FIRE vs FINE

How we spend our money says so much about us.  Are we generous to ourselves,  stingy to others?  Stingy to ourselves and others?  Buying others attention?  Spending more than we have? There are so many ways to live both within and outside of our means.

I've come across the FIRE system - Financial Independence,  Retire Early - quite a few times in my life.  Some of my clients have been fiercely dedicated to it.  Some have strained their marriages over it.  It's basically living way below your means and squirreling every spare penny away,  till you reach a magic number (different for every person) and then you can stop work and live very frugally on that.  

Conceptually it never worked for me.  I don't want to be that frugal and I didn't want to stop working at 40.  

But now a new acronym has emerged - FINE,  Financial Independence,  New Endeavor.  Which doesn't make you retire once you hit your personal magic number,  but allows/encourages you to shift to a new idea/endeavor.  This seems more appealing,  though you still have to be very frugal to get to your magic number, but once there, you embrace new ideas or doing part time work,  or lower paid but more emotionally satisfying work. 

I do think that for many of us,  living that much below our income implies that there is some fat in our income and that is far from always the case.   And getting your nails done once a month shouldn't be seen as a shameful luxury. 

So as with everything,  I advocate moderation.  Spend moderately,  but also save moderately.  Try to live within your means,  don't get the maximum mortgage,  see if you can find something cheaper a little further out,  give yourself some breathing room.  And take a holiday.  Holidays are joy. And if camping gives you joy,  go camping.  But if going to Paris gives you joy,  don't force yourself to camp and resent your choices. 

two readings, worlds apart and she draws the same card...

I did a reading for a girl the other day, and she drew the Tower  at her core. That's a hard card to hold at your center,  it means that you feel things are falling apart,  that your center doesn't hold. She told me that she had had a tarot reading in Cambodia four months ago and drew the Tower there too.  I love how she can draw cards from two different decks across the planet and pick the same ones. 

 

She was 26. I wish someone had told me when I was in my mid twenties that those years are often sticky - we leave the familiarity of school life and for many people the first few jobs out of college are experimental and not necessarily fabulous.  She is a recent arrival in NYC,  which is also often confronting and can feel lonely.  

 

But I am not worried for her. She drew two aces - the Ace of Pentacles and the Ace of Wands.  Her energy is going to pick up again, and soon work and money will sort themselves out.  Sometimes we have to fall out of the crumbling tower,  but even though that's difficult,  it's much better than being stuck in the tower!

 

 

 

 

Ace of Pentacles

Everyone is always happy to see this card. At the superficial level, it means money/success/promotion is coming, and who doesn’t want that? At a deeper level it means you are feeling grounded, that you are getting the results you want, and you can hold on to them. You feel a sense of abundance.

When I get it in a question, the Ace always signifies a ‘yes’ – so if you are asking about work or money, it’s overwhelmingly positive, the jackpot at the end of the rainbow. But even if you are asking about relationships or babies, the ace of pentacles is a yes.

I like the chick image, the sense of coming out of our shells, and getting into the freedom of the wide world.