The Question No One Asks

June 18, 2025 by Mr. 1500 Days 20 Comments

Money Versus Time: Change Is Hard

The FI crowd has a hard time giving up old habits. Optimizing for hardcore saving and investing will get you to the Promised Land of FI. But it will hold you back once you’ve arrived. Two examples:

1. Tool Time

I have infinite tools from all of my remodeling projects. Most of the time they’re in storage, so I readily lend them out.

A couple of years ago, someone wanted to borrow one of them. He used it and quickly returned it, but later borrowed it at least a couple more times.

I thought the situation was a bit strange because this person doesn’t live close and is wealthy. The tool was about $35, but this person had spent hours driving to my place to pick it up and then return it. It wasn’t worth their time. They should have just bought the tool themselves and then sold or donated it when they were done. The issue is that they were still prioritizing money over time, although they didn’t need to do so.

2. Mo’ Money, Less Time

And I’m one to talk! I have enough, but have still sought out exotic investments including private equity and private loans. The former took a long time to figure out how to properly execute. Private loans are tedious too. I’m not handing out money unless I’m confident in the deal, so there is a lot of reseach involved. Why am I not just buying index funds so I never have to think about money?

The Big FI Mistake

I still vividly remember being in college and having no money. I had a job at the computer lab and earned minimum wage which was $3.35/hour. (Yes, I’m old.) My apartment rent was paid for, but everything else came out my shitty wages. I was probably malnourished in some way because I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. About once a month, I would go out to eat at the McDonald’s. A value meal back then was about $3 and it seemed like an extravagant splurge. I would spend waaaaaay too much time debating in my head whether I should get the Big Mac or Quarter Pounder value meal.

When I finally did start making money, I made very minor tweaks to my life. I bought better food. I took trips with friends (although stayed in budget hotels or camped). But even now, I keep it pretty simple and frugal:

Costco clothes are fine. I treat my clothes gently and when something gets permanently stained, I move it to the Work Clothes Drawer. Note: I’m a slob, so the Work Clothes Drawer is almost filled to capacity.
Why spend more than $15 on a pair of sunglasses when I’ll most likely destroy or lose them in a month?
Why do I need to spend $2,000 on a new bicycle because it’s 2 pounds lighter than my current one? I’d be much better off losing 2 pounds of belly fat to accomplish the same result.

But there are opportunities for improvement…

Time >>> Money (after you’ve made it)

The biggest mistake I see FI people making is undervaluing their time and overvaluing their money. I’ve seen wealthy folks debate parking and airport shuttle strategies for way longer than they should when the difference is $2/day. This isn’t what you should be spending your precious time thinking about. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that for trips under a week, I should park in the super close lot that costs 2x what the cheap lot is, but saves me 90 minutes of time waiting for/riding on parking lot shuttles. At this point in my life:

Time >>> Money

But I can also see why these debates happen. FI people are great at optimization; so good in fact that they’ve accumulated enough to liberate themselves from formal work decades before most. If you’ve been doing something for decades and it’s worked well for you, it’s difficult to pivot.

Just to be clear, I’m not advocating lifestyle inflation:

Lifestyle inflation: Also known as lifestyle creep, refers to the tendency for spending to increase as income increases, even though the individual may not be financially better off. In essence, it’s a cycle where individuals spend more as they earn more, often without a corresponding increase in savings or debt reduction.

Instead, I’m advocating for life inflation:

Life inflation: Using money to maximize time to do what you love and eliminate what you don’t. This is different from lifestyle inflation which often results in mindless purchases. Humans think that a bigger home or nicer car will lead to more happiness. But often these purchases have the opposite effect. That bigger house comes with a bigger tax and insurance bill and more space to maintain. The expensive euro-sedan isn’t cheap to buy or own. It’s a beautiful object that you have to worry about. In life inflation, the focus is happiness which is strongly influenced by simplicity. Simplicity is often the opposite of lifestyle inflation.

But many FI Folks continue to live like they did when they had no money, even though they have it now. I’ve seen:

People who keep their thermostat set to 85 in the summer or 55 in the winter. When it’s hot, how well do you sleep? I also don’t want to be able to see my breath in my home.
Buying cheap, low quality food. Just because it’s on the clearance rack at the store doesn’t mean you should eat it.
Being inconsiderate to others. This is one of my big peeves. An example from my life: I went for a hike with a group of friends and we decided to go out to eat afterwards. One of the people in the group ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, a cup of soup (not even the bowl!). When we got back to my place, he told me how hungry he was and helped himself to multiple helpings of food from our kitchen.

