3 Things I Choose To Spend Money On
If you recall from my post Introduction to FI, I believe there are four key principles to follow on the path to financial independence (FI): maximizing income, reducing expenses, increasing savings, and investing wisely. While all four of these principles are extremely important, sometimes I feel like there is an overemphasis on reducing expenses in the FI community and blogosphere.
This might be because it is one of the easier things for authors and bloggers to write about. It is also a relatively easy thing for people to take action on. And everyone likes to feel like they are doing something, like they are making progress toward their goals. It’s much easier to cut expenses by taking your lunch to work every day than it is to ask your boss for a promotion or raise. It’s much easier to cancel the superfluous subscriptions in your life than it is to determine your asset allocation in your investment portfolio.
While it is extremely important to reduce expenses when pursuing FI, too much of a good thing can be harmful as well. Some people get so carried away cutting out every non-essential expense in their life that little is left to be enjoyed.
I don’t believe in cutting all expenses and never spending money. I believe in not wasting money. I believe in not spending on things that don’t bring you value. But if something is truly important to you and brings you happiness, then I feel you should make it a priority. Work and budget to buy those things that make your life better.
The goal of this post is to tell you more of my own journey by sharing with you three things I choose to spend money on because they bring me great value in my life. I use some of the money that is left after I have paid myself first by saving and investing for the future, as well as after paying for our necessary expenses.
Some people might say to me, “you’re a neurosurgeon, you can buy everything you want.” Let me squash that myth right now. Even though I am now at a stage of my life, after 15 years of hard work and sacrifice, where I am blessed with a higher salary, I still can’t buy everything if I want to be financially responsible and reach financial independence. I still need to make plans to save for retirement, contribute to my kid’s higher education, pay off student loans, pay off my mortgage, and donate to charity. In the wise words of personal finance blogger Paula Pant, “you can afford anything, but not everything.”
A hardcore proponent of financial independence and extreme early retirement might argue that if I were to cut out these “luxury expenses” and invest the money, I could achieve FI much sooner. While that may be true, I think someone like that is missing the bigger picture.
My goal, and hopefully yours too, is not to reach FI as soon as possible. My goal is to enjoy the journey. Yes, I want to work towards financial independence, but not at the expense of giving up everything I love along the way. My goal is to optimize my financial and non-financial life in such a way that I maximize the things that bring me value WHILE simultaneously pursuing FI. So with that, let me share with you 3 things I choose to spend money on.
Fitness
Personal health and fitness are a high priority to me. With that being said, I’m human just like everyone else and haven’t always made the best choices in this area, especially with what I eat. However, I know from experience that when I am more physically fit everything in my life is better. I feel happier, I have more energy, I feel more confident, and interestingly I feel like I am better able to deal with many of life’s stresses.
What these experiences have taught me is that my personal fitness brings me a HUGE amount of value in my life. It has a direct impact on everything else that I do. So I have decided that it is worth it for me to spend both my time and money on being as fit as I can.
As most people know, your personal health and fitness are largely a product of what you eat combined with exercise. Both are extremely important. While my wife and I do spend money on buying healthy foods and supplements, I am going to focus on exercise here given the topic of this post because this is one area where we end up spending quite a bit of money, again because it brings us great value.
Daily exercise is key. It must be consistent. Over the last 3-4 years I have developed a habit of doing some form of physical activity 30-60 minutes daily, six days a week, Monday through Saturday. Sometimes twice a day. Even on vacation. This consistent physical activity paradoxically gives me more energy, motivates me to eat better, and provides significant stress relief.
So how does this equate to spending money? Well, I learned long ago that I don’t really enjoy going to commercial gyms. I like exercising in the privacy of my own home. I also don’t like doing the same thing over and over. As a result, I have invested a significant amount of money in building a gym that allows me to do a huge variety of activities to stay physically fit, including CrossFit, running, biking, rowing, power lifting, Olympic lifting, P90X, Insanity, TRX, Tabatas, Metcons, you name it. I intentionally use the word invest here because I really do look at it as an investment . . . an investment in myself. I buy high quality equipment that is safe, a pleasure to use, and will last forever. I also continue to buy equipment to try new workouts or improve my technique.
My wife also places tremendous value on fitness. She absolutely loves running. LOVES RUNNING. She typically runs 10 miles per day, 6 days a week (plus a long run when she is getting ready for a race). This passion is a key part of her life that not only allows her to accomplish amazing things, but also helps her to deal with stress as well.
