You, my fairly wealthy, highly successful reader, learned a long time ago how to harness a most powerful force: t-i-m-e. You saved ‘til it hurt and put money away with the faith that you might be in a better spot down the road.
And now, when you look back on it all, you think, “No way I want to do that again. Not sure how I even did it. Can we change the subject?” Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.
But saving ‘til it hurts does something magical. It puts the most powerful force into action. You put time on your side. You become a compounding machine, and without even knowing the miracle of the math involved, you’re pretty well off. You paid yourself first, and if there was some left over fine, but you got so used to saving, you didn’t even spend that. Nice.
But here’s the hard part: Once you retire and start living off your cornucopia of savings, it’s human nature to feel uneasy. There’s no more lifeline. No more paychecks to refill the bucket from losses in areas like AI. The tide rolls in, it rolls out, and father time keeps ticking.
The other night, Your Survival Guy was with friends and family sitting around a fire pit when someone asked another guest how old she was (never a good idea).
“38?” he asked.
“Ha! You’re funny,” she said. “I rounded that mark a long time ago.”
Which got us talking about how, in our minds, we never really feel older than our thirties or forties, but our bodies never let us forget. The younger generation in attendance never looked up from their phones. If they were listening, I’m sure they were thinking, “38’s old.”
When the commodity of time is no longer in abundance, it’s not always easy to recognize. That’s the mystery of it all. One way to solve it is to look at your largest financial position and do the mental math of the hours you would have had to work in your prime to replace it. That’s probably a long time.
Action Line: Your Survival Guy rounded 50-years old not too long ago. I learned a long time ago investing isn’t about making you a Rich Man. It’s about keeping you as one. When you’re ready, let’s talk.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
