Enjoy Life Now or Invest in the Future?
As I am writing this post right now, a good friend of mine is somewhere backpacking through Europe and is uploading her adventures on Instagram.
I would be lying if I said I am not jealous of her! Travelling around the world is a dream of mine and she is living it!
Quite frankly, as I do not have a crystal ball and have no clue what tomorrow would bring, I’m thinking that maybe I should have started travelling right after school like my friend did. But here is why I chose not to:
Getting the Engine Started
My priority is to get my financial engine started running as soon as possible so that I could enjoy life later. Seeing as my goal is to retire by 30 years old, travelling around the world right now would significantly set my financial plan back a few years.
This is why I want to focus my energy in building a passive income portfolio that can produce a steady income so that I can pursue other things in life (including travelling).
Had I decided to embark on this adventure, I would eventually run out of money or perhaps even be in debt. The life experience that I gain would only be short lived. It would only be a matter of time until I would have to come back down to reality and find a job.
Instead of blowing all of my money away to travel right now, I have made the decision to get a head start towards financial freedom. Plus, when I obtain freedom, I will have all the time to travel. Thirty is only but 3 years away and I am sure that I can wait until then. 🙂
Compounding is ‘King’
Almost everyone knows that compounding is crucial when it comes to building wealth. Based on pure mathematics, the more capital one can leverage, the bigger the returns tend to be. Additionally, the earlier one starts investing, the faster the compounding picks up.
The sooner I start building my wealth, the sooner my financial engine will pick up momentum. The momentum in the financial game operates exponentially. This explains why the rich gets richer and poor gets poorer.
Living life in the moment
On the other side, one of my early mentors in life Eckhart Tolle was a firm believer of living in the present.
If I had taken his advice, I would be out there travelling as well. Given that life is unpredictable, I may not get the chance to do so when I actually plan to in retirement.
There is something that I have learned in my financial journey so far and that is that there is more to life than money. At the end of everything, I would rather be happy than be wealthy and there is no guarantee that I will be when I am financially free.
What do you think? Enjoy life now or invest in the future? I’d love to hear from you.
It’s a tough question Jeff. It’s very easy to see the benefits of ‘enjoying’ your money now, and difficult to visualise something that is many years away. The important thing, either way, is to make sure you’re always happy with your life in this current moment – or you’ll never be happy!
We take the approach that it’s better to do lots of the cheap, fun things now whilst we have little money. These activities (eg 1 day road trips, returned by the end of the day) are very cheap and would cost us hardly anything whether we do them now or when we’re millionaires.
But doing a month’s trip to New Zealand would kill our finances now. So we wait until we’re millionaires to do those types of things 🙂
Tristan
Agreed with Tristan. Life is best life intentionally… there is a whole range of entertainment, from free to outrageous expensive. Some of the best days with the kids are in a free park close buy. (and we the throw in the 2 EUR ice cream for them)
Sounds like good times Amber Tree! I guess ill understand when i have kids one day. 🙂
Definitely! I think being happy now is the most important even at the cost of delaying financial freedom. Gotta find that good balance though!
A little of both?
Agreed. Knowing how to be happy now without wrecking the finance is crucial!
This is a very personal question as some are very happy to delay all gratification till later in life while some want it all now as tomorrow is never guaranteed. Of course, we should try and live somewhere in the middle of both extremes but as I said before it’s all a personal choice. I will say that for me I’ll gladly spend on travel as I am buying an experience rather than any physical stuff. Those memories and experiences will last a lot longer and give me more satisfaction than a new car, clothes or some other tech gadget.
Definitely DH! It all depends on the person and what makes them “happy”. Since happiness is very subjective it would be hard to determine which option they should take. A good balance seems to be the best route though. 🙂
Tough question. Especially for a guy who’s pushing 40 (this guy). Looking back, knowing what I know now, I might take that backpacking trip or another type of “living in the moment” type of experience. As long as I didn’t have to borrow to do it. I could’ve done it for much cheaper back then and I didn’t have as many deep commitments. Plus, you never know what invaluable thing you’ll learn on that type of trip.
I didn’t have a grand financial plan in my twenties, though, and it definitely bit me in my 30s. It sounds like you have a great plan for financial freedom and are setting yourself up nicely for the rest of your life.
Tough call and super personal, like other commenters said. Thought-provoking article.
Hello Adam, thanks for dropping! I agree there, you can never put a price on life experience as that can change your entire future. By the way, I like your drawings on your blog. Very talented! 🙂
Definitely into Delayed gratification…but i have been living my dream in the present…traveling locally and internationally at a budget ofcourse.You can live your dream ehile aiming for your goals.It just depends on your travel destination coz in the Philippines; we have so much beauty locally and I can’t even go to all of it in my lifetime I guess.And we are just nearby several Asian countries so I get to visit them at a lower budget compared to traveling towards Europe or the US from here would be very costly.That would be my future goal/s. Bottomline: Wherever you are…explore whatever Is near you. 🙂 Traveling aint a far fetched idea after all.
Very good point! Why wait until the future when you can do both. Travelling on a budget is an excellent idea hehe.
Hey Jeff, let’s look at it this way, you are on a very important quest to accomplish something that most people either can’t do it, or do not have the discipline to do it at 30. If you do reach your goal, I don’t think that you have missed much in terms of living life in the present. You will have lots of opportunity to travel. Keep going, the financial freedom is worth the trade off. I will be looking forward to read your 2020 post.
Thanks Leo! It is worth the trade off too in my opinion too but you’ll never know what will happen tomorrow at the same time. Nice blog by the way. 🙂