Getting bored. What to do now?

[YTProphet]

I'm in my late 30s. I'm getting kinda bored with finance stuff and I'm trying to not let the boredom turn into frivolous spending. I'm not the most driven person in the world but I do like having a cool goal (getting out of debt was goal #1 back in the day and paying off the house become goal #2 after that). I worked really hard to achieve those goals and lived pretty lean for a while, but now I'm steadily floating in the opposite direction.

Current situation is:
-Income is conservatively around $250k depending on how things go
-House paid off (worth approx $550k)
-Around $600k in retirement accounts
-Around $100k in college savings for the kids
-Around $150k in cash

I won't retire too early for a variety of reasons (think of sailing into the sunset in my late 50s or early 60s), the main one being that my job is pretty flexible and usually not too stressful. That's off the table. I'm just not sure what to do now.

I don't want to put everything extra in the market since I already save $60k or so a year in the market, but real estate is my other alternative and it's insane right now. Maybe a small side business or something? I've tried to think about what gets me excited and, truth be told, it's hard to think of anything. I'm happy and pretty content but I need a goal.

[ChpBstrd]

You don't have to RE in order to achieve FI. Why not set FI as your next goal? Low-stress jobs can end or change into an absolute hellhole, and if that happens you won't be in a situation where you have to accept a worse life experience.

I'm not a fan of real estate right now. If you're making $250k with your day job there's no need for a side gig pulling out cat-piss-soaked carpet or trying to persuade squatters to leave, only to have a negative-cash-flowing investment even in the best case scenario. That's like an executive running a lemonade stand on the weekends, except riskier.

If financial independence is unappealing in itself, perhaps because of the abstraction of it all, then maybe you need a 2-part plan. Imagine all the things you could do if you were FI that you can't seem to do now? Take big professional gambles? Learn Spanish? Hike the Appalachian Trail? Visit Croatia? Run for public office? Meet the love of your live or start a big family? Go to culinary school just to cook for yourself? Kayak the Arkansas River in Colorado? Spend a year in Portugal? Become an activist or community organizer? Build your own custom motorcycle? Pan for gold in Alaska?

There's all sorts of stuff which is a radical idea now that is perfectly doable when you have major FU money and are FI.

[Laura33]

I'm just not sure what to do now.

What do you want to do now? 

I've tried to think about what gets me excited and, truth be told, it's hard to think of anything. I'm happy and pretty content but I need a goal.

For the vast majority of us, financial success is boring.  It's not hitting some big jackpot, or doing hours and hours of research to find the stock that suddenly takes off.  It's 100 small decisions every day to not spend money on unnecessary things and to devote that money to the future instead.  It's about consistency -- and there's nothing more boring than consistency.

Which takes me back to my first question:  what do you actually want to do that you're not doing now? Woodworking?  Travel?  More time outdoors?  A dog?  Your own personal backyard forge?  Monthly block parties?  Visiting every roller coaster in a 200-mile radius?  Volunteering at a charity that is meaningful to you? 

Stop looking to your finances to provide excitement and meaning in your life.  Really, if you're doing it right, you should be spending your energy on living the life you want, while your finances just tick along in the background, not bothering you at all.  So focus instead on other ways to enjoy the ride more.  Most of the stuff that makes us happy doesn't really cost much anyway.  But even if you do spend a little more on something, it's not "frivolous" spending if (i) it actually improves your life in a material way, and (ii) it doesn't interfere with your long-term financial goals.

And if you really, really just need to do something "exciting" with your money, give yourself a small pot of cash and start daytrading or buying crypto or whatever.  As long as you keep the amount you devote to that small, you can get your excitement for the big score without affecting your longer-term goals.

[Louise]

I'd make saving 25-30x your current annual spending your new goal. Your job might be great and flexible, but is it permanent and secure? A lot of highly paid people that have been laid off are having trouble finding work right now. Make hay while the sun shines and all that.

[zolotiyeruki]

How about making $1mm invested your next goal?

