I heard a sociologist on the Crazy Money podcast talking about the Hedonic Treadmill.  They discussed the treadmill for a little while and it all seemed quite normal for any of us in the FIRE—or even Financially Responsible—community.  Hmmm, I wonder if I just created a new community—a Financially Responsible community of not purchasing anything you want, just because your credit issuer allows it, but instead purchasing items you truly can afford, and value.  OK, now Afford Anything comes to mind.

Back on track: I’ve always thought about the increasing baseline-level of life.  The level of comfortness, ownership, and change in “needs.”  Most of my thoughts have been from those around me purchasing items.  I’ve noticed this purchasing activity since I was 12 years-old when many of my friends bought ATVs around the same time as they came into money.  I, on the other hand, was forced to wait until my birthday or Xmas to get a gift I wanted.  I know now that I was fortunate to get these items at all, period.  However, at the time I was forced to take my own inflow of money and save it in a brokerage account (yes, the lessons started early).  It’s worth noting that I still have those exact dollars, along with all their buddies who marched along growing each day for the past (almost) 40 years.

Ego

So I am egotistical enough to think I do better with money than many/most of my friends and acquaintances?  Yes, my ego tells me I do better at logically managing my income and my money.  I usually plan for the items we need and want. I plan for the future and have a process of putting money away for “deferred spending.”  In my case, that money was deferred to spend in FIRE.

Did I climb on?

So did I buy more and more things, and march along on the hedonic treadmill?  Yes, of course.  And also no, in many ways, we did not climb too high or too fast on the hedonic treadmill.

I’ve written about the saying “Same Spouse, Same House, Same cars, etc.”  Many FIRE topics revolve around the big three expenses in life: House, Cars, Food.   We are a little different because I would include offspring into that list, but maybe one’s offspring just tends to increases the cost-requirement of those three.  I don’t really know.

I can say we have been able to stay in the same “starter” home for nearly 30 years.  We do drive cars we purchased at 3+ years old and have driven them 10+ years.  I do notice (pre-covid) that our food bill may be lower than 20 years ago.  That could be based on our not-eating-meat challenge, or me weighing less than when I was in my 20s, therefore eating less food.  I have to say beans & brown rice & veggies do not add up to much money over the course of a month.

Yes, we have spent more on nicer cars when we buy them.  We are currently looking for a newer vehicle and will purchase one with a multitude of safety features.  We do have vehicles for hobbies.  We also have nicer furniture and one of us buys quality clothes that last (I personally have some low-cost clothes that are 10-20 years old, since I don’t wear them much because my main use wardrobe is mostly shorts and t-shirts most of the time).

We have (some of) the exercise equipment we want.  We have OK-level electronics that make our lives more convenient.  We have a huge TV because it was deal-of-the-day when the old TV stopped working.

Yes, we’ve purchased some items that are nice quality but usually after full research and time to organize the purchase into our plan.  There was “delay” to the gratification, always significant delay.  We are truly happy with our items.  But what we really feel is unique, is that we have SO much time to enjoy our items since we can be home all day doing whatever we want.

Look at me

I’m happy to say we are 98% removed from buying something and wondering what other people think about our item.  We surely do not aim to impress anyone.  Instead, the 2% is possibly the opposite, in that we don’t want people to judge any of our items that they would find frivolous.  It’s a balance of stealth-wealth.  (I love that our house is small and quite plain, on the cheap side of the street).

Good Baseline Increase

I think about the increasing level of baseline in life.  I think about education or skills, how the more you have the stronger you are.   I think about exercise and how each level of fitness enables more activities.  I think about the opposite of how watching TV may lead to more TV, of how Netflix may lead to Hulu, leading to HBO Max.  It’s almost like a tornado sucking you into its power, either good or bad.  I guess that’s why inertia’s been defined as a force.  I always thought inertia was about “objects in motion,” but have learned it also applies to “objects at rest.”   See how you can continue to learn…forever:  learning inertia.

Addition

Here’s a twist that just popped into my head after previously writing the above—I don’t want my “end of plan” to be buckets of money, or worse, boatloads of money.  I’m thinking, if I can have a few bowls of money to make sure all is well, that is great.  But what if I run out of money!?  My thoughts are, other than healthcare, I don’t really have a desire, or more specifically, won’t have a desire to spend money.  I can live happily doing my daily low costs/no-cost activities.  Moving around if I can, learning new things if I can, enjoying the day if I can.  Those tasks do not really cost any money at all.  If I have to share a room with another out-of-money person, that may be OK.

