Money, Philosophy, Life
It’s been about ten years since I first heard about FIRE. It’s still an important goal of mine, but I feel less rigid about it. The most important piece that FIRE has helped me with has been learning how to thrive with a frugal lifestyle. I’ve had to live this way out of necessity most of my adult life. I never really had extra money to spend on more than my needs and a few wants. When I lived in San Francisco with my daughter, I lived on about $24,000 a year. That was all the income I had, and I had to just make do.
But it wasn’t just necessity, I have in my bones the wish to avoid waste. My brain gets a lot of positive feedback from finding just the perfect thing at the thrift store (satisfying that foraging urge) and I get a great satisfaction from finding clever solutions to problems when I resist the urge to solve my problems by throwing money at them. I’ve been living this way so long that it feels strange to spend excessively on things I used to do for free or cheap. (I recently got a really nice haircut, the first in a long time I didn’t give myself. It cost $75. Was it $75 better than the free one? I’m still not sure.)
Intentional consumption is really important to me. Most everything I wear is second hand. I’m waiting to board my plane right now and am wearing an excess of clothes. My boots I bought new (Steeltoe Redbacks I’m currently breaking in so I can start wearing them to work) and my hat was a gift, but the tank top, sweater, two button-ups, scarf, and sweat pants all came from thrift stores. (Why am I wearing four layers, you ask? It’s cold on airplanes, and also I’m not paying for carry-on when I can wear-on for free!)
So much clothing goes to waste every day, just take a look at Chile’s Atacama Desert. The other day at my neighborhood thrift store, there was an entire rack of dozens of identical shirts and pants and dresses from the Amazon Essentials brand. Cheap, bland clothing that no one wanted to buy at full price, and now they can’t even sell at a discount. I can’t stop the flow of the trash river spewing from fast fashion, but I can divert a few items and give them a longer life than they would have had. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? No. No one person’s actions ever do (unless they’re a billionaire). But I have less stuff I have to wrestle with, need less space to store it, and keep more money in my pocket at the same time.
These things all build on each other. I ride my bike as much as I can which has reduced the energy bill for my car, reduced wear on tires, reduced insurance cost since I don’t drive as many miles, and my legs are stronger because of all the biking. Going out to eat is something I don’t do very often. It used to not fit in my budget at all, but now when I go on occasion (still very rarely, if I’m honest) it’s a really exciting experience. I’ve also learned how to cook and spent more time experimenting in the kitchen since almost all the food I eat is made by me. I also think cooking at home in is an important part of my own health journey.
I do splurge. Of course I do. I buy things I don’t need. Like equipment for my upcoming backpacking trip. And crafting supplies are a particular weakness of mine. But I feel really good about the money I spend. I feel like it’s making my life more pleasant, bringing in good things and experiences. I don’t always get it right. I had a weird night where I got sucked into Shein (I know! I know!) and ended up with a bunch of cute socks and some costume jewelry for Halloween. I don’t beat myself up over it. I don’t want to be that person who has a package arriving every morning with something I ordered in a random moment of want. But I still see cute things and beautiful things and I want. And that’s a very human inclination thing. It’s taken a lot of time and a lot of quelling of anxieties (I don’t need those clothes to be liked, this isn’t the last one in existence and there’s not hurry to buy this now, that bedspread is just as functional as the one I already have at home and won’t make my life feel more fun and colorful, etc.) to get to where I am.
I think a big switch flipped for me once I started seeing money as time. This has its own shortfalls, like sometimes getting anxiety when I make a big purchase and imagining how many hours (or weeks) or work it took to pay for one thing or another. But it helps me put things back on shelves a lot. This journal is really cute. (A weakness of mine.) I already have three at home. (But none as cute as this one!) And it costs one hour of work time to buy it. Is it worth one hour of my life (or sixteen or five hundred, whatever it may be, do your own math for the thing you’re trying to buy) to own this instead of using up the ones I already have? Usually the answer is no. Sometimes it’s yes though. And then it feels deliberate. And then I bring it home all buzzy and happy that I found something that adds so much joy to my life that it felt worth working hard for.
This week I took my daughter on a trip to Ross. We went to find her a new swimsuit since she had outgrown her old one, and a pair of new crocks since she came home with her old ones totally busted up after school. (Those crocks had had a pretty good run. She wore them through hell and high water, and her feet were growing out of them soon.) She found a swimsuit and then crocks that matched it (such a thing exists?) and was absolutely ecstatic. I was really happy I was able to do that for her, and shopping at Ross brought the total to just $15. Definitely worth 30 minutes of my time for her to be able to swim in something she loves and tromp around in her light-up Lilo and Stitch crocs. I walked through the journals (I know, I know, but I just filled up my last one.) I was inspired by Nature Obscura to start journaling and sketching in nature, but didn’t have anything to do it in. I found one, perfect size to fit in my backpack, red to match my planner, and only $4. How exciting is it to start a new adventure with a new notebook to document it?