-spending can become lifestyle creeps that trip up our financial plans. It steers us astray from our "enough". Stacking up incremental purchases that are more than enough eventually causes our financial freedom numbers to feel unattainable.
When Ryan and I made the decision that we would both quit our jobs and allow ourselves the freedom of time and exploration, we had to get comfortable with our enough. We dug up years of our family's expenses to determine what would be our best months, and what would be our worst months of spending. We looked at what our passive income would yield on a conservative monthly average. And when we started our W2less lives in May, we did the thing that felt most uncomfortable: we started to spend it. There's nothing like getting to know your enough than spending the yield from a portfolio you worked so hard to build.
It's not as though we're making any tough sacrifices in order to endure life within our enough number. Next month, we'll move to our dream location. Last week, I bought a new mountain bike that I might currently love more than anyone in the world (please don't tell my kids I said that). We're eating some out-of-this world granola. But- now we really watch our habit spending, and question our need for big or recurring purchases (in case you're wondering, yes that new bike was a need 😇). I'm deleting all the "Prime Week Picks" that are showing up in my inbox this week.
This is a practice financial freedom has asked of me, and as of now, it doesn't feel like a burden. It's the opposite. I feel more awake to the purchases our family makes, and that makes me feel even more control over how we shape our spending as we grow.
As for those fancy stouts? I don't drink much anymore, and it's summer anyway. We'll have to wait and see what financial freedom looks like in the winter 😉.
P.S. The Self Sufficiency Standard is a real metric that is being used more and more to replace the Official federal Poverty Metric (OPM). There are many reasons why the Self Sufficiency Standard makes more sense than the OPM (it is based on localized data on living costs, and takes into consideration many basic needs of a family, rather than just food and housing, just to name a couple). It is not perfect and data is not recent enough for many locales, but it is an interesting tool for any family to use in order to see what is deemed "sufficient" income for a family to meet their basic needs and have a little leftover for savings. Note that this metric is extremely minimal and you'll likely see that your sufficiency standard requires more than the line items accounted for. It is, nonetheless, an interesting exercise in starting to define your "enough".
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