On killing my £100K cappuccino habit and freeing myself from the ‘lock-in’
View this post on Hive: On killing my £100K cappuccino habit and freeing myself from the ‘lock-in’
I've moved to Hive, along with most other people, following Justin Sun's takeover of Steem in the Spring of 2020. I believe hive is a lot more decentralised than Steem!
Ah man, the daily coffee. So pleasant, so hard to defeat.
I hate to be devil's advocate while you are trying to make a positive change... but... I gotta say, the whole idea of calculating how much a dollar is worth in total lifetime value can be a little misleading for me.
On one hand, yeah, each dollar will compound over time...
On the other hand, we only live once. If I defer too much of my current pleasure in exchange for compound gains in my retirement age, it seems possible to go too far with that and reduce my overall happiness throughout life.
Let's say a hypothetical person does great in life: John is worth $1 million at age 70 and comfortably retired. He was frugal throughout his life and always felt a little jealous of his friends, drinking those coffees and eating avocado toast all day.
What if John spent that extra $5 per day? Now he's worth $700k at 70. Does he wish he'd saved up an extra $300k? Somehow I doubt it - he'd probably be like "experiences are worth more than extra money at this age"
On the other hand theres obviously a minimum that everyone should try to save, for me its ~25% of my income. Good luck, in spite of me debating you, lol
Just to clarify, this is all based on the law of John, one the of the oracles at my allotment, who correctly pointed out to me many years ago that work 'is a great big bloody pain the arse'... and it's on that basis that I'm trying to save to retire early... I just want enough to not have to work...
I personally find work so horrific (I am leaving in six months) that falling into the work-suffer-party-holiday cycle is a real trap that I wanted to avoid - frugality is necessary to break that cycle. The worst thing for me would be to be looking back at say 55, facing another 10 years of work, thinking 'if only I hadn't gone on all those holidays/ ate all those pies'.
I was inspired a few years back by Jacob Lund Fisker's Early Retirement Extreme - but I am aware that I'm a certain 'type' that fits this model, it certainly won't appeal to everyone.
I also quite like the challenge of frugality and doing without... I don't really enjoy consuming, so I guess I'm just lucky - most of my interests I can do for free or cheap...
To play devil's advocate on the 'experience' front I am aware there's a movement which distinguishes itself from 'materialism' saying that 'experiences' are more important than stuff - personally, I see very little difference in paying to accumulate experiences (holidays or red letter days) and collecting gadgets, it's still a form of accumulation.
The biggest game changer for my early retirement drive, besides cryto is this, I'm still struggling to comprehend the enormity of making a pretty decent second income by mainly just commenting on people's posts, and I think there's a lot more to come!
Nice chatting. More coffee?
I guess its not that bad (as long as its not just one of many costly habits). It will always look bad when you add it up over a long period of time, but so will many other things. I pay a little over $100 a month just to have direct tv so I can sports, so Im certainly in no place to criticize. Heck, I spend a lot each month on fast food and I dont even like it, so if youre truly enjoying it I think that counts for a lot.
Wow - you might want to calculate your 'lock-in' factor!