It’s very easy to talk about financial independence in big concepts of pursuing happiness, cutting expenses, aggregation of marginal gains, etc., but how do these concepts play out in everyday life?
A couple of weeks ago I had a day that I think perfectly sums up this financial independence journey. I was home on a layoff and my Uncle happened to be in town visiting. My Uncle loves Southern food just as much as I do and there is a great restaurant in town that makes some delicious Southern entrees. I decided that I wanted to treat the family to a meal at this restaurant on my Uncle’s last morning in town.
The night before we went to the restaurant, while I was sitting around watching TV and playing on my computer, I looked up the restaurant to see if I could find any coupons. I didn’t find any coupons, but did sign up for their mailing list which entitled me to a free pint glass. I also checked my Chase offers, as I knew the restaurant occasionally made an appearance, and discovered that if I paid with my Chase card I would get 10% cash back. The journey to financial independence is about the aggregation of marginal gains. A free glass and 10% cash back isn’t a huge savings, but more than if I had not taken the time to search.
When we arrived at the restaurant the next morning, I discovered that instead of getting a glass, I could instead apply the benefit to $5 off my final tab, which I did. Knowing how much my whole family likes fried green tomatoes I ordered us a round of them immediately upon sitting down. I also perused their Bloody Mary list and ordered the most expensive as it sounded delicious, and it was! Pursuing financial independence is about finding the things that make you happy, and then eliminating the rest. I love eating good food and spending time with my family and introducing them to new places. The money spent on the meal was well worth it.
As my Uncle was in town over the holidays, on the FI groups I am a part of many people were talking about the internet deals that the major companies were offering and how they would change service between them and their spouse or other family member to take advantage of the new deals every year. I thought this sounded like a great idea and asked my mom to look at our internet and phone bill to see if the deals being offered would be a savings for our family. Since we have a real estate business we have kept our landline phone. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I discovered that our landline phone was costing us $40 a month. I also saw that the prices being offered for internet plans were cheaper than what we were paying.
As soon as I discovered these things I did two things: 1. I decided that I would definitely sign up for internet in my name and have my mom cancel the service in her name. Not only was this going to get us cheaper internet, especially since I was also going to buy a router instead of “renting” one from the company as we had been doing, but it would also get us some great freebies the internet service provider was offering for new participants. 2. I decided to immediately begin scouring for an alternative way for us to keep our landline for significantly cheaper.
I thankfully discovered a VoIP that would cost us around $120 to get set up, but once established would only cost $5 a month. So, while the initial set up costs would cost us about four months of our old plan, from then on we will be saving around $35 a month. All of this from about two hours worth of internet searching and ordering, and then another hour of set up once the devices were acquired.
Again, I think the above day perfectly sums up the financial independence journey. I spent money almost without abandon on the things I love, family and food. I then looked to optimize my spending on those things that I “need”, using need very loosely when it comes to internet. I then looked to eliminate the rest. I am likewise stretching this analogy a lot as I did not eliminate the landline, more technically optimized it, but give me this one.