I’ve been concentrating on awareness of the value of each day, week, month, year, and decade lately.  At the beginning of the year, I wrote about my Raving 20s plan.  It was a great plan for the 2020s.  It was working our perfectly for, oh, 2 months then WHAM; pandemic.

I don’t want to sacrifice a nice level of living now when we’re as young and as healthy as we will ever be in the remainder of our lives.  I am feeling the push to do more, buy more, and live more now, RIGHT NOW, and through the next few/many years.  We will never get this decade back.  We will always continue to monitor our finances and life-living ability as we progress through the Raving 20s.

Hedonism – “the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.”

So I wonder, am I stepping on, or am I purposefully speeding up the treadmill to get more out of life.

I ask you, what’s your life-living worth to you?

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

Most FIRE bloggers and journalists (me included—the former) spent the past few months sharing the opportunity we had to improve our lives and the environment with major opportunities to use the quarantine/lockdown to make ourselves so much better.

Then I noticed a lot of writings about how the people working from home have newly-found flexible schedules which can simulate a “retirement” lifestyle.  That being a great structure that allows for a different waking routine, and a different time structure throughout the day.  Many said people working from home have a new found level of freedom to adjust their work-life balance. 

In thinking about this new work/life balance, I have to say if you didn’t know if you were an introvert or an extrovert, you surely do now!  The identification of this personality style would be magnified if you lived in an apartment or small space.

Indeed, the work/life balance gives someone the ability to review their daily/weekly grind schedule.  People may have the opportunity to tackle some tasks off-peak.  Not to mention those who were severely hit by a change, or loss, of income.  This has been a brutal wake-up call forcing the extreme situation to be upfront and inescapable for us, for a very long time.  It seems possible a two to three-week impact may wash away fairly quickly, but a year-long screw-with-you impact…we’re not sweeping that away anytime soon.

Impact Thoughts

Think about the freedom impact on a retiree over the past 8 months.

The retirees have little to no commitments for employment.  These retirees may have commitments to volunteering and sharing their time.  These retirees may have had plans for travel in 2020.  These retirees may have even been on a trip, maybe even outside the home country, when the pandemic struck.  These retirees may live abroad full-time, maybe in low-cost regions—of which may have a lower level of medical care, possibly.

Considering health concerns even deeper, most retirees are older.  Understanding of the COVID virus shows older immune systems have a much harder time fighting off the virus.  At this time, I feel we don’t even know exactly how much higher risk an older person has for severe impact from the virus.

SloGo

I’m saying for those who are already past end-of-employment (already retired) that the COVD quarantine/lockdown/isolation is an opportunity for an entirely different reflection-of-life activity level.  I realized after talking with a few of my cohorts that the COVID lockdown may actually be closer to a simulated SloGo retirement phase. 

So if a retiree is at a phase where they want to do stuff, but cannot, isn’t that closely tied to the SloGo phase of retirement?

Thinking back to the beginning of this post on how our days/schedule/lives have changed, how have you felt over these 8 months?

• If you are an introvert, you might have done OK with the changes. 
• If you are a relaxed-zen type person, maybe you were able to shift your mindset quite successfully to the new structure forced on you.
• If you are an extrovert, it must have been a horrible time being locked away for your social interactions.  It’s probably that the sadness has a compounding effect and it’s feeling worse and worse each day.
• If you’re retired and have been so for a while, how did you feel about the new lifestyle structure?
• If you’re newly retired (by choice), how does that feel?  Do you feel like you’re losing a year of your retirement? 
• If you’re newly retired by force (“reduction in force”), you have an entirely different level—most likely multiple levels—of “what is going on here, what do I do now?”

For me, this window of time being stuck at home is an interesting look at a similar to SloGo retirement phase.  A phase of retirement that I realized now would have been almost impossible to plan for, or understand how it would feel.  Now, I have a sliver of vision to that up-coming phase.

For all those affected/infected by these nasty little virus robots, I wish you the best.  As for SloGo, for those retirees infected, you experienced a SloGo phase with illness, not just lockdown, expounding on a more serious version of SloGo, possibly even NoGo.

(no consideration in the post was given to those with children living at home in a time of COVID as that is not an area I have familiarity)

I’ll end with, we never know the-or our– future.  We won’t know our End-of-Plan date.  Live your GoGo years as if every single day matters.  Find the joy in your days and daily life. 

