The headlines are catchy. Some 20-something out there worked hard for 5 years to save $500,000 so he or she could retire early before 30. A noble, Instagram-worthy pursuit to be sure, but with it comes a brutal stretch of self-deprivation. Starbucks suddenly becomes a no-no. Getting around in a car is a sin. You might even have to give up your gym membership. Damn.
I’ll be the first to stand up with a hearty “Bravo!” to those among us with the will, determination, and financial knowledge to pull off MillennialFIRE (or whatever that version of Financial Independence, Retire Early is…) These are the young adults who witnessed the problems their parents or friends’ parents went through during the Great Recession.
Not wanting to go through what their elders did, many Millennials are going to live lean or go for the big bucks. They’re certainly not going to let an employer or a mortgage bank (or Wall Street?) dictate their financial fate.
But are there aspects of the journey that can lead to deprivations that aren’t necessary? Some aspiring early retirees go so far as to only take cold showers to save on utility bills. Some rely on dumpsters to replace a nightstand lamp. Is it worth the energy and social stigma to live in a van down by the river to reach a permanent vacation before one’s third decade? Let’s dive in…
How My Perspective on Self-Deprivation Has Evolved
Back in late 2014 when I started on the journey to FIRE, I went into it “whole-hog”. Thanks to Mr. Money Mustache, I was armed to the teeth with every nook and cranny of personal finance savings opportunities on the planet. Heck, I even took out a 5/1 ARM refinance to give me an incentive to pay off our mortgage early.
Oh yeah, and I started riding my bike to work from time to time. The Mustache Blog had me walking and biking for most all my errands, even in the dead of Minnesota winter. Starbucks was banned.
Notice I said “I” quite a bit there. My wife, although frugal to begin with, wasn’t on-board with this over-the-top approach to living. I had to back-pedal quite a bit because I failed to bring my best friend and partner along for the journey early on. We were already living small, and here I was, asking her to live even smaller. And we’d just brought twins into the world.
Eventually, I tempered my enthusiasm to ensure harmony in the house and we found our common ground. Starbucks was no longer banned.
As the last five years in my journey to retire early (before 50) waxed and waned, I continued to buckle-down at work. See, having an ambitious 5-year goal generates a lot of steam for your 9-to-5 engine.
Also during those five years, I kept going hard at real estate to build a micro-empire of income. These dollars didn’t directly go to a magic mountain of retirement cash, but the rents allowed us to get through four-plus years of childcare costs without gashing our income.
Once childcare costs abated (thank you, Kindergarten!) and the mortgage got paid off, it became a lot easier to buy shit we didn’t necessarily need, but wanted. Starbucks is no longer banned, and even I have a rewards app on my iPhone 6.
What You Could Deprive Yourself of While Seeking FIRE
Not to preach or anything, but there are certainly some key, big-time expenses that you might want to avoid or limit while pursuing FIRE. These are the big things that put real big dents in your accounts. These are also the kind of things you won’t give a rat’s patoot about when your rocking chair years are in full swing (rock, or whatever…)
- Jet Skis (and other expensive toys). I’ve been on a jet ski and throttled that baby up to the max on a giant lake. It’s fun. But it gets old fast. I guess it’s safer than motorcycling, but it’s a toy. I’d rather play water frisbee or at most, rent a pontoon with two other couples for the day.
- Frequent Air Travel. Give planet earth a break. Even though you’ve got a crapload of miles from credit card bonus points, consider limiting your jaunts to once a quarter, or even better, once every six months. Save your pennies for amazing trips with your family and friends.
- Big Houses. Duh. Want to pay extra for property tax, maintenance, furnishings, utilities, and time spent maintaining the joint? Probably not. Housing is perhaps the most important decision in your journey to long-term financial success. Keep it small and cozy. If nothing else, it’ll force you to adopt a minimalist mindset, while enabling a more bonded family unit. (Science has proven a proclivity for more group hugs as square footage diminishes…)
- Car Payments. Ack. The Devil. Avoid any love affair with the four-wheeled beast. Buy something useful and pay cash if you can. Teslas are cool, but again, not something you’ll lament not owning when on your deathbed.