Seriously, though, Laura33's question is the big one you have to answer.  If you no longer had a job and didn't need one, what would get you out of bed in the morning?

Finances, or rather Financial Independence, is only exciting IMO to the extent it allows a person to spend their time on things valuable to them personally, whether it be a hobby, or charitable work, or traveling, or whatever.

[YTProphet]

Man, @Laura33 cutting to the heart of it. Kind of hurts to realize things about myself that aren't so pretty.

I guess the truth might be this - I don't truly want the things that I tell myself I want. Like, when I think of FIRE, I think of being free to dedicate myself to the things that matter in life like faith and family. I'm a spiritual person but don't pray  much. I love my kids but I'm not the attentive and present parent I aspire to be. I love my wife but I'm not always the thoughtful and loving husband I want to be. And if I consistently miss on those things, do I really want them? Like really really want them?

Maybe I need to dedicate more time to cultivating internal attitudes/dispositions so that I can achieve the things above that I SAY I care about but often don't ACT like I care about.

[ChpBstrd]

I suspect a lot of people are dealing with this realization right now. They've built a life around what we believe we're supposed to want - what we are told and what we believe will make us happy. But then they achieve those things and realize the contentment has yet to appear.

Usually we talk about this phenomenon in the context of advertising and consumerism. E.g. "I bought the $60,000 SUV / $4,000 handbag / iPhone 19 / 5br mcmansion / $3,000 suit but I'm somehow still not as happy or confident as the people in the ads? How can that be?"

For others, it can be "I finally clawed my way to the top of the corporate ladder" or "I finally have a home and a family" or "I finally finished my dissertation" and it's a mystery why they don't feel like they've arrived at that elusive feeling of satisfaction yet.

Two possibilities:

1) You always had enough to be happy and content all along. All you had to do was change the attitudes which were blocking those feelings. From pessimism to optimism, from scarcity mindset to abundance, from anxiety to meditation, from peer comparison to autonomy of meaning, from living in the past/future to living in the present, etc.

2) You adopted "wants" which were sold to you in popular culture, only to find out these "wants" did not fit you as a unique individual. E.g. you bought an overpriced house in a trendy neighborhood because everyone else was doing so, but it didn't make you happy the way it apparently did them. You got married to an opposite sex partner only to realize you have same-sex attractions. You watched that show everyone is talking about, and found it boring. You found that the problem with conformity is that everyone is different, and impossible to satisfy with the same things. Maybe in your special case what would really be exciting is a woodworking shop, or a pet goat, or a painting hobby, or a dominatrix, or a pond of muddy water full of catfish, or a collection of original sculptures by a forgotten artist, or a weekly volunteering meetup with friends, or a goldfish. Maybe in the pursuit of what everyone else is wanting, you forgot yourself, and you're tagging along on their boring journey.

[Fru-Gal]

Absolutely love this post, @ChpBstrd , it’s all genius!!!

[Log]

I’m not overly fanatic about telling people to try therapy (and am in fact very skeptical of that mindset in general), but I think therapy is probably most useful as a short, targeted intervention to a challenge of a specific life phase. I did just a few weeks of therapy a little over a year ago that felt kind of useless at the time, but I really gradually noticed some real positive change in myself over the coming months, and my life really has been a little bit better ever since.

If you’re not being the husband and father you aspire to be, you aren’t going to get a do-over. If your aspirations and your actions are not matching, that’s something that you could try a couple months of therapy with a direct intention of addressing. It doesn’t need to be directly about your well-being, it’s about how you’re showing up for others.

A couple months of weekly sessions would not be that expensive, and it could really reap dividends to examine this gap between your aspirational self and your actions while you still have plenty of time to course correct.

If you’re definitely working for decades more to come, saving more aggressively or pursuing a higher income will just land you with way more money than you could possibly need. To me, it sounds like you’ve won the money game. Continuing to give that game too much of your energy and attention when you’ve already won would be a real waste.