financial success
Personal finance can be complicated. We have safe withdrawal rates, safe harbor rules, stealth and stretch IRAs, tax loss harvesting, investing on the efficient frontier, and low-expense ratio passive index fund investing.
Regardless of how complicated we make this stuff, financial success boils down to just one solitary concept: Contentment.
To become financially independent, two things must happen. We must live on substantially less than we earn, and we must invest the difference (hopefully through a passive index fund model that helps you keep investing simple).
In order to make real progress, we need to cut the weights off and sidestep the treadmill. Then, we can finally land on solid ground where steps mean progress.
The problem with all of this is that those weights that weigh us down were often purchased in order to make us happy. We didn’t mean for our “dream home” to trap us into our lifestyle. Or maybe for you, it is the private schooling for the kids, a fast car, or designer clothes.
Truthfully, we must realize that money is not the real object. Ultimately, we are trying to earn and save enough to be able to spend our days how we choose. This is the ultimate form of freedom.
The point is that we didn’t need the next house. It was a want. Contentment is what allowed us to delay future purchases that guarantee our loss in the personal finance race. That doesn’t mean that we never looked forward to the next house. It simply means that we were content with what we had while we paid down our debt.