Life isn’t static. It’s silly not to pivot when conditions change. If you lose your job, perhaps you shouldn’t take the fancy vacation. And if you end up in a good place with money, you should embrace that too and stop comparing the price per ounce of cheese at the grocery store.

It’s Hard To Spend

Many of the best things we’ve spent money are the simplest:

House cleaner: I’d rather play guitar or practice Spanish than vacuum.
Auto repair: My dad was a big proponent of buying American made cars. I appreciate the sentiment, but when I was a kid, Detroit was struggling: Hello awful Chevy Citation! Anyway, I know how to work on cars, but loathe it. So I don’t do it now.
TSA Precheck: I despise waiting in lines.
Rideshares instead of rentals: Waiting at the rental counter sucks. So does driving and finding parking in an unfamiliar city.

Most of our elevated spending is about reducing the friction of life; happiness by subtraction. The more stuff you can subtract from your life, the more time you have for whatever lights you up.

Tips

Stop thinking big. I always wondered what big things I could add to my life to increase happiness. Then a funny thing happened. Mindy and I were on the Ramit Sehti show and I gave myself permission to spend. I bought some big ticket items like a cruise for my extended family. But now that I had the green light to spend on anything, I mostly wanted nothing. Our neighborhood is fine. So are our cars. No big changes needed. Life is good.

It turns out that much of the happiness we’ve bought is the result of decreasing the friction of daily life.

Having a cleaner.
Subscribing to Kindle Unlimited for books.
Spending extra money on high quality items like tools that don’t break when you need them most.
A membership to the local rec center for workouts.
Meal prep service to learn how to make healthier food.

All of these things have increased the amount of time we have or increased our health.

Stop thinking about the small stuff. It just isn’t worth spending an hour trying to get a slightly better deal for a hotel room. Don’t spend a lot of time price shopping items at the grocery store.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I struggled for the longest time with this mentality:

I can do it myself, so it’s silly to pay someone else to do it.

Wrong! If you hate it, outsource it.

Fitness/health. Don’t ever cheap out here. If you aren’t healthy, life sucks. Besides, spending a little more when you’re young will pay great dividends when you’re old. Note: I do NOT eat at McDonald’s now.

Coupons, discount codes. Not worth your time.

Your quest to save a dollar could be hurting others. Without getting into too many details to protect the guilty, someone I know was struggling with a conference she was organizing. A very wealthy friend of mine asked her for a discount. Dude, she needs the money waaaaay more than you.

Experiment and be OK with failure. Few choices in life aren’t reversible. If you think something will bring you happiness, go for it! When the McMansion or Euro sedan don’t bring you joy, sell them. You’ll have eliminated a potential regret and learned something about yourself.

Be thankful. I’ll never forget my time when I was in loads of debt from a worthless degree ($60,000, Biology/Chemistry). Money was a struggle. I remind myself how good my life is every day.

Be generous. I don’t understand why Warren Buffett is 94 and worth $154,000,000,000 (thats 154 BILLION folks). He is going to give most of it away when he dies, but why wait? I want to see my money doing good. While I don’t want my name on the side of a building ever, it would be pretty cool to see the local library get an upgrade on my dime while I’m alive.

Simplicity Is The Answer

It’s great to be crazy frugal when early in life. A dollar saved at 20 means way more than one saved when you’re 40. Also, most 20 year olds usually have a lot more time than money. It’s the perfect time to optimize for saving and investing.

But be careful not to get stuck in the rut. When you reach a point where money becomes a diminishing return, focus on your time. Use your wealth to buy some of it back.

And it doesn’t have to be so binary either. A life of simplicity is the happiest and in many ways, the least expensive. My favorite examples of FI folks are the ones whose lives didn’t change much along the way. If you live simply, FI isn’t a goal. It’s just a side-effect of a life well lived.

The main things I want in life are to raise good, well adjusted kids and to have great friends to share my adventures with.

The kids are teens now and will flee the nest. We hope we’ll always be a part of their lives and will choose to live close, but I would never expect that of them. If they move away, perhaps we’ll live in their part of the world for parts of the year.
We’re so fortunate to live here in Colorado which is like a giant magnet for interesting and fun people. It’s hard to make friends as an adult. Even harder when other humans mostly terrify you. So I’m thankful that we have such a great community. Life is good.

We once had a neighbor who told other neighbors that she thought we were poor because she’d see me working on cars and engaged in other forms of manual labor. If she only knew! But maybe I should have taken her comments to heart just a little.