Spend Nothing

Saving money is the greatest of the financial virtues—and, for much of my adult life, I could hardly have been more virtuous.

This frugality didn’t come naturally. I wasn’t a “born saver.” Rather, I had no choice. Within a few years of graduating university, I found myself married to a PhD student and raising a family in one of the world’s most expensive urban areas. On my junior reporter’s salary, scrimping and saving were the only options.

But I found I enjoyed it. In fact, it felt like a game. I loved watching my financial accounts grow and the mortgage balance shrink. I got a thrill out of sending $100 to one of my Vanguard Group mutual funds and then receiving the confirmation in the mail. Saving money brought me more pleasure than anything I could imagine buying.

In those early adult years, we still took vacations, but they usually involved staying with family. I treated myself to foods I loved, though my tastes were hardly haute cuisine. We’re talking pizza, sub sandwiches and Chinese takeout.

I didn’t aim to save a target sum each month. Rather, I just saved as much as I possibly could. I’d max out my 401(k) and fully fund my IRA. If any extra money came my way—a health insurance reimbursement, payment for a freelance article, an advance on a book—it got salted away. For any money that came into my hands, saving was the default choice.

This was partly made possible by thriftiness. Every weekday morning, I’d bring my breakfast and a thermos of coffee to work, and sometimes lunch as well. I was slow to buy new furniture and new clothes. I rarely ate out. To improve TV reception, I eschewed cable and instead got a handyman to mount an antenna on the roof, and then supplemented that with occasional video rentals.

But the real key to my high savings rate was the modest home I lived in. The house that my wife and I bought in 1992 was less expensive than we could afford. I kept that house after we divorced and ended up living there for almost two decades. I never particularly liked the place, but the modest monthly payments meant I was able to save great gobs of money.

I didn’t track my expenditures and I never had a budget. There was no need; I knew I was spending far less than I was making. Was I socking away money at a pace that would impress FIRE (financial independence-retire early) adherents? Perhaps. But I never calculated my savings rate and didn’t hear about the FIRE movement until years later.

If all this sounds a little manic and obsessive, it likely was. I certainly wouldn’t recommend my “save every penny possible” approach to others. But even now, I have no regrets. I’ve come to believe the best thing money can buy is a sense of financial security. Those years of saving like crazy quickly brought me that sense, and I soon stopped worrying about money and I eventually stopped thinking about how I spent.