Building Consistency on the Path to FI
Change is only effective if it’s sustainable.
By nature, consistency is not my strong suit. My natural inclination is to go all out until I finish a project than to work towards a goal steadily over time — but I’ve realized this usually isn’t very effective.
While there are moments in life where intensity can be effective, this isn’t the case when it comes to money — at least not from my experience.
Any time we have tried to boost our savings rate just a little too far, we end up going hard for a couple of weeks and then bouncing right back to where we started. It’s simply too difficult to sustain.
Making smaller improvements we can maintain over the long term has proven to be far more effective.
This is especially true when it comes to financial independence. Even though our goal is to retire much sooner than most, it is still a long-term goal more than a decade away.
If we take things too far, there is no way we’ll be able to stay motivated on our journey.
Adopting a savings rate that is too extreme can make life downright miserable, and quickly erodes the excitement we feel around pursuing financial independence.
At times, it’s even made us question whether financial independence is really worth it.
Luckily, we’ve always been able to realize our mistake and correct course before it’s too late. But let that mindset take over, and all of our plans could quickly fall apart.
So how do we create consistency when we’re wired for intensity?
The only way we’ve been able to maintain consistent money habits over the past several years is by tracking our progress and automating things as much as we can.
Every two weeks, our paychecks come in and we immediately allocate every dollar to one of our budget categories. Money for investments moves to another account and everything else is tracked in a spreadsheet.
This helps us stick to a plan we know we can sustain.It keeps us on track with our savings goals, but it also stops us from always trying to save just a little bit more.
If we truly feel we can make an improvement, we update our budget. But we don’t make changes in the spur of the moment that will likely never stick — and quite possibly, result in us overspending later.
For example, we could eliminate our travel budget and funnel the extra money into our savings, but sooner or later we’d likely regret that decision and end up pulling the money back out.
We’ve learned over the years where we can make sacrifices to save more, and where spending money is important to us — even if that extends our FI date by a couple of years.
Building consistency in our finances has helped us make consistent progress over the long term and eliminates the need to rethink our budget every time we get paid or make a purchase.
Being intentional with our money not only makes life easier, it makes us happier.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, consider reading: Pursuing Financial Independence Without Extreme Frugality.
To learn more about our journey, visit Financially Free 2033.
