The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: How Much Is Enough?

Today, I’m talking about a common trap that many of us fall into that goes back to the parable I discussed on Monday, which gets to the heart of the fruitlessness of pursuing more and wasting time and energy in the pursuit of more, while at the same time sacrificing what might be more important - namely time freedom, relationships with your spouse, loved ones, and friends - all in pursuit of the almighty dollar. 

Many people fall into the trap of pursuing more for the sake of more. Not necessarily because they are greedy, but often I find because they don’t really put much thought into how pursuing less could bring more meaning and happiness than pursuing more. 

This is always a tricky subject for me - both personally and in conversations with clients. The ultimate goal, in my humble opinion is to live a meaningful and well-balanced life. But we often get out of balance, sometimes miserably out of balance and stay in that state for years. It ends up ruining our happiness, because life is too crazy and we’ve taken on too much.

This doesn’t just have to be about money. It can be about loading up our days with - yes, working more or unnecessarily, but also activities and saying yes to too many things that don’t actually make our lives any better. 

I’ve become better about this over the years, but before I was married, my maiden name was Wilson, and my initials were AW. My now husband used to joke that AW stood for always working. 

I took it as a compliment at the time, but always working as your nickname, is probably an indicator of a problem. In my case, I would work a lot, sometimes on the weekend, and would stress about working more, all in the effort to get ahead and meet arbitrary growth goals that I had for myself in growing my income and my financial advisory practice. 

I was less happy then, then I am now, and I think one of the main reasons why is because I have a more balanced life where I can spend time with my kids, I have time for friends and hobbies I enjoy like golf, and the laundry doesn’t pile up too bad. 

The problem is that having money in the world today (or at any time in history actually) also means you have power, more pleasure, and higher status, and we make the mistake of believing that these things will make us happier. As a result, many people pursue money and more without realizing that they’re running in the hamster wheel to pursue something that isn’t actually going to make them any happier. 

So the goal is to make thoughtful decisions about saving, working, and investing with a firm grasp of why you’re doing what you’re doing. And knowing that the pursuit of money, power, pleasure, status, etc. is futile. 

I have gradually learned and accepted this as truth in my own life, and I see it firsthand in the lives of the people I know and my own clients, that avoiding the common trap of accumulating more, working longer, or making other sacrifices in the name of accumulating above and beyond what is necessary for a comfortable retirement simply isn’t worth the trade off. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance