Despite what fraudsters like Robert Kiyosaki may say, there is no get rich quick scheme.
Ok, fraudster may be too strong a word, but he definitely over promises and under delivers. His company holds conferences around the world that promise people the ‘secrets’ to getting rich. They charge a smallish amount of money, or even free, to get people to attend their conferences and provide very minimal in terms of actionable information. They then try and get people to sign up to much bigger programmes where you will give away much more cash to truly find the secrets!
Well let me let you in on a little secret. There is no secret.
The true path to wealth is growing the gap between your income and spending, and investing the difference wisely.
That’s all.
Don’t be sold on a dream.
The truth is there is no easy and quick path.
It does require years of discipline and hard work.
The concept is easy. The execution is the difficult part.
It has been about 4 years since I discovered that I don’t have to work at an unfulfilling job just because it pays the most until I am 65.
The first couple of years of discovery of the concept of financial independence is exciting. There are constant changes being made to speed up the journey. Reduction in expenses here, an increase in income there.
You can reduce your potential age of retirement from age 70 to age 50 or even younger, depending on when you start. The huge cut in time required to work is exciting and motivational in itself.
There comes a time though, that once you make all the changes you can possibly make that you start running on auto pilot. The excitement of financial independence, although still there, starts to wane significantly.
If it is anything like my experience so far, it may even start to become a drag.
At least before I was blissfully unaware that there was such a thing as financial independence. I’d accepted that spending all my money was life. There wasn’t any other alternative. It was normal.
Now that I know financial independence is within my reach, it feels like my work days are slowing down. Work is more of a struggle now I know work will be an option one day in the near future.
How to deal with the boring middle stages of the financial independence journey
So, what are some of the ways I help get me through this period of slog?
1/. Mini goals
It is hard to remain motivated for such a long time. This is where extremely short term goals have helped me.
For example, if I am sitting on a net worth (outside of housing) of $50,000 and my end target is $900,000, then it seems a long way away.
However I will break the $900,000 down in to such small chunks.
Year 1 - $100,000
Year 2 - $155,000
Year 3 - $215,000; etc
Another example is when I was paying off the mortgage I had a picture of a house with each room in the house representing a portion of the mortgage. For example, the lounge was 20% of the mortgage, bedroom was 10%, etc. Each time the percentage of the mortgage came down I would colour in my chosen room, until the mortgage was paid off and the whole house was coloured in. Great for the visual person.
By making yearly targets instead of having a 15 year target, I have found it much easier to stay on track and motivated.
2/. Live more in the present
Stop thinking about the end goal of financial independence. Financial independence isn’t even the end anyway. It is really only the beginning.
By overthinking about this imaginary future, you will only feel more disheartened about your present situation, which will make the path to financial independence extremely miserable and looooong.
Let it happen naturally so you can focus and enjoy what is in front of you.
3/. Don’t cut too much from your spending
This may sound strange coming from me, but I never encourage cutting too much out of your budget. If you do, you will find it hard to live in the present and your time will be unsatisfactory.
Similar to crash diets or all-nighters for projects. They may be OK for a very short period, but it’s not sustainable.
Instead focus on intentional spending. I love food and good company, so I’m happy to pay more for those categories. Whereas a large house and fancy car do not get me excited at this point of our lives with such a small (and young) family. Significant cuts have been made in these categories with no effect on my happiness.
4/. Don’t compare yourself to others
We often fall trap to comparing ourselves to others and wishing we had as much as them. We realise we don’t and that we are so far away from their level that it can often demotivate us to even try.
Or even worse, we try and buy our way to their level so we look like we’ve made it! But in reality, we are just show pony rich.
Trust in your plan and your goals, and your time will come.
5/. Be grateful
Funny how gratefulness is nearly always one of my recommendations. It truly is the answer to so many of our financial struggles.
When I was younger I always wanted more. But chasing more would never make me happy. It would just make me want even more!
As soon as I flipped the script and started to be thankful for all that I had - A secure job, a loving family, fully stocked fridge, my health, running water, and so much more, was I able to reduce my spending without feeling bad about it.
6/. Stop looking for too many shortcuts
There are some strategies that will get you to financial independence more quickly, but there is a limit.
Once you start looking to get rich too quick, such as cutting expenses to the bone or investing all your money in bitcoin, you can do more damage than good.
You should be trying to limit your losses as much as possible. It’s bad enough living paycheck to paycheck once, you don’t want to go back there again if at all possible.
7/. Look how far you’ve come
If you are a couple of years or more into your plan, then look backwards at how far you have come.
It can be extremely motivating to see the progress.
This exercise alone is often enough to keep you on the straight and narrow and stick to the plan.
8/. Start living your FI (financially independent) life now
I get it, you work 40 plus hours a week. You can’t do all the things you would rather be doing. You can at least start doing some of them though.
Outside of my full-time job I have started a financial planning business, and I also volunteer one afternoon a week at the local budget service.
Both these activities are what I’d like to do more of, but I can’t due to time pressures. But at least I am doing some. This means I am already doing things that I would be doing if I were already financially independent.
This means that I am now not in such a hurry to get there, because I am already partially there.
If I get more time in the future perhaps by going to part time, then I will be able to add more things that I’d rather be doing to my schedule.
The more you can tailor your life now to how you want it in retirement, the less of a drag the whole boring middle stages will feel.
Final thoughts
The middle stages can feel extremely long and boring. But boring is good when it comes to your finances.
By implementing some of these tips you should be able to enjoy the journey a lot more and ramp up your motivation levels.
The less of a sacrifice you can feel, the more happy you will be and time will go
The information contained on this site is the opinion of the individual author(s) based on their personal opinions, observation, research, and years of experience. The information offered by this website is general education only and is not meant to be taken as individualised financial advice, legal advice, tax advice, or any other kind of advice. You can read more of my disclaimer here.