By Dr. Jim Dahle, WCI Founder
This post is going to be a little odd. Most personal finance writers write all kinds of articles motivating you and teaching you how to spend less money so you can save more and actually reach your financial goals. However, many people who read personal finance books, blogs, and magazines don’t have that problem. Personal finance is their hobby. They’re already highly motivated to save money. They generally start early, save a big chunk of their income, and do a great job investing. It’s a huge disconnect. The writers are writing for people who don’t read their stuff, and the readers are reading stuff not written for them.
To make matters worse, a certain percentage of personal finance hobbyists not only end up with gobs of money but they also have a certain amount of anxiety about money. This anxiety is readily identified in others, but it's difficult to see in ourselves and it's manifested in many ways. Perhaps it shows up in an ultra-low withdrawal rate, like 2%-2.5%. Or recommending others save 50%+ of their income. Maybe it shows up as a difficulty transitioning from saving to spending. Or maybe just an unwillingness to spend money on something that will obviously make your life easier and happier.
If you’re one of those who needs to loosen the purse strings a bit, this post is for you. And lest you think I’m criticizing you, bear in mind I write this sort of post for myself just as much as for you.
#1 Support Your Favorite Charitable Cause
There are thousands of charities out there doing incredible work. The likelihood of you not finding one whose mission you agree with seems awfully low. WCI readers support hundreds of different charities. Giving to charity has two benefits—first, it helps the charity and those whom it helps, but second, it helps you. There is a psychological effect of giving away some of your hard-earned money voluntarily (sorry, taxes don’t count). It sends your subconscious a message—“You have enough, quit worrying about running out of money.”
More information here:
6 Tips for Those Who Have Enough
#2 Recognize Your Mortality
Some who struggle to spend do so out of fear, conscious or subconscious, of running out of money. Sometimes we need to step back for a moment and recognize the law of averages. While you may have a chance of living to 105, you’ll probably die at 85. It can be helpful to remember that. As you realize your time on this planet is likely to be shorter than most safe withdrawal rate studies might suggest, perhaps it will be easier for you to get out and start ticking off those bucket list items before it is too late. I’m only in my 40s, but I’ve already got a bucket list that is at least two lifetimes long.
#3 Give Yourself Permission to Spend
That fear of running out of money can be very powerful. The financial technique that is most likely to allow you to accumulate (and thus leave behind) the maximum amount of money is to keep the money invested in aggressive investments—like stocks and real estate—throughout your life. Although they do get a step up in basis at death, those risky assets can always go down in value, sometimes severely. That fear of loss (and, thus, running out of money) keeps a lot of people from spending as much as they could.
There are several financial products out there that give you “permission to spend.” The most useful of these is a Single Premium Immediate Annuity (SPIA), where you give an insurance company a lump sum of money in exchange for a monthly payment every month from now until your death. However, if you also want to ensure you leave a certain amount of money behind to your heirs or a charity, a permanent life insurance policy can be very useful, particularly inside an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) if you have an estate tax problem. If you want to leave a guaranteed nominal amount of money, a guaranteed universal life (GUL) policy is best. If you want the amount left behind to slowly grow as the years go by, a whole life policy is probably better, although the premiums may be twice as high.
#4 Save for Someone Else
Love to save but already have enough to meet your financial goals? You can save for someone else, too. You can save for your kid’s college using a 529 account. If you’re married, you can contribute $180,000 per kid in one fell swoop by superfunding your 529. You can save for your kid’s future cars, down payments, marriage, European vacation, or anything else in a UGMA/UTMA account (think of a taxable account for kids). If your kids have earned income, you can put it in a Roth IRA. If they don’t want to save their money, let them spend an equal amount of yours (the parent match) and put theirs in the Roth IRA. This doesn’t even have to stop once they turn 18. You can let them spend your money while contributing their own earnings to a 401(k).
If your underage kids don’t have earned income, you can save for their retirement in a low-cost variable annuity. Over multiple decades, the tax-protected growth in the annuity will overcome the higher costs (and ordinary income tax rates at withdrawal) of the annuity. Are your kids set, too (or do you already have enough set aside for them that you’re afraid any more will ruin them)? You can start saving for others, too. Start a 529 for your nephew. Or your grandkids. Or the neighbor kid (if you can talk his parents into giving you his birthday and Social Security number).
#5 Buy Time
You may have far more money than you need, but you have another resource that will always be limited—your time. The larger your money-to-time ratio is, the more you should be willing to spend to buy more time. That may mean money spent on exercise, good food, and healthcare. But there are other ways to exchange money for time. Hire someone to clean your house or to mow your lawn or to manage your portfolio. Fly instead of drive. Cut back to half-time or retire early. Pay a partner to take your call. Refer away work you don’t want to do. The more you look, the more opportunities you will find to purchase time with money.
More information here:
What’s the Value of Our Time, Anyway?
#6 Take Up an Expensive Hobby
A great income, a little fortune, and some discipline are likely to result in many readers of this site being in a higher socioeconomic class than how they grew up. That means you can do some things you couldn’t afford to do as a kid. Maybe it is international travel. Maybe it is boating, snowmobiling, or 4-wheeling. Polo, anyone? There are a lot of fun things to do out there that aren’t particularly cheap. Why not find one or two that you think you might enjoy?
#7 Send Someone on a Dream Trip
Have enough money to do everything you want to do? I bet you know someone who doesn’t. Ask a less well-to-do family member sometime about what they would do if they had more money; you might be surprised how affordable it is to you to give them their dream trip. Happy Birthday!
More information here:
My Children’s Inheritance
#8 Recognize Wise Spending Takes Effort
Good savers tend to automate their financial lives, but that works a lot better for saving than it does for spending. The wealthy often find that it takes just as much effort to spend or give away money in a wise manner as it does to earn and invest it. Don’t expect it to be easy. It takes work. You’ve got to really analyze yourself and figure out what will make you happier. Upgrading your 2022 Lexus (or Mastercraft) to a 2024 model probably isn’t going to increase your happiness much. The same probably goes for moving to a larger home when you already live in a “doctor house.” While those things would increase your spending, they wouldn’t increase your happiness, which is the real point. That’s going to take a little more work.
But remember this—either fly first class or your heirs will. As my mother told me after taking her 31-member extended family on a cruise, “I figured you guys would be spending this money eventually so I thought I’d just arrange to be there when you did!”
What do you think? Is it hard for you to spend? Do you think it will be eventually? What do you do to keep yourself from becoming miserly? Comment below!
[This updated post was originally published in 2017.]
