How Not to Want
III. Save More
(This is the third in a series on how to want less.)
Money—we aren’t really supposed to talk about it. Sure, I can tell you I got a great deal on horseradish over at the Turn Out Your Pockets grocery store, but “Hey, are you guys still massively in debt?” and “So, are you still woefully underpaid?” are just not polite conversation starters. As a topic, savings is on the borderland when it comes to money discussions. It’s apropos to share information that will help other people but uncouth to say just how well you’ve been served by the very same knowledge.
Here, then, is my tightrope walk: thoughts and tools for saving money and not a word about how much or how little we’ve saved.
“The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money.”
Johnny Carson
Saving money is addictive, and addiction is a powerful kind of want. Addiction has to be consciously controlled. If allowed free reign, it will take over parts of life it has no business messing with. The key is balance—to become just addicted enough to saving money that you detest all unnecessary expenses. The goal is to quit the made-in-China, clutter-the-house, pay-someone-to-organize-your-closet-junk-room-garage-shed-and-storeage-unit life. Abandon the forgettable but fattening take-out and leave off lusting for that Lexus or even Prius. And replace these urges with dreams of effortlessly putting your kid(s) through braces and college, taking on worthwhile home improvements, and retiring at a reasonable age, to do what you like with your time, all the time.
Saving is dreaming. And saving is sexy. Crass as it sounds, evolution has hardwired women to find providers appealing. On the savannah, providers hunt. In this culture, they invest. Who wouldn’t want a mate who is smart, kind, funny, handsome, and has nice sized assets?
“Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.”
Christopher Marlowe
Young love, no matter the age, usually means restaurants, gifts, travel, and other avenues of state-sanctioned romance. But after courtship, it’s nice to find out that you and your beloved have the same ideas about money. Otherwise, more than your bank account is in jeopardy. Luckily, Rich and I are both relatively (some would say extremely, perhaps agonizingly) conservative in spending and investing. So you won’t find any get-rich-quick or how-to-beat-the-market advice here. It’s all pretty humdrum and reliable.
Seven Places to Stash Cash
The first thing to do is get out of debt. While I married into Rich’s 401k, I also married his credit card debt and student loan. Credit card debt is one of the great evils of our civilization. It is a burden, a beast, a stressor, a gaping moral flaw in the fabric of our culture. Ok, maybe I went a little far on that last one, but I absolutely detest it. Paying off unsecured debt was our first priority, and we were done with it within a few years.
Different dreams call for different means. For long term goals, we have the 401k and the kid’s 529. For the mid-term fantasies, like going solar and building an electric car, we invest in employee stock and treasury bills. The mid-term bits double as our emergency fund. And for near-term needs, like vacations, donations, and gifts, we have a plain Jane savings account and the coin jar—a two-foot tall bottle from the Kreuzberg monastery brewery.
Our seventh savings tool is just awful. Every year we end up getting a chunk of cash in our tax return. This is bad. If the government has your money, your money isn’t earning anything. It’s like keeping it all in the coin bottle. But there it is; every year so far we’ve either been way off on deductions or had a big credit from installing green technology. This year the bulk will be from the solar water heater. We use the tax return on home improvement. We may finally do something about the yard this year.
Hands Off
The only reason we save a dime is because every single one of our tools is on autopilot. Setting up savings so we don’t touch it means we don’t think about spending it on other things. When Rich gets a raise or we find a new way to cut costs, the question isn’t “Should we get new patio furniture or satellite radio?” We ask, “Which fund should it go to?” Having some savings designated for vacations and gifts means we don’t feel deprived in the now because of our hopes for the then. And keeping track of the accounts makes the future that much more tangible and less scary. That’s the addictive part. Sure, we’re just exchanging one want for another, but as Freud would have it, this is sublimation—harnessing the power of the id and using it toward a greater good.
“Man must choose whether to be rich in things or in the freedom to use them.”
Ivan Illich
It is possible, some say probable, that our economy might collapse; the frail cord holding the stock market to the reality of resource depletion could snap; bioregions could disentangle and spiral off from the global and even national webs that give money its symbolic power. Should that happen, all of our saving will have been for naught. I suppose then that we are making a financial version of Pascal’s Wager. Better to believe in and plan for a future where money will have meaning and bring some ease to one’s life than to deny that possibility and live through that future with nothing. This is especially true if the belief helps one live more contentedly today. Which it does.
Amy Vaughn
Copyright © 2007 Amy Vaughn.
Back to Borderline Mensa Website Exclusives page
Back to Borderline Mensa