Believe it or not, Monevator is a blog about securing financial freedom.
Originally it was focused on retiring early, but during a sabbatical I discovered I missed doing good work for money, provided it was on my own terms.
Nowadays I think I’ll always do some freelance, even into my old age – and even if I don’t really need the money.
I enjoy half of what I do a lot, and I’d enjoy it even more if it was optional. I also suspect there are social and health benefits to staying engaged with the economy in some way – provided you like what you’re doing. (Hate your job? Quit today).
I’m equally agnostic about how you plan to use your financial freedom.
I imagine most readers want more time back, or an income stream to support other ambitions. Maybe you do want to retire very early, or perhaps you want to downsize with security, or travel, or write novels, or breed rare goats.
Do you want to make a million? You can stick around, too.
I don’t mind if you want the financial freedom to sell ice-creams on a beach in Bali on the minimum wage while living a higher-rolling lifestyle back at home, funded out of your savings and investments.
Material goals aren’t my cup of tea, but each to his own!
Looking to the end game
I began with ‘believe it or not’ because I’m pretty sure Monevator’s ultimate motivation – securing your financial freedom – gets lost in all the posts about everything from corporate bonds and start-up businesses to house prices and interest only mortgages.
Some blogs are good at keeping their message up-front, which is handy for newcomers. Maybe I need to try harder, but there’s so much else to talk about – especially for UK investors and spare room entrepreneurs. We don’t have as many blogs to choose from as our US brethren.
Yet the danger is this blog looks like a site about making money for it’s own sake. And that’s a danger that can affect your own investing, too.
Here’s a tale to explain what I mean.
A very pessimistic person – the type you find writing comments in CAPITALS on Web forums – decides to prepare for the breakdown of civilisation.
He sells his portfolio, his house, his car, and even his iPad, which he rightly suspects won’t be much use when he’s hiding in a cave from cannibals.
Before money becomes entirely useless, however, he spends his last savings on the usual post-society breakdown survival kit:
- Gold coins
- A shotgun
- 5,000 cans of beans
Three months on, and society does fall apart – just as our doomster predicted.
You might think he’s sitting pretty. And he would be, except for one vital oversight.
He forgot to buy a can opener!
Financial freedom and you
I hope you think of me in the endless dark nights following the fall of the West. Toast me as you tuck into your beans.
But this isn’t really a post about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world of tinned food and bad breath.
Rather, it’s a reminder that you need to think about your own financial can opener.
If you don’t know what it is, then you could end up surrounded by pots of money and no clue how to use it – or even how you got there.
- What are you investing for?
- Why do you want financial freedom?
- How will you know when you’ve achieved it?
- What have you forgotten?
Remember Curt, the tin can millionaire who made a fortune scrounging for pennies but who lived like a tramp?
Maybe he had his can opener. Maybe the freedom of knowing he had money enabled him to live free of material concerns.
Lots of people condemned him. But was he so different from a Zen master who forsakes worldly cares, or the flower children of the 1960s? History salutes them as visionaries.
Then again, maybe Curt didn’t know what he wanted money for.
Maybe he wasted his life collecting tin cans when he would have been happier island hopping in the Philippines, or teaching French in Africa, or painting in the Swiss Alps, instead of just hoarding his money in a vault beneath them.
I think that’s why people reacted so negatively to his story. He could have done anything, but it seems he chose to do nothing.
The world is full of opportunity, and pitfalls too. Don’t horde assets for a future that may never come, or that you don’t want anyway. Don’t let anyone tell you the reason you’re seeking financial freedom isn’t the ‘right’ one.
Know where you’re going. And don’t forget your can opener.
(Image by: Sam Judson)
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the variety and diversity here, and the UK viewpoint of course! Too many PF blogs end up bogged down in the small stuff of clipping coupons, so keep the philosophy and the wit coming as well as the informative posts!
It’s all to easy to get lost in the noise of details, and every so often it’s good to get that wake-up call, what exactly is it that we’re doing all of this for? It was sobering when a colleague died of a heart attack in his 50s, despite being a fit hill-walker. You story of your Dad is also one to focus the mind on that all-important subject. Living with intent is sometimes hard with all the distraction of everyday life.
