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I never thought about becoming ultra rich. I just wanted enough money to feel financially secure and not have to think about stretching every dollar. I reached my goal, but found that the most important thing money can provide is personal freedom. However, earning or having a lot of money is not liberating to everyone.
it’s all too easy for us to fall into the trap of spending too little money. Once we have worked hard or smart for many years to create income, it follows that we should enjoy it. Misers have put together a fortune and have not experienced one bit of pleasure from it. Talk about financial dysfunction. Preposterous as it may seem, countless people in elite income brackets have proven that financial independence doesn’t necessarily mean prosperity. .
While money can’t buy happiness, it can add to your enjoyment of life— which is the reason for having financial independence in the first place. Living ridiculously below your means is just as financially dysfunctional as living way above your means.
Since having money requires that you save it prudently, but spend it joyfully, you may not want to sacrifice present happiness, joy, and satisfaction for a few extra dollars. Happily parting with some portion of your money can add to a feeling of prosperity. I found that viewing spending, in that context, eased away my stress and my life was enriched.
Would you say you feel proud and satisfied with your spending choices? Or, is parting (with your money) such sweet sorrow.
I put a priority on spending that will create wonderful memories for my family. Usually that means trips to visit my daughters who live 800 and 8,000 miles away.
Great article. And yes I am proud and satisfied with our spending choices. We save throughout our working life to age 70, and then we could turn to spending more because our nest egg has grown over the years to age 80. We are in a comfortable place. I tell our grandchildren that a $1 invested today, is worth about $100,000 in 50 years. And, all you have to invest in, is the S&P 500.
I’ve been working through an on-line course from Dr Lori Santos of Yale called “The Science of Well Being”. It has lots of academically tested advice on what actually boosts our happiness, and what doesn’t. One simple take-away is that experiences are great for boosting happiness, and material things generally aren’t. There are always exceptions, but in most instances this is how it goes.
With that in mind, I’m pretty happy with our spending. We have a simple house and old, simple cars. But we try to be out in the community, active and engaging with a wide range of people. We have also been lucky enough to have some great holidays (vacations for those in the US!).
For anyone interested, I can highly recommend. Free and data driven.
https://www.drlauriesantos.com/science-well-being
Great article Marjorie.
I love going to Thrift stores for books, dvds, and clothes. Yet, some are better priced then others. Those are the ones I haunt, at this point in my life I can afford to be super choosy what I buy, because I suffer from an embarrassed of riches from the above. Which leads me to an interesting story. A few days I went shopping at my local LL Bean store and has sticker shock, what was worse was I had 2 gift cards, so it was even my money. I left empty handed. Good thing I did as the next day in my email was a 10% off that and feeling less guilty about buying new I went back and purchased the item I have had eye on for years.