This week, Pete aka Mr Money Mustache wrote a post about finding your sweet spot in life, whether that is in work, exercise, or even frugalness.
People can go too far with anything. Those of us who like to live frugally and / or maximize income can become obsessive. My friend and I joke that if we were in prison, we’d refuse to spend $4 on shower flipflops and just do sink showers.
See also: my post about Frugal Assholery.
I reached my sweet spot with this blog soon after I started writing it. I had a lot of free time and enjoyed spending many hours a week on it. And then things changed. My sweet spot went from “several hours a day” to “none.”
The life change that precipitated this was starting a new job. Suddenly I was sitting at a computer all day doing mentally intensive tasks. The last thing I wanted to do with my evenings was spend more time sitting at the computer word-finessing or tweeting.
In my defense, the new job offered a decent pay raise, so one could argue that I was too busy pursuing financial independence to write about it. 😀
But my level of interest in financial independence topics changed, too.
Over the last 6 years, I learned software engineering and nearly tripled my salary. Last year I hit a sweet spot in terms of my financial independence journey. My earning and spending are consistently right where I want them. In fact, I don’t think about financial independence much anymore. In fact, in part because the quarantine limits my ability to go anywhere and spend money, it’s been months since I checked my Mint account to balance my budgets.
Why? Because I’ve settled into a lifestyle that suits me perfectly and is in line with my savings rate goals.
While earning power has been a challenge for all of my 20s, I’ve always spent money at a fairly consistent level. For the last 10 years or so my lifestyle has been roughly the same — somewhere around the $25 – 30k range, with one exception (a year of expensive Brooklyn apartment). I know what makes me happy (sewing, riding my bike, having friends over for good food) and that’s where I focus my spending.
I guess I’m saying, my sweet spot has shifted. I don’t enjoy thinking about money all the time anymore, and that’s just fine.
Meanwhile, I’ve become interested in helping more Americans get on their bikes:
I started a meetup for women in my community to go on slow rides around my community’s bike paths.
I’ve started supporting The War on Cars podcast, helping us create safe streets for everyone — not just people in cars. The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to statements by some drivers that adding bike lanes to their street is “A WAR ON CARS!!!” and issuing dire warnings that soon it will be illegal to drive a car in America.
I’ve written some articles to promote discussion about cars and bikes:
Your Car is a Weapon: The inconvenient truth about driving — and killing — in America
Dear Cyclists: Get Off Our Roads: Why is there so much tension between “asshole drivers” and “asshole cyclists” — and how can we make things better?
I may be doing less writing for Frugal Kite now, but it’s worth it. I’ve found the sweet spot.