Why do we keep hearing that life satisfaction perception levels off at $75k of income?

What is the core?

Is that research statement related to spending all of your take-home pay?  Are they really saying that having a salary higher than 75k only delivers incremental satisfaction?

I wonder if that amount is a target for a household to live nicely—living from paycheck to paycheck —thereby eliminating the extreme stress of being able to pay one’s bills.  Thinking back to when we were both in college and working (I had three part-time jobs at once, for years) we made far less than $75k, yet we managed to live well, travel, and save.  Even with inflation adjusting, I have to believe our incomes were 20% below that threshold.

Our perspective

On to our professional careers, we made less than $75k starting out and we still lived well and saved.  But when I think about it, we lived in a small 1000 square foot home (still our home) and drive older used cars that work perfectly fine.  Maybe we just didn’t inflate our lifestyle to match the lifestyle of others?  Maybe we didn’t have instragram and facebook (aren’t they the same?) to judge our lifestyle/success against others—other’s glamour posts.

So did our lifestyle increase multiplicatively when our salaries multiplied over the years?  No, it did not, not at all.  Yes, we did grow our spending some, but our home and cars remained extremely constant for a decade at a time.  That in and of itself kept our inflation adjustment quite low and in our control.

Did our not upgrading everything give us a sense of lacking, a sense of wanting?  No, not really.  If we wanted something—needs were always taken care of—we just planned for the want.  We determined the best item for us and then purchased it when the time was right.  We have always been satisfied with our purchases because they were thought out in advance.

Satisfaction

So did I feel more satisfaction as our salaries grew beyond the magically $75k.  I’d say with absolute certainty, yet.  It wasn’t a “spending” thing.  It wasn’t an “I make XX amount” statement.  It wasn’t status, or value, or accomplishment.  I think it was the deep-down understanding that we had control of so much of our destiny at any given time.  Even related to a health issue, we had the funds to attempt resolution of such an issue.

I believe part of that comfort is that I personally get an immense amount of satisfaction saving and investing the top portion of my income.  It is the act of putting my money into a protection mode.  I get plenty of satisfaction seeing my net worth—hard placed planning/savings effort—grow and progress.  It’s not the dollar amount, it is by far the freedom of everything that amount may entail for the future.

There is a reason many surveys ask people “do you have $400 for an emergency” or “do you have $1000 saved for an emergency?”  Those amounts may allow someone to resolve an issue before it turns into a crisis, or worse, a downhill financial spiral that can be extremely hard to escape.

So is “satisfaction” the ability to fulfill one’s needs?  Is satisfaction the knowing you can handle an upcoming incident?  Is satisfaction the feeling of working towards an all-encompassing goal?  Then how would you define your personal increase in satisfaction, and can a salary over $75k provide that increase?  In my personal experience, yes, a higher household income increased our ability to progress to all our goals.

No Salary Slant?

Here’s a different take on the $75k life satisfaction analysis.  Our current “salary” is $0, and our “income” has been in the $20k range yet our satisfaction is extremely, magnificently high.

Living a lifestyle that ties closely to your personal beliefs is quite core to feeling purposeful.  A life of purpose seems to present satisfaction.  It’s even possible that a life of leisure—that contained previous amounts of purpose—can provide satisfaction.  It’s entirely possible that if you are intentional in how you live each day that you are increasing (compounding) your life satisfaction. 

Maybe all of this just comes from someone how worked through college degrees, to then develop a career, while living below their income level and taking an opportunity to leave their career to do something different.  In this case, to do whatever we want, whenever we want.  And yes, some of that includes giving to others, because that’s what we choose to do.  That’s how we get our life satisfaction.

So, others have found the same conclusions I’ve come to. Those are some serious high-incomes.

*** 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.

Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t seen a bunch of articles on New Year’s Resolutions this year. 

I have to wonder if that’s because people aren’t writing about goals this year, or if they’re still working on one of the bigger goals in their lifetime—to survive 2020 with some sanity and positivity.  Maybe the resolutions are already built into our psyche— that 2021 will be better than last year no matter what we do?

If you are one of those people who had a good (enough?), or strong 2020.  That is great.  Maybe it’s your mentality, or maybe it’s just the way the circumstances fell.  No shame in progress, no matter its form.

Purposely

I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions.  Yes, I understand it’s “a new year” and “a new start,” but living in Arizona in a FIRE lifestyle, it is really, really hard to tell one week/month from the next.  That isn’t necessarily a good thing.  It takes conscious effort to make sure to appreciate every day.  However, the start of a January 1^st “day” isn’t all that hugely significant. 

However, I do plan each year to give myself a Christmas present, a revelation to myself—a gift to myself.  I give myself the gift of steering my days and challenges to meet some level of a goal over a period of time.  It’s my Christmas Revelation.

Past Revelations

My goals might be: run 365 miles this year, run+bike 1000 miles, do yoga each week, meditate multiple times per week, help people every day, do 3 nice things for others each day, eat 8 fruits/veggies per day, eat only from noon to 8 pm, be a nicer and calmer person to those around me, etc. etc.

There is no difference to the betterness goal of my life structure in my revaluation than a resolution, but I treat it as a gift to myself.  In typing that, I realize I am so very self-centered with so many things in my life.  Hmmm, that doesn’t seem that great, but I try to expound external goodness in many ways.

Simple

I like the simple—but not easy—target of having a word for the year.  Once single, little, simple word to steer your yearly actions and decisions.  That seems quite doable if you can remember to keep your word in focus.

Do you have a plan, and quantifiable targets to make things better this year?

How do you tackle your progress:  Christmas revelations.  Goals for the year.  Activities, Actions, Word of the year?

*** 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.

I didn’t notice the definition of “cute” in the masculine handbook.  Maybe it was because the man handbook doesn’t even include the word “cute.”  Come to think of it, I don’t EVER recall walking around and saying “that’s cute.”  Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever thought that either.  Yes, I know, in this day and age I’m not supposed to generalize men or women, but speaking as a guy, “cute” isn’t a word on my frequent list, not really.

I notice quite often when I’m in a store (usually a “wife” store) that if I overhear a conversation or comment from women-shopping-teams, that they hold one arm out raising an item and one of them says “that’s cute.”  I’m not stereotyping, I’m just reporting the facts as I’ve seen them, repeatedly.

I was at a family gathering and two women were reviewing some store’s layout and its location of products.  I heard as they recalled items say the word “cute” at least 5 times…in less than a minute!

I then thought about this concept—the concept of “cute.”  I realized there’s this pleasure zone of sprucing things up in their life.  An all-encompassing zone of spending money to obtain “cute.”

I’ve pondered this zone for a few months now.  I’ve shifted my mind (temporarily) into the zone of how cutifying an environment can have value—personal, internal value, and reward.  It’s a hard zone for me to enter, and definitely not a zone that I would stay in for long, but a zone with some slight value properties, I do agree.  If this zone allows true happiness, more relaxation, and enjoyment of surroundings, without negatively impacting financial security, then some “cute” may be good, I guess.

Just another observation from my LifeInFIRE.

*** 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.

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.