.-= ermine on: whither manufacturing, and whatever happened to leadership? =-.
M:
Stupendous article! *getting tired of the same hackneyed openers
“I enjoy half of what I do a lot, and I’d enjoy it even more if it was optional.” Many bloggers, myself included, don’t seem like they ever want to retire – but have the flexibility to pursue whatever they wish without the stress of financial burdens.
Ice cream in Bali? I had a 6′-7″ friend who planned to sell hot dogs in Nicaragua. Whatever he didn’t sell, he could eat!
.-= FinEngr on: Everyone Loves a Little Gossip! =-.
Hey! Didn’t realize your blog was about securing financial freedom! I thought it was more about bashing bankers and other folks who make too much money and taxing them to oblivion!!
Good to hear mate. Are you ready to make some more money from your site? Wait until you see what we have in store for The Yakezie by August!
Sam
.-= Financial Samurai on: The Dark Side Of Early Retirement =-.
Great post as always TI.
I’m certainly pushing for ‘retiring early’. I’m probably also almost getting to the point of the ‘retire very early’ methodology (although not as extreme as Jacob) by regularly saving over 60% of my salary.
My definition of retirement is however very different from those around me that I regularly come into contact with. You touched on it in the post and it is that ‘work becomes optional’. To me that is one of the most liberating feelings I can imagine today.
.-= RetirementInvestingToday on: UK Property Market – April 2010 Update =-.
@Sam – I have no problem with people making lots of money, but yes, too much money is a problem. What’s ‘too much money’? If they’re making it because they operate a cartel, because they hold taxpayers to ransom, and because they net of a small percentage of trillions while consistently letting down their customers and indeed the whole economy, just like bankers do – that’s earning too much money. Tax, tax, and tax again.
If Walmart acted like the banks have, millions of Americans would be dead of food poisoning. If Quantas acted like the banks, planes would be falling from the sky. If Microsoft acted like a bank, its software would always be crashing and – er, hang on I’ll stop there.
Basically, people don’t understand banking and so have allowed them to cream off ever more of the economic pie each year. Even now they don’t realize the Emporer has no clothes.
People are shocked that Goldman has been acting like a double-glazing salesman. I’m not shocked because I understand these people, and the reason I think the SEC hasn’t got a case is because there’s nothing new to it. That’s what bankers do.
Ah, nice rant, thanks for the opportunity…
Yeah, I’ve heard rumors of some new Yakezie initiatives, but I can’t get into the group so don’t know the detail. Looking forward to it, been great fun so far!
@Ermine – Thanks for the generous words, and I’m touched you’ve remembered about my dad. You’re right, his situation is a touchstone for me.
@FinEngr – Did your friend succeed? That’s the sort of thing I mean – there’s so many things I’d happily try for a year or two if I didn’t care about money. I’d love to work in a zoo or a public aquarium, for instance. I can easily imagine doing that 3 days a week and being one of the star employees, but not if I had to do it for money.
@RIT – 60% is very good. As you know, ultra early requirement takes saving hard to do all the heavy lifting. I hope to find a balance on my way to financial freedom.
Can’t say either way because he never tried.
What’s your specialty? Tiger whisperer? Bet that’s in high demand. You could always look into it as a volunteer option with the option of transitioning into a full-time gig.
It’s nice to be reminded of a blogger’s main point. My husband reminds me to get back to my original point every couple of weeks since I started my blog to show that you really don’t have to make your own laundry detergent if you don’t want to. I really wanted people to see that you can budget and still have fun. I’d even argue that budgeting allows us to have even more fun than if we didn’t…but I digress.
Thanks for the refresher.
@FinEngr – My speciality/poison/passion is expensive seawater aquariums, as outlined in my ten money mistakes post. I have considered doing something part time (in London Zoo you actually have pay to be a volunteer, however. Lots of people want to work with animals…)
@Budgeting – I think that angle is actually quite powerful. It’s more motivating to budget/save/kill debt if it’s for something positive, rather than just ‘because you should’. Good luck with it.
investor… i thought you where in your mid thirties! thats not old lol?
Well recalled! I am indeed in my mid (er, to late) 30s. This means I straddle the generations under discussion here, I’d argue.
Any older is old…our stories all end the same way.
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