Why Pursue Fi- The Pros and Cons of the Frugal Lifestyle

Being FI will mean weekday trips to the beach

We are pursuing financial independence.  It’s nice to have the type of income where that is even remotely feasible.  We don’t take that for granted.  It’s not all roses and ramen though.  There are a lot of pros to pursuing financial independence and a lot of cons.  It’s important to keep a healthy frame of mind in both because it’s a long journey.  You have to keep a centered mind for a long time.

it’s not all roses and ramen

It can be a little embarrassing living like we do.  We live above a garage and drive a beat up old Honda Fit. We don’t go out to eat very often and I don’t have as many toys as I’d like. Nobody is jealous of the things we own.  I work in construction surrounded by guys with huge awesome looking trucks. My car can get stuck in a pothole if I’m not careful.  I don’t mind though.  I have a vision for our future and it doesn’t include saying something like, “You should have seen my house back when I was really making money.”

There are so many people who were once our age and making great money.  They had new cars, a big house, went out to fancy dinners and really lived it up.  Now they’re older and don’t have the same high paying jobs, or they have larger expenses, and they don’t have anything saved away for retirement.  The big houses are gone and so are the new cars.  I don’t want that to be us.  I don’t want that to be anyone.  Maybe through blogging about our choices people can see that it’s ok to live like you’re broke, even when you’re not.

Blogging about it gives people another option.  If we’re doing it, maybe they can too.  They can follow our blueprint.  We aren’t a power couple who have already retired.  We aren’t even halfway to our goal.  We’re closer to a third of the way.  This blog is our journey to it.  We aren’t looking back after accomplishing the feat.  Don’t be jealous of us, join us!  There’s plenty of room in this beat up car for more people 🙂

embracing the awkwardness of blogging about money

I feel silly talking about our pursuit of financial independence because it feels like such a privilegy thing to even embark on. “You guys must think you’re so cool blogging about how successful you are!”  I always imagine people thinking that and it makes me cringe because we aren’t rich and we aren’t huge earners.  Combined we earn roughly $130K before taxes, but that is going to go down dramatically once we have kids.  That’s a very comfortable living but it’s not a crazy amount for both people working.

The reason we blog about our pursuit is because we are making the conscious decision to save like crazy while the sun is shining on us.  I’m painfully aware that our circumstances could change in an instant and we may find ourselves lucky to be scrapping together enough to barely meet our needs one day.  If that day comes I want to be ready for it.  I don’t want to reminisce about how we USED to have it all.  We have it all now. Having it all just doesn’t mean things for us.  We have a great family life and a great relationship.

The older we get we want more free time, not more stuff.

“I could never do that! I want to enjoy my life.”- People  who enjoy their life more than us

We hear this a lot.  People don’t want to do what we’re doing because they don’t want to be miserable.  The thing is, we aren’t miserable.  Maybe we’re weirdos but we really love our frugal lifestyle.  Almost everything we own we get use out of.  It makes us happy to really use the stuff we buy.

We get to spend a lot of time together.  That’s the most important part for us.  Everything we need, we have.  If we find we need something, we buy it.  We don’t go to work every day with holes in our socks because we don’t want to spend money on new socks.  We just don’t buy stuff on a whim because we’re bored, sad, or recently got paid.

Being wasteful doesn’t make us happy.  Wasting any finite resource is kind of like eating fast-food.  It scratches an itch in the moment, and tastes kind of good, but an hour later we’ll regret it.

If you go out to eat several times per week it stops being special. You stop getting any additional joy but it still costs you the same amount of money. We get so excited every time we go out to eat because it’s a special treat.

We look forward to vacations more because they are fewer and further between.  New things are more exciting because they are rare.

“Fine, you enjoy your life now but Won’t you be bored once you’re fi?”-People who get bored easily

This seems to be another frequent question people ask when the topic of financial independence/early retirement comes up.  The reason people ask is because they equate the two.  If you are retired, then you are by definition financially independent, but just because you reach FI does not make you retired. Reaching FI doesn’t have to mean anything other than you don’t HAVE to work, ever again.  Kind of like how all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.

We have this one life and the general sentiment among many of my peers seems to be “Well what’s the point of saving money? I don’t want to retire early,  I’d just be bored.”

 WHAT!?!

You mean to tell me you’d rather spend 40 hours of every week doing shit someone else wants you to do because that’s more enjoyable to just doing whatever the hell you want?  How did we get so far away from our own childhoods?

Imagine 8-year old you begging your mom to give you more chores because you can’t bare the thought of playing outside all day doing whatever you want.  And house chores directly benefit you.  Now imagine asking the neighbor lady that same question.

Do you remember your questionable friend Billy who would never share his toys but would be all up in your business if you ever came outside holding a Capri-Sun?  Yeah, you’re cleaning his room and you’re not getting anything you need out of the deal but you’re doing it anyway because ain’t shit going on and you’re bored.

Not me.  I’ll play tag with squirrels before I try to fill my time doing useless work for somebody else.  Jog on, Billy.

Granted, this is all hypothetical because we haven’t reached FI yet.  Maybe when I don’t have anything to do I’ll get bored of chasing squirrels.  I doubt it, but maybe.

I plan to fill my time doing projects that bring myself and others joy.  Achieving FI would give us the ability and mobility to spend our hours doing what we decide matters to us.  If something is a waste of time, we won’t do it.

So, why else are we pursuing FI? Short answer: It makes us happy.

We are pursuing this lifestyle because it makes us happy.  It makes us far happier than we were when we spent our paychecks and had to go right back in on Monday morning no better off than we were the previous Monday morning.

I hate that Sunday night feeling.  That feeling of knowing the clock is back to midnight and you owe 40 more hours of your life.  You know full well you’re going to blow it all the next weekend and be right back at square one.  That is the definition of being stuck on the hamster wheel.

When you pursue FI, work doesn’t have the same daunting presence in your life it once did because you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Instead of feeling like a kindergartner who needs to get a doctorate before he can go back outside to recess, I now feel like an 8th grader who just needs to get through high school.

Optimistically, I hope we are closer than 7 years away from FI but I’m trying to mentally push the date out so I don’t start sprinting way too early and burn out.  It would be like a kid running through the halls ripping paper out of binders screaming about summer break when it’s only just February.  We’ve got a long way to go, but for now, the light at the end of the tunnel is a hell of a lot brighter pursuing FI than just self medicating on the weekend.

Why else? Less stress

On top of just wanting to be free financially the pursuit of FI sets us up to not worry about money.  It’s just not a stress at all anymore.  We never have to wonder if the check is going to come in before the groceries run out or if we’ll be able to pay all our bills.  The stress that uncertainty causes is something I’ve felt many times before but something I never want to feel again.  We don’t have to even make it close to actually achieving FI for FI to have been a worthwhile pursuit.

Most Americans spend at least as much as they earn, many spend way more.  What if they get injured, or lose their jobs or accidentally punch a client in the face?  These are things people have to take into account but it’s usually easier to just sweep that financial insecurity under the rug.

Pursuing FI gives you the power to take significantly less bullshit

If you don’t save, you are basically stuck in your job.  Your only hope is that your boss doesn’t start purposely making your life miserable, because even if they did, you’d just have to smile and take it.  Pursuing FI has given us the ability to walk away from a bad situation.

Right now we both really enjoy our jobs but we’re cleaning Billy’s room.  It kind of sucks.  But, if Billy’s mom comes in and starts giving us lip we can tell her right off.  That’s powerful.  We have to clean somebody’s room, but we don’t have to clean Billy’s.  We can walk out of Billy’s room and not worry about finding another room to clean for a long time.

what if you fail to reach fi?

Pursuing FI sets us up for the future, even if we completely stop saving.  What if we totally change life courses and decide we do want to clean Billy’s room until we’re 65? These last few years of pursuing FI, even if we stop right now, will set us up to have a kickass and relaxing retirement.  As long as we don’t touch the money in our investment accounts, the money we’ve already saved up should grow to more than we would want to spend once we reach the traditional retirement age.

There’s minimal downside to pursuing FI.  We go on less trips than we could, have older things and go out to eat less.  We are more conscious of where our money ends up.  Financially though, it’s only positive.

Pursuing FI allows you to help others

Right now we are living like ballers on a budget and we’re for sure not ballers.  Basically, we’re just living like regular people on a budget.  Not an extraordinarily tight budget but we are conscious of where our money goes.

Compared to most people I guess we are living pretty oddly.  We don’t have a big house or a nice car.  Sometimes people feel bad for us and assume we must be broke.   Once we reach FI, we will have more than enough to be able to lend a hand to those in need.  We could help out a relative or a charity that we really like.  We could change peoples financial lives for the better once putting bread on our own table is no longer a concern. Just kidding, Mrs. Burrito Bowl doesn’t let us eat bread.

I actually get satisfaction out of my job and I enjoy the feeling of working.  I’m good at working.  I’m a hard worker and I tend to get recognized for working hard.  I don’t get recognized for being exceptionally gifted or smart.  No idea what that’s like, but I do get the “You Tried Really Hard,” award.  That’s a fun feeling.  I think I’ll miss that.

What I like even more though is hiking.  Hiking is better than someone telling me I did better than they thought I would.   Playing music is also more enjoyable.  I would very much enjoy 7 weekend days a week where I got to play music until my heart was full and my fingers bloody.  I want to get better at gardening. Get in better shape. Write more.  See the world.  That’s a big one for me, I want to see more of the world.  I LOVE documentaries, especially nature ones.  I want to see those places in person.

We’re still several years away, but each Monday I go to work I know it’s just a matter of time before I won’t have to do anything on a Monday morning except drink coffee and plan how I’m going to tag those squirrels.

Billy’s room be damned.

Related:

Financial Independence and the Art of Travel Hacking

Life is Short- Spend for Today vs. Save for Tomorrow

Eight Easy Steps to Help You Reach Your Goals

Author: MrBurritoBowl

Mr. Burrito Bowl is a 34-year-old man from Whitefish, Montana who likes to draw stick figures and say things that sometimes relate to finances, but not always.

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