- Dining Out All.The.Time. That last caveat is key. There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself and your spouse or partner to date night. There’s nothing wrong with occasionally grabbing Jimmy John’s or Chipotle for lunch. The danger is making dining out a habit. Learn to prepare 95% of your meals at home. You’ll save a bundle, and then when you do dine out (say, once a week for dinner, and once a week for lunch or brunch) it’s more of an event you appreciate.
I could rattle off a few others, like cable TV for instance. But most of my readers are savvy enough to have ditched cable and instead opt for a digital antenna, Netflix, and PRIME or some combination thereof.
Oh yeah, and cut your hair if you’re balding like me. You should learn how to cut little kids’ hair too.
How We Treat Ourselves While on the Journey to FIRE
Watch the door for the Privilege Police, would ya? Thanks. Okay, there are a few splurges we’ve rung up over the last five years. Nothing egregious mind you, but you can’t underestimate the power of the Dark Side (You know, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, next door??)
- Starbucks habit. Unleash the fury in the comments, by all means. But yes, the Mrs. and I enjoy 2-3 espresso drinks per week on average. We do our best to use those fancy rewards programs for occasional freebies, and that’s neat. We can walk to our Starbucks and on a random winter weekend day, we trot over there with the kids and play a little Uno, just to get out of the house. I’ll take a splash of heavy whipping cream in my Americano, thank you very much!
- Travel. We like to get out of never-ending winter with a flight to the Sun Belt once a year. There’s also a fun summer road trip that generally involves staying at an Airbnb or VRBO rental. Travel and vacations add up. We use points where we can. Travel is where some amazing memories and experiences are logged. It can be done relatively cheaply, so don’t deprive yourself here.
- Dining out habit. Get those date nights on the calendar! When you start to have kids it’s super important for parents to reserve some of that precious energy for each other. And after a full week of cooking in the kitchen, there’s nothing wrong with taking the family out for a meal to catch a break.
There is more. I recently signed us up for Disney+ because I refuse to deprive myself of Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian). The neat part about that is I set up our account on the Airbnb unit, so the subscription fee can be treated as a business write off (and it’s a nice service to offer our guests!)
These aren’t the millionaires next door you’re looking for… (Photo by Artur Tumasjan on Unsplash)
Thoughts From Fellow FIREmen and FIREwomen on Self-Deprivation
I had the fortune of receiving a wealth of feedback from my Twitter friends on this subject. Here’s what they had to offer in response to my query: “Curious what others are willing to deprive themselves of while saving a nest egg (or FIRE I guess). Small stuff (Starbucks) to big stuff (houses, cars) … All fair game.”
Bob Tawcan: It depends on what people define deprive I suppose. We cut back on heat, electricity, and water usage but some ppl see that as deprivation.
Recent Golden Nameplate winner Gwen at Fiery Millennials: I went secondhand for a lot of household goods and kept my old car. I realized most of it was functional but I didn’t like it so now I’m deliberately upgrading things like plates, silverware, living room décor and more.
Solid Dividend: Clothes. I keep old ones till they’re pretty much torn. Shoes as well.
Brett Neal: Full carbon mountain bike, an airplane, new gear. All the toys that just eat up money.
Another Golden Nameplate winner, Joe at Retire by 40: We downsized from our old 2,000 square foot single-family home to a 1,000 sq ft condo. The primary reason was to move to a more walkable area. It worked out financially, though. We are used to living in a smaller space and don’t need a big house.
Stopped Ironing Shirts: Cars and restaurants. (My) wife had her car since 21, I bought mine at 25. We are 37 now.
Michelle at Frugality and Freedom: Hotel accommodations on vacation (I rock hostels, shared Airbnb’s or housesitting)
Millennial Boss: Time … because I stuff my day with side hustles.
Kristine at Frugasaurus: I think I’d have to second time. Shopping second-hand and commuting by bike/bus is normal to us, and probably not something we’d stop once we “get there”.
Hannah Rounds: While on a modest income, we opted to “house hack” and rent out our bottom level (in our 1400 sq foot house). We also opted to be a single-car family. Doing this 6 years allowed us to make massive traction on less than 6 figures of income (and two kids in daycare).
