If you're new here, this blog will give you the tools to become financially independent in 5 years on a median salary. The wiki page gives a good summary of the principles of the strategy. The key to success is to run your personal finances much like a business, thinking about assets and inventory and focusing on efficiency and value for money. Not just any business but a business that's flexible, agile, and adaptable. Conversely most consumers run their personal finances like an inflexible money-losing anti-business always in danger of losing their jobs.
Here's almost a thousand online journals from people, who are following the ERE strategy tailored to their particular situation (age, children, location, education, goals, ...). Increasing their savings from the usual 5-15% of their income to tens of thousands of dollars each year or typically 40-80% of their income, many accumulate six-figure net-worths within a few years.
Since everybody's situation is different (age, education, location, children, goals, ...) I suggest only spending a brief moment on this blog, which can be thought of as my personal journal, before looking for the crowd's wisdom for your particular situation in the forum journals.
The “spousal problem” in this context refers to the problem of finding a partner who is as frugal as yourself, preferably not too frugal (crazy frugal) but also not not frugal enough (relatively wasteful). Many have expressed frustration over this in the forums.
Fact 1: The majority of readers on this site are women.
Fact 2: The majority of people who say they can’t retire extremely early because their [potential] spouse would never go for it are men.
How do you explain that? Lets find out.
I’ll post the results here as soon as the sample is statistically “significant”, that is, 1/sqrt(N) for any given category is a small number.
Okay, here are the results.
12% prefer to stay single while 26% are interested in men and 62% are interested in women. This conflicts with fact 1 above.
Out of those who prefer to have a partner, 61% have already found one. Out of those who are looking and think they will have a hard time finding someone, 79% are looking for women. Out of those who have already found someone or think it would be easy to find someone, 62% are looking for women. This suggests cause for optimism for the frustrated. The ratio of trying hard/found for people looking for men is 1 to 2.92. When it comes to looking for women, it’s 1 to 1.24.
The raw percentage numbers for the questions in order of appearance are: 26%, 6%, 33%, 20%, 12%.
To make some real conclusions as to whether frugality plays a role, I’d need control data from a nonfrugal sample which would be hard for me to get.
What about “I found a man/woman before I became frugal, and now it’s a source of tension”?
SkaraBrae said,
I think it’s important to take into account that the blog readers and the forum posters might be two very different demographics — not only in terms of gender or relationship status, but age and experience.
Frankly, having a spouse is one of the BEST things you can do for ERE. If they’re on board, it creates an amazing synergistic effect, both in terms of money saved/earned, and in terms of psychological validation and emotional support/encouragement for your chosen lifestyle. Also, you always have a willing roommate to split expenses with!
And kids are great: free labour! (Yes, I come from an area where they still get excused agricultural absences from school each fall to go help with the harvest on the farm.)
Of course, if the spouse is not on board, there’s a lot of “coulda, shoulda, woulda” and I’d focus on making sure my relationship was effing awesome first and ERE second. I see no reason why we should take charge of our financial life but then sit back and be complainypants about our “good enough” marriages with cookie-cutter socially-defined relationship dynamics. You married the person, give yourself (and them) some credit. It will take time and require a lot of effort, probably mostly on your part, but if you married an ultimately decent person you will come to some sort of decision and plan you both can live with. And really, living in the best joint world I can imagine with the love of my life is worth more than shaving a year or five off my working career anyway.
If you already have the kids you may despair that it’s too late to train the child up in the way he should go, but remember that you are the parent here, and they are the child. There’s no need to be a drill sergeant, but the kids must understand that they need to be respectful too. I was raised by very loving parents who put up with my insatiable “why?”s and asked my opinion on a lot of major decisions (like which house to buy! when I was 10!), but I still knew they were my parents and their rules were the ones I had to abide by under their roof. Now that I’m all grown up and on my own, I realize that all those long, boring, hot hours in the vegetable garden were GOOD for so many reasons, and I look forward to planting my own outdoor garden as soon as possible.
Petra said,
In the questions, like:
I don’t think I’ll be able to find a woman who’s as frugal as I am / I have a hard time finding one.
Do you assume here that the “I” is a man? If so, maybe that should be clearly stated, and extra questions added for lesbian or gay ERE-wannabees… ?
Jacob said,
@Petra – I’m assuming that gays and lesbians don’t differ in their frugality from heterosexuals, so gay men can answer the “I ….. a man … ” questions and vice versa.
I found that having a common goal helped a lot. We both want to save enough money that we can move to the Netherlands and live happily ever after. It’s also handy that we are both frugal in different directions…
FrugalZen said,
I, being gay, answered in the “I….man” column.
And I sometimes wonder if it’s more difficult in the LBGT world finding someone…the social expectations are IMO skewed more towards having the cutting edge everything which is used as a way to indirectly validate your sexuality.
Where is the “I’ve been married a long time and would never bad-mouth my spouse in public” choice? 😉
jack said,
We might divide the spousal problem: 1 dating phase 2. living together.
During the first stage you manage your own money, but while living in a common household you have to make some common decisions (the most important one: where to live?)