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

How will you be After Covid (AC)?  How is your life different—better—than Before Covid (BC)?

Most of us long for the return to a (mostly) BC lifestyle.  A life where we can go places and be around people without the concern of a possible deadly virus lurking nearby waiting to attach to our cells.

Most people I know have thoughts—some even a list—of what they are going to do AC.  They’ve been storing up multiple “when I can, I’m going to…” items.  That makes sense.  That makes sense now, but also made sense BC.  Shouldn’t everyone always have a list of things they want to do–a list of things they love to do?

What I wonder right now is, how have you made yourself better during Covid?  Yes, I know there were thousands of articles/posts/stories about taking advantage of lockdown and doing something good, great, or amazing.  Then after a few months, I saw posts lambasting productivity posts and how they were often just a popularity post rather than a true hope to motivate people to do great things.

I can say that I’ve done a few cool improvements in my life.  I can say my wife has bettered herself as well by taking music lessons, etc.  But of course, neither of us had grand plans to write a novel or create some new business venture.

I would say that during lockdown we really concentrated on having stable, solid days.  Making sure we had some structure to our lives.  We implemented replacements to many of our BC activities (home spinning bike, home gym workout, better webcams, more time on Kanopy, Great Courses, Curiosity Stream, etc).

I also found the time to help others, most often it was through using zoom for online meetings and making sure people could come together to get some inter-personal communication.

I wrote earlier about my experiment with Intermittent Fasting and the surprising results.  I spent time sitting (or running/biking) and thinking about the good things in my life.  I’ve always had a sense of gratitude, but this year, as much as other years, I’ve tried to be even more grateful for my life.

Early on I wrote about working to Make Progress.  Grow.  Learn.  Improve.

At this point (maybe halfway through the pandemic?) I give myself about a “B” for the whole. 

I really wish I could give myself an A-, but I found that I improved on many things, and sat back and reflected in gratitude (which is a nice plus in itself).

I have more I can improve on, and I will, but I have no plans to go out all and become some super-person.  Actually, I’ve never had that goal, and “you are who you are.” 

I have been making my AC list of things to do.  Some of them I should have done BC, like two trips to visit old friends and explore a little, but that’s OK.  I believe we’ll all be safe and can meet up again.

We did some projects around the house.  Some projects were planned and others were not.  We just decided to go ahead and get some stuff done.  Get to work on some things.

I really have learned—not because of the Covid, but in general—that life can change at any time with a visit to the doctor, for yourself or your family/friends.  Enjoy your days NOW!!!

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

So this year I left my 40s.

I left the decade of being “not really that old yet.”  Of course, being 40-something is NOTHING like being 30-something.  Yet, being 40-something still gives you a little sense that much of the world lies ahead.  After completing your 50^th year, you realize in every way you are on the downhill slide to “poof.”  There’s no way you can truly avoid the truth of the “downhill.”  It’s very clear you are in the second half of a century.

Am I leaving 40s or entering 50s?  For me personally, I’m entering my 50s.  I’ve finally “grown into the man suit,” especially related to my thinking.  Funny thing, I don’t—nor have I ever—wear suits…especially in FIRE.  I mean, I barely wear socks now thanks to Sanucks. 

I’ve always been older than my age.  I’ve always had older friends, I was a college professor when I was 21, I worked as an umpire for Little League Baseball when I was 12 and my classmates we on the field, and lived a mentally older thought driven (cautious?) lifestyle.  This age/decade is going to fit me fantastically.

Experience

I also like the fact that I have enough decades (as an adult) to be a little wiser and have many, many experiences to base my thoughts around.  I also love that none of those experiences can ever be taken away from me.

At this point in life, some may realize they care less about what everyone thinks.  Wait, maybe that’s only me?  Yet, I believe the odds of pleasing everyone are lower than the odds of winning the lottery, especially in this age of Twits.  It’s important to be true to yourself and hopefully, you are a good, caring, helpful, productive person.  Doesn’t that seem like a good way to live your upcoming half-century?

Normalness is different for everyone

For normal folk, retirement is 62, 67, 70?, etc.  Early retirement is 60.  Really early retirement is 58, 55.   Super early retirement may be 50…an entire decade+ earlier than normal.

There is an AMAZING feeling of having so much time to tackle activities and passions.  Anything…everything, is available for you, if you only go for it and grasp the adventure ahead.  I know this is the case based on my 6 years of activities in FIRE already.  Note: I may learn a different perspective in the future, but for now I operate with amazement, each and every day.