Kate at Goodnight Debt: I deprived myself (of) the luxury of acting “normally.” I don’t consume at the expected pace. I don’t buy the expected things from the expected places because society says I should. It would be a lot easier to be normal, but I’d have a lot less money.
A great one to round out this collection of depravity! Err, I mean deprivations. Sorry, Webster. I couldn’t agree more, seriously. Kate nails it here. Many of us feel we have to live like monks and accept the scorn from our friends, family, and neighbors for living a small-footprint-life. Boo… Hiss… Hogwash.
The main thing to ask yourself is are you content with how you’re living? If you get overwhelmed by FOMO, examine whether the things you’re missing out on are material or relationship in nature. The latter is what counts. It’s still cheapish to go on road trips with friends. You can host parties without dropping a ton of coin.
And nature, while we still have it, is still pretty darn accessible. We’ll be hitting up a new national park or two in 2020. Hike till you drop I say! I won’t deprive my FitBit (splurge) of all those wonderful steps…
Featured Photo by Solé Bicycles on Unsplash
You consider cutting air travel back to four times a year? Wow. Even before I found FIRE I considered air travel a luxury that I could do maybe once every few years. A lot of people I know in my middle class neighborhood have never been on a plane. Different perspectives I guess. On the flipside now that I know air travel is the single worst thing you can do for the environment I am glad I never got to the point I consider it a normal thing.
The other benefits of growing up in a middle class neighborhood is never developing the expensive coffee and eating out habit. As kids that was a treat for us. Naturally in college I did it all the time but after finding FIRE adjusting to homemade coffee and home cooking has been easier for me than my wife who was raised to think eating out half the week is normal. Packing our own food and drink for long trips instead of relying on a diner is something I even considered because with 5 kids my mother always did it but I would rather give my business to small town diners. While the world needs less Starbucks I think there is a magic in small towns and small town diners that is being lost to globalist corporations and I would rather support small businesses and towns than see them die.
It’s funny that everyone travels to exotic countries to find authentic local experiences off the beaten track but no one considers that you can find those exact same experiences in America except the people speak English.
Hey Longworth – Thanks for stopping by! I’m with you on air travel, believe it or not. I traveled by plane exactly ONCE in my early 20s for a family wedding, then I was almost 30 before I took my first overseas trip. We consider air travel a luxury and I use as many bonus points as possible to try to keep our airfare to less than $2K per year on the budget. And yes – Air travel is literally choking the planet. But be sure you’re eating a fully vegan diet or at least one void of farmed meat. That’s the equivalent of all emissions, air, and ground included, combined. (not to mention the byproduct pollutants!)
I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood too, devoid of Starbucks (no such thing) and we only seemed to dine out on birthdays. So in your case, don’t consider it a benefit, it’s just a happy coincidence. I’ve got several friends who’ve moved here from the Indian subcontinent for work and they have no trouble upgrading to our luxurious standard of living.
As for your last point, I think there’s solid merit to travel for experience and eventually as a parent, showing your kids the wonders of the rest of the amazing world we live on. True, there are special places right here in the U.S. too, and we try to hit those up as well. And very often stopping at the local mom and pop diners and cafes along the way 🙂
Fascinating article Cubert, thanks for posting. I live in Australia, and so the rules and living expenses are different to you in the United States. I left full time employment over two years ago, at the age of 59, but prepared for it by paying off all debt, living and travelling modestly, gaining better financial literacy and monitoring expenses.
So far, so good! I do an overseas trip every two years, owing to the weakness of the Australian dollar against the US dollar and Euro, and drive a smallish Japanese sedan that is 6 Years old. I am hoping that electric cars will be much more affordable by the time I have run this car into the ground.
Electric bikes are getting better every year, and given our great climate here, I will get one soon!
In my case I can only access social security at 67, 5 years time, so I am living on savings at the moment. Not an ideal situation, but I have a plan B (superannuation, like your 401k) and a plan C (move back to the country of my birth and access superannuation there).
Not ideal, sailing a little close to the rocks, so I’ll return to part time work next year to build up a buffer of safety.
Keep up the good work in your writing!
Thanks, Rex! (And I hope you’re safe from those wildfires and the heatwave down under!)
You’ll really appreciate the e-bike – to your point, they’re made super solid at this point. My in-laws LOVE theirs. I can’t believe how many miles they put on, and the never biked at all prior to owning these.
Some good points there Cubert. I’ve read about these young ones but have never actually met one. I’m not too sure what there doing is right, well it wouldn’t have worked for me but then I’m older and I always believed in having a ‘life’ – especially at that age when we were led to believe that they ‘are the best years of your life’ ! I’m happy I retired at your ‘magic’ 46, younger than that I’ve a feeling may have deprived me of some very rich experiences, the sort you can only get through work and interaction. I led a fairly frugal life and saved money, but not an excruciatingly painful frugality I must add. But it did help me retire reasonably well off at that age. I still do without luxuries such as car, smart phone and other posh goods, even travel we don’t do so much now. As I always joke, I travelled a lot through work so somebody else paid for my long haul adventures when in my 20-40s !
Thank you, Ben! It’s a good point you make — deprive yourself too early in life and you don’t get a baseline of what your trade-offs are. This is why I agree that maybe early retirement has the most resonance for those between 45 and 55. See how I justify my own schemes there 😉
Ah. A fellow iPhone 6 user! I bought mine brand new back in 2015 when I FINALLY took the trip to the UK and Europe that I planned ever since I was 15. I wanted something that would take good photos, so I upgraded from my iPhone 3. I was 51 when I set foot on English soil, so I guess that makes me the queen of delayed gratification!
My current phone bill is $10/month. I’m happy with that.
Wow – $10 a month?? Bravo!! 🙂
You nailed it again, Cubert! Watch for a new post from me that was inspired by your tweet 🙂 thanks again for the golden nameplate!
Hey – I inspired a post! SCORE! 🙂 You’re very welcome for the GN. Thanks for putting up with all my millennial bashing. *blush* you know it’s all in good fun. 🙂
I have to give my husband credit here – I would be in danger on occasion of going too far on the saving end of things, and he helps balance me out. He’s still reasonably frugal as his base, but he helps remind me to live in the now at least as much as in the future.
Hey Angela – right on. Let’s hear it for our better halves! All about balance and keeping each other from going too far off the deep end.
See that’s the nice thing about small town America, there is no Starbucks and hardly any good restaurants. So you don’t have to consciously deprive yourself, the environment does it for you! While we did have to have a boat because my redneck wife and me are going to fish no matter what, but the well used barely floating wrecks we bought to fish out of were hardly expensive. We accumulated a lot of money because there wasn’t any place to spend it! Our other hobbies of tennis, distance running and hiking were all pretty cheap considering my company provided my Country Club membership for free. I got all the fancy meals I wanted on business trips on expense accounts since I traveled a bit. I had the most expensive Verizon phones and plans free to me. My car and gasoline were free to me with unlimited personal use. The secret to our success without deprivation was OPM, other people’s money, that covered what would have been splurges if we had paid for them.
Ha! Great point, my friend! No worries on your boat – you’re already financially independent so the world is your oyster, so to speak. Tennis is a great pastime I miss from high school playing days. After watching an episode of Modern Love with Tina Fey last night, I think it high time I wielded a racket again…
i’ve said it before, cubert, but i refuse to own a mobile phone. it’s a double win in that i don’t have to pay for a dumb phone and even better because i’m un-friggin’-reachable. i do still have directtv though becasue i don’t like many of those newfangled streaming shows. i don’t think i’m their target audience.
the key is not to charge too hard out of the gate and burn out. our method was more like invest a little more incrementally to a certain comfort level.
THAT is a good one, Freddy! In this day and age, a smartphone is like the Swiss Army knife EVERYONE has. If not for the note-keeping, camera, flashlight, email, and e-tickets, I’d find it hard to want to carry this chunk of hardware around. I’m proud of myself for sticking with an iPhone 6 and not succumbing to an old urge to upgrade every two cycles. Ting is keeping us on the cheap side at $44 / month total. And it’s nice to not have a landline. But otherwise, not being reachable is kind of a nice thought!