My money owns me

[Libertarian666]

Well, I optimize my hobbies, and my charitable giving too. It's truly a curse.

Oh, I don't know. I enjoy optimizing. I even wrote a book about it! https://www.amazon.com/Optimizing-C-Ste ... 0139774300

[vnatale]

We early retired in our 40s. I sold my business. We had critical mass and then some. That was several years ago.

My business had owned me. That's probably understandable. I succeeded because of my intense focus on the business. But a residue of that is that now my money owns me. Even though we have 100X annual spending, I can't stop trying to save money on things regardless of benefit or aggravation, make an extra fraction of a percent on investments, and all that. The biggest monkey on my back is that when it comes time to sell something, I have to optimize the value of it. So instead of taking the simple no-stress path to selling it, I invest time, hassle, and stress trying to make the thing get top dollar. When in reality, if we didn't get a dime for said thing or property, or we got a million bucks, our life would not change at all. I just seem to have this need to win at the money game. The other day I read an article about Mr. Money Mustache. His wife described him as "intense" about money, even though his blog earns them $400K per year. I can identify.

Lately I've had some down time. I read a book on enjoying retirement, and did some of the thought exercises in the book. It made me see all of this. I always knew it was there, but I didn't realize how much it was holding me back. I have a lot of crap to sell this spring. Equipment, property, excess personal and inherited household stuff, you name it. Normally, this would drag on for 2 or 3 years. In fact, it already has. I am resolving to just let go. Auction it all, don't optimize it. Don't begrudge the auctioneer his fees, don't try to get top dollar doing it myself, etc.

Based on my lifetime observations of retirees, anyone who did a decent job of saving ended up just fine. Does your money own you? Is it holding you back?

Another excellent one I just came across which provokes some responses from me...

1) I'm a hoarder. A buyer, not a seller. It reached critical mass when I bought a TV off Craigslist on April 30, 2009. That TV stayed in my car for a week because there was NO place to put in my house. Which is ridiculous given that it's only me in a house though small (900 square feet) has an equal size basement and a 500 square foot garage. 2,400 square feet should be plenty enough for someone? That made me snap in the other direction. For the next two years (mainly the summers) I invested days and days in getting things out of my house. And, since reclaiming my house was the main priority, I was not interested in getting money for anything I was getting out of my house and property. So, I had a "free sale". I live on a well traveled 40 mph street. I just put things on my front lawn for people to take. Also, gave away a motorcycle and a car in the process. I just was not interested in getting money for any of it nor investing any time in getting money for any of it. It was all so time consuming just go get it out of my house.

2) I believe I've "won the game" but I recognize it's in my DNA to want to get the best value for anything I buy and always try to first buy it used rather than new. I do all the same as you describe above - spending this extra time trying to save some money rather than taking the easier (but more costly) past. I just tell myself that being that way has been a major reason why I am in the excellent financial position I now am in.

3) That said, in the last year or two I have made a decision to try to draw some reasonable lines for how much time I will spend in trying to save a relatively small sum of money. Two instances come to mind. A few years ago I heard some live music and the guitar player was way too loud. I came home and vowed that I needed to buy ear plugs for any future times like that. I looked on Amazon and found out five different ones that seemed like they could be suitable. And, then I spent more time trying to decide which of the five to buy. I finally decided that I'm going to buy all five of them for a total of $70! It was worth spending that amount of money to finally stop researching! I tried the cheapest ones and those are the only ones I've used so far. Same thing happened earlier this year when my camera strap I'd bought in 1981 broke. I went to Amazon. Found five different types. Could not decide again. So bought five different ones, again for a total of about $70. And, ended it! No more time spent researching without any basis to decide which one to buy. In this case, I have used one of them a ton and the other when I forget to bring the first one.

4) I did not consider the above as wasting money. But I'm still not going to "waste" money even though it would never affect my lifestyle for the rest of my life. I'm thinking that that money saved can be put to someone else's benefit in the future. I don't feel deprived. If I want it I buy it.

Vinny

[I Shrugged]

I'm finally coming around to the realization that we can spend money without concern. Spending still rankles me sometimes. But mostly in terms of adding "stuff" into our life. We still try to avoid that.

[Libertarian666]

I'm finally coming around to the realization that we can spend money without concern. Spending still rankles me sometimes. But mostly in terms of adding "stuff" into our life. We still try to avoid that.

Ok, then I have a solution.
Buy me a netjets pass. You won't have any extra stuff in your life other than a grateful email from me!

[drumminj]

Buy me a netjets pass.

This type of thing is a luxury I'd be able to afford. I loathe commercial air travel, but the step up to any kind of private solution is an order of magnitude more expensive.

[Libertarian666]

Buy me a netjets pass.

This type of thing is a luxury I'd be able to afford. I loathe commercial air travel, but the step up to any kind of private solution is an order of magnitude more expensive.

Maybe a binary order of magnitude but not a decimal one.

[drumminj]

This type of thing is a luxury I'd be able to afford. I loathe commercial air travel, but the step up to any kind of private solution is an order of magnitude more expensive.

Maybe a binary order of magnitude but not a decimal one.

Perhaps things have changed since I looked, or I was looking at the wrong options, but I'll gladly bump from coach to first class ticket if it's 2x the price (vs hoping to get upgraded based on status), and I'd likely be willing to go willing if it was only 2x that price for private (of course that's easy to say vs shell out the dollars when it comes down to how to we spend our 'luxury' budget). There's only two of us though, which may change the equation.

Netjets doesn't have pricing info online. Any numbers you can throw out there for them, or any other private jet clubs/sharing?

[vnatale]

I'm finally coming around to the realization that we can spend money without concern. Spending still rankles me sometimes. But mostly in terms of adding "stuff" into our life. We still try to avoid that.

Ok, then I have a solution.
Buy me a netjets pass. You won't have any extra stuff in your life other than a grateful email from me!

Another term I'd never seen before- netjets pass. And, being so sports oriented I thought you were asking for season's tickets to both Brooklyn Nets and New York Jets games. But from reading subsequent responses I see that was not the case.

Vinny

[Libertarian666]

This type of thing is a luxury I'd be able to afford. I loathe commercial air travel, but the step up to any kind of private solution is an order of magnitude more expensive.

Maybe a binary order of magnitude but not a decimal one.

Perhaps things have changed since I looked, or I was looking at the wrong options, but I'll gladly bump from coach to first class ticket if it's 2x the price (vs hoping to get upgraded based on status), and I'd likely be willing to go willing if it was only 2x that price for private (of course that's easy to say vs shell out the dollars when it comes down to how to we spend our 'luxury' budget). There's only two of us though, which may change the equation.

Netjets doesn't have pricing info online. Any numbers you can throw out there for them, or any other private jet clubs/sharing?

Take a look at this: http://newflightcharters.com/private_je ... ricing.htm.
Note: I'm not in that league... yet.