I would like to say thanks to Joe at Retire by 40. I saw his blog when I was 40 and ready to leave work.  I thought “wow, other people have this same plan, position, and passion.”  I could have left work at 40 but I loved my job and stayed 3 more years.  No need to rehash those posts here.

So, for some, their 40s are a significant time to optimize the growth phase.  They can grow in life, income, spending, but hopefully saving as well.   The 50’s are often considered your highest earning years.  That’s an important consideration to deal with when considering turning off the direct deposit spigot.  However, if you’ve “lived like no one else, so you can live like no one else-Ramsey” then you can let “your army of dollar bills march off to work each morning so you don’t have to-TheMoneyGuy(s) or Mr Money Mustache.”

I’ve noticed changes in myself

Before, I absolutely enjoyed meeting and discussing personal finance with everyone.  People in their 30s or even 20s had interesting ideas.  You could see the fire in their eyes when they realized the opportunities ahead (yeah, I saw the pun). The lesson of living your smart lifestyle and not living your income-to-the-max is so empowering.  It was great to see others grasping hold of this concept.

Once you’re past the big 5-0, you’ve become an old dude (on the outside…well, maybe inside too?)

You care more for your specific life/time.  You don’t want to waste 30 min, or an hour+, doing something that is not in your core interest.  (see how I shortened my typing a little there, without using U R 4, etc)

You get the sense that you’re moving on, or have moved on from some interests, tasks, actions, even discussions.  Sometimes you realize the discussions are similar to one’s you’ve heard many times before and chose not to participate in (Twits)—maybe because they seem to never lead to a resolution, or even progress.

I wonder if that is “aging out” or “aging up” or “giving (something) up” or something entirely different.  Maybe it’s refocusing onto new matters or more perceived important (to you)-matters.  Maybe it’s a Rewire of yourself.  It’s a very interesting time of introspection.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

How will you emerge from your time inside, your lockdown isolation, your quarantine, your cocoon?

Did you/are you growing yourself (and your family) into something beautiful upon emergence?  I sure hope you are not the opposite—sitting around depressed at what you cannot do.  Instead look at the opportunities that have arisen while in lockdown:

1. The appreciation of most everything.  Starting with the amazingness of life itself.  It’s not often we actually stop and think about being a living being.  A growing, aging, energy source in the universe.  Of course not, we’re too busy rushing around to our next task/obligation required by our lifestyle.  However, with current isolation requirements, many of those external obligations are not required, or even possible.
2. The appreciation of those around you.  Those who you share your days with and are so much of your life’s energy.
3. Enhance those around you.  What can you do each week (or each day if you’re an over-achiever) to make someone else’s life better?
4. Everything that you have at this moment.
5. Everything that you do not need at this moment.
6. Enhance your life space for yourself and those who enjoy the space along with you.
7. But most importantly, the opportunity to work with the most complicated item in the known universe, your brain.  This is an amazing time to enhance your wondrous possession.  If not grow your brain, maybe take some time to calm your mind.

I had a random realization with my body.  I’ve been quite fit and strong for the past 20 years.  Interestingly I recognized a noticeable loss in muscle/muscle mass over the past year or so.  I thought it was because I wasn’t eating meat, yet still getting plenty of plant protein. 

I had been doing two full-body strength sessions since 2000.  I had great results for 19 years.  Because of lockdown, I bumped up my resistance/strength training to 3 times per week since my hockey/swim options were eliminated.  It was amazing to me how the 3^rd week or so I began noticing better muscle structure. 

I really started to think about how a process can become less impactful if it’s the same old process (routine) time after time if there are external forces—in this case (most likely) AGE.

If I’ve learned anything over time it seems quite simple:  “be better than yesterday.”  It just seems these simple words could make a huge difference to everyone.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice.

Oh, how life is different in the midst of a global—craziness—pandemic.  How the most superficial of our consumer activities change so drastically, causing a dramatic effect on our acquisition of goods (and services).

Are we essentially reduced to being beggars locked in our own homes?  I’ve learned to be thankful—so very thankful— that items arrive at my home for consumption.  Often the items are not my initial or primary choice, but that’s OK.  Beggars Quarantiners can’t be choosers, or can they?   

There have been times over the past four weeks of quarantine—social isolation, lockdown, introversion activation…actually, my almost normal daily lifestyle—where we’ve wanted something and it’s just not really possible to get the item or service.  We have learned to shift and pivot to make do with the available options presented to us. 

