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During my teen years, I loathed the feeling of pockets empty of money. I was happy to forgo most spending on food, entertainment or the other sundry treats that entice kids to part with their treasure. Instead, I liked to keep my pockets full–or nearly so.
Later, as my wife and I began our life together, we owned the adult equivalent of empty pockets—depleted savings and retirement accounts with a zero balance. On top of that, student debt dragged our net worth into negative territory. To counterbalance our bare cupboards, however, we had brand-new physical therapy jobs and decades of potential earnings ahead of us.
Fast forward to last weekend, when I asked my wife to sit and join me for more than a bird’s-eye view of our finances. We don’t keep a microscope trained on our money. Even though we track the general trend of our investments, we seldom know their total value to the penny for a given day. I can’t remember the last time we tallied up our net worth.
Still, it seemed a good time for a closer look. I’d heard rumors of trouble in the financial markets, and we had recently pulled money from our 529 account to pay toward our daughter’s first semester at college. I wasn’t fretting, but I felt the need for a more careful inspection of our finances.
What did we see? A money picture that stands in stark contrast to the first years of our marriage.
The debt we so blithely signed for to pay for college was erased years ago, along with our other debt. As for our daughter, she’ll finish school debt-free. And those once-barren retirement accounts now harbor decades of savings, multiplied by compounded growth. Our holdings are mostly stock-index-mutual funds, but several years of expenses in conservative investments give us peace of mind that we can handle an unforeseen crisis that might force an early retirement.
Meanwhile, our fixed costs are low, so they siphon off just a modest portion of our current paychecks. Even with a shift to part-time work hours, necessities would be covered, while still leaving money for a little thrifty fun. But we’re not averse to a bit of a dip into savings if the spending bug bites harder.
I walked away from surveying our finances feeling profoundly grateful that our potential income has grown into actual wealth, and that we weren’t derailed by job loss, health problems or any of a dozen other calamities along the way. Furthermore, I realize my parsimonious habits are softening a little. The necessity to scrimp is being replaced by the liberty to splurge if the urge strikes us.
Despite that option, I don’t anticipate taking off on a spending spree any time soon. At the moment, I’m content with the satisfying feel of full pockets.
I struggle to feel content regardless of how full the pockets are. I think it wouldn’t matter how much money I have set aside, I would never think it was enough. I’m curious if that will change as I grow older and realize I have a shorter time frame I need to worry about…
Kristine, not long ago I was constantly doing the financial gymnastics in order to figure out if we were saving enough. Now at age 72 I’m not even sure where to find my little HP12c financial calculator. We did part with some money when we built the house, but am now back to our old ways. We’re taking a 3% distribution from the IRAs….. And saving it! So yes, on one hand I no longer worry if we have enough, and on the other hand we are having a hard time realizing that it okay to spend it.
At 77 I’m starting to realize the money doesn’t have to last so long. If I’m lucky I should have another 10 good years, maybe 15, but probably not more. I’ve always run my financial plan out to 100, but I don’t know that I really want to get that old. The Covid years messed my time sense up, they were years out of time, so I still feel I should be three or four years younger.
Congratulations! Do I take it that you are another family living comfortably while spending less than 100% of income?
Kathy, I feel like a proxy in your tease at Mr. Quinn. 🙂
Yes, we cover expenses and have leftovers for saving, giving and entertainment.
Just noticing some extra ammo., but I think the horse is well and truly dead. 😉
In a prior article I wrote about us decimating our disaster funds in order to pay cash for a new house. It felt great not having to borrow for the home. At the same time I hated that “empty pocket” feeling.
Now we are about a third of the way to having a years worth of money set aside and I’m beginning to feel that full pocket contentment.
I know what you mean, Dan.
I think that knowing one’s net worth in an ongoing fashion is important.
When our net worth was negative, I was very interested in seeing it creep toward zero. After debt was paid off, it became just an addition problem. I figured up liquid assets at the first of the year to prepare for an article, but did no Zillow calculations or that sort of thing. Our expenses are holding steady, so I mostly keep tabs on retirement accounts. In finances, I’m mostly focused on keeping expenses low and working on simplifying everything.