I am probably not the most handsome or funniest guy in town, but usualy I manage to chat up a girl, and then go on a few dates. The problems usually start after 3-4 weeks of seeing each other. I am happy to walk in the forest, go on a bike ride, watch a freely downloaded movie on my laptop, cook something together or just curl up on the sofa etc. Unfortunately, all the women I have met so far want more and they dump me maximum after 2 months, because I am “a cheap mental looser.” (Never mind, that I have more real estate debt-free and a thicker bank account they ever will.) Probably, not having a car is the most untolerable issue for them, but they also complain about not going out (forest or riverside walks, free museums, bike trips don’t count) and not eating out. I also think the influence and opinion of their friends also play a crucial role.
MrShuffles said,
Agree with jennypenny.
What option are you supposed to pick if you already have a partner, but they’re not yet on-board with ERE ?
Jacob said,
I would say one of the first two or none of the above.
I was really lucky. The woman I married is a very practical person. I’m also very glad that I put her through school to get her Master’s in Accounting, and then a CPA. Shortly after that, she started making me save a large portion of our combined income. Good thing, too, because it kept us from losing the house during the period 2002-2005, when programming jobs suddenly became impossible to find by people my age.
-no, we can’t sell your car, I want my wife to have a car
-no, we can’t get rid of cable. . .oh, yes we can, oh, wait, I put the cable back on
-you can’t get a cell phone plan with that cheap provider. . .they aren’t reliable! (he can’t prove it)
-we can’t buy a used this or that. . . we need a new one
Admittedly he is more frugal than many men I could have wound up with. He hates debt and holds me back from always wanting to eat out. But we still have some tension over specific items.
genelmailler said,
@JennyPenny
exactly the same problem. Sometimes your behavior changes after your marriage but your spouse’s habits and behaviors will remain same.
I couldn’t stop my wife buying unnecessary cloths.
I’ve tried everything
-Used the “environment” argument… We’re killing the planet I said. She said nothing will change if I don’t buy it, everyone will continue.
-I said “8 year old chinese children are working for that t-shirt”. She said, “if I don’t buy it, they’re going to starve because of unemployment” and “just a misery that I cannot do anything to correct by myself”
-I said in a lifetime, you’re spending X amount of money, equivalent of “Y,Z,T” (put anything big here, car, house, big vacations, world tour etc.). She said buying clothes makes me happy already, why should I postpone happiness?
-I said “I will not come to shopping centers with you” she said “ok I’ll go by myself”, or better she bought clothes online
And several other physical and psychological arguments I’ve used, nothing seems to make an impact on her. She’s basically ignoring everything.
Do You have any idea?
Bludger said,
Jacob, the over estimation of female readers is probably because they are more likely to comment than male readers.
eva said,
@FrugalZen: I am queer and I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about re: the cutting edge. Maybe this is more of a gay male thing? Or maybe it is an urban culture thing and not actually a LGBT thing at all–since most LGBT people prefer urban areas for reasons of safety and numbers, and urban areas are cultural hubs? Anyways most of the lesbians I know are farmers.
I had a partner before I became frugal and we generally agree on most things, including this. She is a better cook than I am which helps me in my quest for ERE.
Marg said,
none of the above. My husband is not as frugal as I am but he’s a rational person and decent with money. We’ve both compromised in the past (good financial decisions, but not as frugal as I wood be on my own). It’s not worth making us both unhappy by making money a stressor so I’ve worked hard to lighten up and he, being reasonable, cut out quite a bit of financial waste.
He’s now seeing how nice it would be to be FI and we’re working together to see where we can trim things and how we can make it happen. He’s making cuts he wouldn’t have been ok making otherwise. It just wasn’t worth it to him until now. We’ll see how things go, but I’d rather have him work for a few more years to save enough than to have money become something we fight about.
I have dated people who were *horrible* with money and while that probably isn’t the reason things didn’t work out, I don’t think I would have been OK sharing finances with them as it would have really been stressful to feel so insecure about our finances. Thinking about it, things probably didn’t work b/c they weren’t logical and rational in general, but more run by their emotions. The way they made decisions (all decisions, not just financial) was too difficult for me to be around. They probably found me infuriating as well 😉
The best place to find the frugal “One”, A college Campus Library.
If you fail again and again, you can always read a book/take a lecture and became more intelligent for the next search/session! Plus walking all over campus keeps you looking hot, and modern innovations in libraries now have lounges for flirting zones, I mean study sessions!
Imagine if the Working World, was a bunch of college campuses where no one had to pay tuition and everyone was financially independant and self-sustaining! The ideas we could accomplish and the unification of society would come together!
Heliotrope said,
Marriage/partnerships are challenging on many levels. Will live in a super materialistic society where most people find going without phones, cars, tv, etc. hard to imagine. Finding a partner who can forego many of societies normal traditions will probably be challenging. In my case the wife expects to have unlimited spending power and the freedom to not work and travel frequently. Repairing a roof, stashing money in savings, or reducing debt is definitely not sexy. I find that most people lack the determination to work hard for results they desire. Everyone likes the idea of not having to work. Everyone likes the idea of being a millionaire. I guess working at retiring early is an alternative lifestyle. Good luck to all in love!
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