We have learned to pre-plan our purchases even more so than we normally do.  This allows us to build in the shipping/delivery delay that seemed to be significant in the first month and lessoning with recent orders.

We have learned to select a backup item, just in case the initial item is unavailable.  For example, if we want organic bananas or avocados, we add a few conventional items to the cart.  We end up with either none, one or the other, or both…quarantiners can’t be choosers.  It’s all good.  We’re happy with any items that arrived (I am now the owner of two jars of a strange-tasting Sunflower Butter product— quarantiners can’t be choosers).

I needed an outdoor spa repair.  It sounds quite superficial but sitting in hot water for a few minutes does good things for a person, for a soul.  [see: 28, 34, 59.60, 63].   Luckily, I was able to find some techs and an electrician who were working—said they were SUPER busy right now—to come over and do service calls.  They all made good money providing 6, 12, and 36 minutes of work at my home.  I was able to get service and in a few days and a trip to Lowe’s, a working 300-gallon happy zone.  I didn’t realize how much not having my standard routine of super-zen time (“commute time”) changed my daily routine.

So, this all leads me to the thought of trying to figure out a safe plan and process to help support the businesses that support me.  A way to pull together ideas to help the business that we’ve supported, and enjoyed for years and years.  

As the stay-at-home orders transition to limited-release protocols, not everyone will be in a financial position to pay for goods and services.  There have been so many salary impacting decisions that flowed so deeply into the supply chain that it will take time for everything and everyone to get back onto a balanced footing.  We are planning to do our part, to identify those businesses that we use, and get into a safe (masked) action to engage in transactions.  Interestingly, one of the first actions will be bringing my mom’s dog to the groomers for her nail trimming.  Sounds superficial, but not to the groomers, or to our “good-girl.”  This is assuming the groomers can survive their shutdown.

If you’re not already, plan, and support those who you care about, as soon as you can, safely.  If we don’t, they may not be available for us in the future and the “quarantiners can’t be choosers” may shift to a “post quarantine options may change forever.”

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice.

One week you’re living your normal life—grinding away in a Monday thru Friday, then weekend—repeated routine, then BAM, the new temporary normal begins.

I’ve frequently shared the thought of “enjoy each day” with an attempt to bring a little centering to our lives.  The—stop and take a minute to exist in the now— that was my thinking.

Well, this today, the today we all live in, is radically different from the weekly grind of the past— it changed, in a flash.

There’s a silent sickness—a silent killer—out there and the world needs to be protective of lives.  That’s the program we’re all trying to follow.

I sure hope everyone’s normal employment activities fall back into place as the threat passes.  I hope that people who need a constant income are able to generate that income.  I hope—oh, how I hope—that households learned from the Great Recession (and other personal challenges) that employment can change over time and the only best plan for maintaining your lifestyle is to have financial assets set aside for your upcoming expenses.

• Side note: I also hope that people previously put a health plan into place for both physical and mental health.  Often, in the daily/weekly grind of life, we put ourselves on the back burner and focus (solely) on the fires in front of us.  Now is a time when you want your physical health (immune system) to be primed to fight back against the nasty virus, as well as your mental health strong enough to survive a long period of safety isolation and serious existential stress.

At this point, it’s been over three weeks of isolation for my family (extended family as well) and we’re holding up pretty good.  Many of us are managing cash flow and have a good plan to manage incoming bills/expenses.  That’s a rarity.

My family is also doing well with our nicer spring weather, allowing us to be outside, feeling the sun, getting vitamin D, even doing some movement while maintaining social distancing.  Social distancing has been hard for some, while others find no issue with being in their own thoughts and activities.  This is where personalities show great difference.

Personally, we are FIREd, we spend the base of our time at home.  We used to go out to activities often enough and therefore we’ve have had to adjust our life a little, but not drastically.  I’ve noticed from many FI/FIREd peers that life isn’t that different.  I’ve noticed many have said they shifted early and purchased food and verified family members were set for the upcoming unknown.  The perspective I’ve seen is that they are not behind in preparation because they had some time (not at work) to prepare. FIrus activities.

No matter what your working schedule is, it’s important to think ahead.  Think ahead related to saving.  Think ahead related to health.  Realize you have extra hours each day to think of how to help others around you.

Please use any part of your FInancial Smartness to prepare and help, no matter what lies ahead.  Encourage those who need help to share their concerns.  We’re all in this together—we really are.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice.