Balancing Invest vs Spend

[REatc]

For y’all who are Post FI, retired or not, how did you find a balancing act between investing and spending? I’m trying to figure out myself how to balance it all. My wife and I will be FI to a point where we could both quit in 10 years, or I could work 5 more years and most likely double that first stash and have a guaranteed pension. My wife is a nurse and sees people die weekly. She leans more toward enjoy life now but save for the future, I lean toward “sacrifice” now to enjoy a better future.

What have you noticed about your psychology of money after reaching FI, what would you do differently?

[ixtap]

First, a disclaimer: we found FIRE because we were planning a very long sabbatical, so we actually put off slow travel to reach FI.

When we got close to FI, we started to focus more and more on balance. COVID made a mockery of that goal and exasperated DH's workaholic tendency, but he is officially part time now. We already spent weeks at a time visiting family in 2021 and will do that as well as personal travel for the rest of this year.

[RWD]

[...] and exasperated DH's workaholic tendency, but he is officially part time now.

Did you mean "exacerbated?"

[wageslave23]

For y’all who are Post FI, retired or not, how did you find a balancing act between investing and spending? I’m trying to figure out myself how to balance it all. My wife and I will be FI to a point where we could both quit in 10 years, or I could work 5 more years and most likely double that first stash and have a guaranteed pension. My wife is a nurse and sees people die weekly. She leans more toward enjoy life now but save for the future, I lean toward “sacrifice” now to enjoy a better future.

What have you noticed about your psychology of money after reaching FI, what would you do differently?

Your wife is right.  Hands down.  I used to be more like you, but now that I'm FI I've realized that I should have taken it a little more easy.  Enjoying 15 years while working is much better than being somewhat miserable for 12 years while working.  A, there are no guarantees in life and B, you will never get your 20s and 30s back.

[FreshlyFIREd]

For y’all who are Post FI ... What have you noticed about your psychology of money after reaching FI, what would you do differently?

I am retired 4-5 years ... I think about this a lot. Both me and the wife were very aggressive savers and investors. We sometimes feel we went way beyond what was necessary. BUT: We are retired and most of our co-workers are not. A lot of my financial confidence comes from the feeling that I have way more than I need. If I had saved less, I would naturally have less confidence.

[moneytaichi]

I was FIREd in 2018, and went back to work 3 years later. I was glad that we spent money for travel before pandemic and later bought a house in a VHCOL area. Buying the house reset me three years back in our FIRE date, but I have no regrets either.

What is important for you and your wife? If they are important, I'd suggest to create budget to spend. If you don't spend money for important things, you'd likely do the same after FIRE. Beside, the marital relationships (and compromise) often are more important than a fixed FIRE date.

[ixtap]

[...] and exasperated DH's workaholic tendency, but he is officially part time now.

Did you mean "exacerbated?"

Yeah, it was me that experienced the other one.

[Simpli-Fi]

1) your life or your money
2) die with zero
3) podcast I will teach to you be rich

1 & 2 are great books...the second leaning more towards your question, balancing time, wealth, and health.  Bottomline to maximize enjoyment on earth your networth should peak, not continue climbing until you die.

#3 Ramit Sethi really deep dives into the psyche of money and helps people (sometimes with more than they could ever spend) change from savings to spending.  Everyone teaches how to save/invest...he teaches how to spend (while balancing saving/investing)

[ATtiny85]

We have been FI for about the last two years. What I have tried to do is simply not fret about the 'normal' spend that goes out. I used to really worry about every expense. I have slowly gotten closer and closer to a mindset of not worrying about anything that is able to be cash flowed. The stack of investments we have will continue to go up (and some downs of course) and basically once we got FI, we can't really drift backwards, within reason of course.

We have not decreased our taxable investing, but also have not increased it in over a year even though we have gotten some pay raises. A couple more years and I plan to RE, and surely hope to convince my spouse to do the same. We have a pretty good situation right now and even though we could FIRE yesterday, we still have some planning to do, so not in a big hurry. (well, I am in a bit of a hurry, but I get to do a lot of retirement hobbies during the workday anyway)

[Sandi_k]

For us, thinking about it had a lot of inputs:

1) I wanted us both to have 35 years of earnings on record with Social Security. That would make age 51 the earliest.

2) My pension required me to be at least 50 to start drawing on it.

3) We only get employer-paid medical coverage in retirement if I retire. So had to work until age 50 at a minimum.

4) We have been taking lavish anniversary trips of 7-11 days each year since 2006. That allows us to feel we're "living".

