Reflections on Money

The other night I sat myself down and calculated my net worth. Ripped off the band-aid! This led me to do some reflection on how I use money and what my values around money are. Money is a tool and everyone uses it differently for the things that are important to them.

 

Personal reflections

1. I don’t regret spending money on conveniences: Uber, professional blow dries, prepared foods…These things add to my quality of life and feel like money well-spent to me. (Obviously within reason).
2. Also no regrets about the money I’ve spent on therapy over the years. It was/is such a good investment in myself. I honestly don’t even recognize myself today.
3. Periodic self-care splurges — a restaurant, a show, a massage — are almost always such a worthwhile use of my money. I enjoy these experiences for days or weeks after!
4. Travel and vacations — I could do a better job food planning (I tend to overbuy both in restaurants and grocery stores when I’m going away and it goes to waste) but otherwise, money well-spent.
5. My two largest expenses of the past few years have been tuition (MSW, PhD) and egg freezing. My MSW was the best investment ever. It totally changed my life in every good way to change careers. Egg freezing for me was clearly bashert and I feel like it was money spent on a mitzva so I don’t regret it either. My PhD is a significant luxury. I don’t actually think the return on investment will be “worth it,” but I know that if I didn’t do this I’d always wonder if I could have, so given my freedom now, I’m doing it.
6. Moving out of my parents’ house a few years ago and then again this year and paying rent has been/is costly, obviously. But if I hadn’t, I know I’d have stunted my growth and that doesn’t feel like a worthwhile exchange to save money. So — this one just is what it is.
7. I regret spending money on “things” that I didn’t enjoy. This is a broad category including cosmetics, skincare, clothing, accessories, décor, kitchen gadgets, books, and other items over the years that I just didn’t really have an immediate use or routine for and never enjoyed. It became really clear to me that I tend towards minimalism, which was eye-opening to me since I love the aesthetic of maximalism. It occurred to me that maybe one of the reasons I love libraries and museums is because I can be surrounded by “things” and enjoy them but not have to pay to bring them home.
8. On clothing — I tend to buy a few items at the beginning of the season (usually full price) that I really like and then just about wear them into the ground over the next few months. This is working for me; anytime I’ve shopped a major mid-season sale, I’ve usually bought things I didn’t really like but “had” to because they were marked down so much, and mostly didn’t enjoy them. (This Black Friday I actually did quite well so I won’t say this is a hard and fast rule, but often applies).
9. I also realized that owning a home feels like buying a “thing” to me. This blew my mind a little because doesn’t everyone want to own a home? I remembered that Chazal say “marbeh nechosim, marbeh daaga” and maybe there is something to not wanting to be consumed by the responsibility and expense of home ownership.
10. I need to take a pause on courses and trainings. I love to learn but I’m kind of saturated and not getting enough return on investment at the moment. As much as I want to learn everything, I need to give myself some time to open more space in my head for learning something new!

Other thoughts

Last year I read Die With Zero by Bill Perkins, which is an interesting personal finance book that sort of flies in the face of conventional personal finance advice but made me think about the purpose of money in a new way. His main point is to think about what you want to experience or do in your lifetime and at what age those things would make the most sense for you (ex. it might make sense to travel in your 20’s even if you don’t have a lot of savings because it will probably just get harder to get away in the next few decades). I would say that for myself it’s a good perspective to keep in mind to supplement the basics.

 

My sister recommended The Simple Path to Wealth by J L Collins; I recently borrowed this from her. And my favorite book on personal finance because it made everything so understandable to me is The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton.

 

Also, last week at a work meeting, the controller at my organization said we should aim for that first $100K in retirement because that’s when the magic of compounding really starts to pick up speed; here is an article about that.

 

This was kind of long! but I think the bottom line (no pun) is: put a percentage of your money in investments every month, think about your values, think about your short- and long-term goals and when you’d like to achieve them, and remember that money is a totally neutral tool!