She loves running marathons. She has run more than 30 marathons, including the Boston Marathon every year for the last 8 years. I support her 100% in this, both emotionally and financially. I completely support her getting new running shoes every two months, all of the race fees, and the travel costs associated with these marathons because I know this brings tremendous value to her, which in turn does to me as well. Happy wife, happy life, right?
So as a couple, we have decided together that personal fitness is one area we choose to spend our money on for our own health, happiness, and future.
Travel
Like many people on the path to FI, I have come to value experiences much more than material things. Traveling to new places with my family are among my most valued experiences.
Traveling does a lot of things for us:
Traveling gives my family the chance to spend meaningful time together making new memories and strengthening our relationships.
Traveling forces us to interact with each other, which anyone with teenagers can tell you is easier said than done.
Traveling is a break from our normal day to day activities of school, work, football games, cross country meets, orchestra concerts, piano recitals, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, church activities, video games, Netflix, etc.
Traveling gives me a temporary escape from some of the stresses of my regular responsibilities and allows me to recharge my batteries.
Traveling allows us to see the world and all of the amazing places that are out there.
Traveling teaches my children about other people and cultures, helping them realize there is more to the world than what they regularly experience.
For these and other reasons, I place a great deal of value on traveling, and as a result choose to spend money taking our family to new places. As most of you know, traveling can get expensive, especially when going to foreign countries. But for me, I would much rather invest our money on memorable experiences with my children than have more material possessions.
As I grow older, I’ve also come to appreciate that our time with our children is limited. My oldest is now a junior in high school. It seems like just yesterday that we had 3 carseats and a booster seat in our vehicle. During the many years we were living on loans in medical school and as a surgical resident with limited income, we could not afford to travel to places other than visiting family. Finally, after all the years of education and training, I am in a financial position to give my family some of these experiences. And I don’t hesitate to, not only for the value it brings us, but also because I feel like our time with our kids is so limited.
Photography
Because I place such high value on traveling, I also choose to spend money on things that can make these experiences more memorable and meaningful. Photography falls into this category.
Photography is a relatively new hobby for me, but one that has brought me a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction. I wrote a little about this in my post About the Photographs in My Blog.
I love photography for at least a few reasons. First, it allows me to capture memories from these special traveling experiences I take with my family. I always want to be able to look back at these memorable moments we’ve been able to share. Second, when combined with my blog, it gives me a creative outlet. In recent years I have discovered a deep satisfaction in creating or building something, and photography scratches that itch. Finally, it adds a dimension to traveling that has made it so much more enjoyable and exciting to me. What once might have been just walking along the street to get from A to B has now become an empty canvas for street photography. I see buildings and monuments in new ways through architectural photography. I try to capture the light and mood of a beautiful view or sunset with landscape photography.
As any photographer can tell you, it can start to become an expensive hobby. As you develop your skills, you learn new techniques, and sometimes those techniques require certain lenses or other gear.
Since photography brings me such great value, I choose to spend money on gear that allows me to try new techniques and styles. I have to be careful though. Its very easy to spend money very quickly on photography. So I try to limit myself with regards to how much I spend and how often I buy new gear. This keeps me disciplined and always gives me something to look forward to.
Conclusion
Fitness, travel, and photography are three things that bring me great value. As such, I choose to make them a financial priority, budgeting so I can spend money on them. I hope that by sharing these things with you, it causes you to reflect on your own life and ask yourself what brings you value.
Here are some take home points to consider:
- Reducing expenses is one of the key principles of pursuing financial independence. However, be careful not to cut out so much that there is nothing left for you to enjoy. It’s OK to spend some money on items you don’t “need” so long as you have a financial plan and are using your money responsibly.
- When you do spend money, spend it on those things that make you happy and bring value to your life. Honestly ask yourself what makes me happy, and then make those things a priority for a more fulfilling life.
- Don’t waste money on things that don’t bring you value and make your life better. Avoid spending money on things just because people around you are buying them. Avoid buying things just to try and impress others.
While reducing your overall expenses in the pursuit of financial independence is important, make sure you still use some of your hard earned money to enjoy the journey.
Thanks for reading. I hope you are doing well in your progress towards reaching FI. If you have any questions or comments that might help other readers, please list them below. In the meantime, keep working towards Freedom Through FI!
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