5) I worked a 9/80 schedule pre-Covid, and now work from home at least 2 days per week. That really helps with work/life balance.

6) We want a large income in retirement - to help family, and to take some bucket-list trips. Also, that large income will afford us the means to live in CA in retirement, which is really important to us, especially given recent political trends.

All in, we decided retiring at ages 60/62 would be our sweet spot. If I cam forcibly laid off, or medically separated between age 50 to age 60, we'd have to adapt a bit. But 60 means a ridiculously indulgent retirement income.

So I feel like we have a LOT of work/life balance, we have a great income, we save heavily, we travel enough for now - it's a pretty good gig. Any chance you and your partner can find something similar?

[MoneyizHere]

Reached FI about 10 years prior due to super saving and optimizing absolutely everything and very price focused. 

Due to Covid layoffs in 2020 and employer seeking volunteers for severance made me jump. Since we were all work from home during the time I'm sure alot of my peers were shocked that I was jumping.  Effectively I retired for a year, really enjoyed the time to myself, slept well, took kids to school, read some good books.  But I kept hearing how the labor force needed me.  I became selective and chose what turned out to be a great environment: unlimited vacation, permanent wfh, and managers who valued what I contributed and gave constant instant feedback, and access to mega-back door.  I'm very honest and managers really appreciate the fresh approaches I bring (can't believe I was in a very opposite culture before). 

Since I was FIRE already, I'm still a super saver, but really don't care too much anymore about spending a little more on this or that - like travel- I'll not really optimize the heck out of the early am or overnight flights - I'll book the most convenient itinerary. My accumulation phase is turning more toward let's enjoy the moments phase.  That's my balance.

[MDM]

...leans more toward enjoy life now but save for the future
...lean toward “sacrifice” now to enjoy a better future.

Define "enjoy" and "sacrifice" relative to each other.

[eyesonthehorizon]

...leans more toward enjoy life now but save for the future
...lean toward “sacrifice” now to enjoy a better future.

Define "enjoy" and "sacrifice" relative to each other.

This poses a good question. To me both are sacrifices: trading something valuable, at some pain, in the faith it can obtain something deemed more valuable. What is sacrificed (into either past or future) can be gratification, security, time.

So OP wants to sacrifice some of those in the present for a more expansive theoretical future in one or more of the above, whereas OP's wife wants to sacrifice some theoretical expansivenesses in the future for some concrete gains of time or gratification in the present. We all know how the math works out, quantitatively, provided everybody makes it to the future intact - though no guarantee of that & we don't know how the factors work out qualitatively.

My disposition is always to sacrifice now for later, which has paid off materially but impoverished me in less tangible ways: nebulous physical/ mental health costs, drifting social ties, endless opportunity costs to pursue my actual interests along with skills atrophy in anything that doesn't come into my job. I've started making significant (but I think still rather cowardly) moves toward scaling that back but am too acquainted with powerlessness/ a lack of choices to be accepting of reduced choices yet, so balance is still somewhere over the horizon.

What has changed is how outspoken I can afford to be about unacceptable exploitative or dangerous situations at work, which has only ever paid off positively so far. Even ahead of making any big changes to employment that has made my life at least 15% better right now, & the cumulative risks of any fallout are mitigated by my shorter timeline toward an exit.

[joe189man]

1) your life or your money
2) die with zero
3) podcast I will teach to you be rich

1 & 2 are great books...the second leaning more towards your question, balancing time, wealth, and health.  Bottomline to maximize enjoyment on earth your networth should peak, not continue climbing until you die.

#3 Ramit Sethi really deep dives into the psyche of money and helps people (sometimes with more than they could ever spend) change from savings to spending.  Everyone teaches how to save/invest...he teaches how to spend (while balancing saving/investing)

you beat me to it, these are great resources

[4tify]

1) your life or your money
2) die with zero
3) podcast I will teach to you be rich

1 & 2 are great books...the second leaning more towards your question, balancing time, wealth, and health.  Bottomline to maximize enjoyment on earth your networth should peak, not continue climbing until you die.

#3 Ramit Sethi really deep dives into the psyche of money and helps people (sometimes with more than they could ever spend) change from savings to spending.  Everyone teaches how to save/invest...he teaches how to spend (while balancing saving/investing)

you beat me to it, these are great resources

+2  Die with Zero especially changed my thinking on this topic.

I did OMY for a couple years because I needed time to process the loss of identity that came with a career. But while I was in that place, I also started ticking off some high cost bucket list trips and experiences knowing 1) I didn't really "need" the money for my stash and 2) I didn't have to worry about spending the extra when I still have an income flowing in.