Fluffy question alert! Keeping motivated on fire

anonmoose

OK so I am doing what I would consider fire lite. So not extreme scrimping but saving as much as possible and therefore making some compromise on my lifestyle. 

I am wondering what visual tools I can employ to keep motivated and not fall off the wagon savings wise.

I saw one fire youtuber basically split their pension saving requirements into 12 bars on a chart and filled it in by months of retirement. So they worked on saving for January first which was a 12th of their required number.

But the figure was current value so they would have to rub some out when markets perform badly. For me I would find that demotivating and for now I think I  would like to focus just on amount saved.

I do enjoy my job but it can be tough on days so I would like a way of tracking progress on a weekly basis. 

Up until now on tough days I have been working out how much I have saved and thought about what my future self could buy with that eg coffee or brunch etc. 

I know it possibly sounds obsessive but what is the best way to track progress closely when you have all sorts of factors at play markets, inflation etc determining what your number needs to be.

On another post someone mentioned a monthly current worth summary (property, investments etc) which I will try, but the child in me wants to colour in bar charts

Any useful motivational tactics welcome!

Marcon

anonmoose said:

OK so I am doing what I would consider fire lite. So not extreme scrimping but saving as much as possible and therefore making some compromise on my lifestyle. 

I am wondering what visual tools I can employ to keep motivated and not fall off the wagon savings wise.

I saw one fire youtuber basically split their pension saving requirements into 12 bars on a chart and filled it in by months of retirement. So they worked on saving for January first which was a 12th of their required number.

But the figure was current value so they would have to rub some out when markets perform badly. For me I would find that demotivating and for now I think I  would like to focus just on amount saved.

I do enjoy my job but it can be tough on days so I would like a way of tracking progress on a weekly basis. 

Up until now on tough days I have been working out how much I have saved and thought about what my future self could buy with that eg coffee or brunch etc. 

I know it possibly sounds obsessive but what is the best way to track progress closely when you have all sorts of factors at play markets, inflation etc determining what your number needs to be.

On another post someone mentioned a monthly current worth summary (property, investments etc) which I will try, but the child in me wants to colour in bar charts

Any useful motivational tactics welcome!

It does indeed sound obsessive - and could well be self defeating if you track things on a weekly basis as you propose. Markets fluctuate the whole time and if you see figures which spiral downward for weeks, or possibly months, on end, that's going to be exactly motivating. Focussing on the amount you've actually saved could make things even worse when you get a pension statement showing something you don't like the look of.

Virtually any jobs have tough days (some have nothing else!), but part of the trick to get through them is using your salary for immediate as well as medium/long term rewards. Instead of being so focussed on early retirement, could you think more about how to ensure your job is as enjoyable as possible (?more qualifications?more training?something in a different field/with a different employer?) and possibly letting up a bit on the savings in favour of a few more treats now?

If the child in your likes the idea of colouring in bar charts, you could of course do just that - a pack of graph paper from the local stationery shop, plus some felt tips, and that might actually be both motivating and rather good fun!

anonmoose

Yes I do think I am overthinking it because I have no treats to occupy my time! It's getting the balance right because I do want to retire sooner but not waste the time I have now being miserable.

I think maybe I need to loosen the purse strings slightly.

I work for myself so no career progression. I think part of the rush is that I feel knackered now and have regular overuse injuries and worry how I will cope in 10yrs.

But I do have less physically demanding streams of income that I could shift towards if I start to struggle or maybe reduce my hours. 

Off to the stationers to buy graph paper

jim8888

Interestingly I was just listening to a podcast from The Mad Fientist where the subject of saving versus spending on the road to FIRE is discussed:
https://www.madfientist.com/ramit-sethi-interview/
I thought there were some quite nice ideas and opinions on this because sometimes you have stop and smell the financial flowers (and pick some too). 

anonmoose

Oh thanks Jim I will have a look at that this evening.

Anonymous101

Interesting topic and one which I'd struggled with myself over the last year or two in particular.

The difficultly seems to be that once you have learnt all the mechanics of FIRE. Savings rates, investing models, drawdown strategies etc and implemented that to a greater of lesser extent into your life. That it all becomes a function of earning more / spending less and time. Its boring, and the more you look / plan the worse you feel about it not going quickly enough.

The solution I have to this is to set limits for myself as far as how often I visit my spreadsheet and bank accounts. I know I am years away from my ultimate goal, and that I'm on the right path, so looking more is not going to make it go more quickly.

Instead I've focused on improving my performance at work / growing my income and being a better father / husband. Its had the effect that I'm thinking about FIRE less and I'm certainly less frustrated that its not going quickly enough.

Its a bit like watching your food cook in the oven, all it does is make you hungrier and the time pass more slowly!

Early days but I am trying to further reduce the time I spend on FIRE related topics. This post might actually be a slight regression! 

anonmoose

Oh apologies 101 for being a bad influence!!  It's interesting what you say and I would agree, compulsively watching certainly isn't helping me. 

Posting this has also made me reflect on my work probably more than I have in  years. The problem with being self employed is I find it hard to turn down work (inner voice always telling me to make hay while the sun shines) and it's easy to get into a habit of doing too many hours.

I work 7 days a week and although less hours on the weekends I regularly do stretches of 4 months at a time without a single day off.

Its partly the nature of my job and can't be helped but I do think I need to try and find a better work life balance by fitting some time off into my life. Then maybe I would be less obsessive about early retirement.

ex-pat_scot

I track most days, which is a reminder of my journey and a distant light when things are hard.

I'm feeling dreadfully down at the moment, and it's heartening to break the road ahead into stages.

Much like ultra distance sports, it's a mental game of breaking the challenge into bite-sized chunks. Paula Radcliffe always used to talk about just focusing on the next 15 seconds.  I break things down into the next mile / 10 mile / hour on big challenges, and now on the FIRE I am counting the number of months, number of pay-packets, number of times I need to travel for work.

I count the inputs too: whilst my salary whooshes in and out of our joint bank account without leaving much of a mark, I've got approx £160/day or £800 each week that I know is building up for my life beyond work into my pension.
A similar way to look at it is that each day I work pays me once (for my end of month salary), and once again for my retirement. Literally being paid twice!

I also count my blessings in terms of each week worked generating over a half day of holiday.
Over the longer (annual) term I measure my reward in terms of another year's NI entitlement (albeit frankly I get that after about a month's income), and another CycleScheme voucher to update / replace my fleet of bicycles. (and yes, in "normal" times they are predominantly used for commuting, with pretty epic rides).

In general terms it's a better motivator to count what is in your control (the inputs) rather than the outcome (eg pot size). This is true of most things in life, I feel.

Anonymous101

No problem, I’m just more selective now about how I spend my time. This topic is of particular interest to me.

I understand your predicament regarding taking on the work whilst it’s available. What is your overall goal? To stop working all together and never ever work again?
I’m under the impression lots of people have the goal of reducing hours and taking a more laid back approach to work. Being self employed I’d imagine you’re in a better position to utilise that approach before you’re 100% FI than most people are. I’ve certainly very limited options for that in my career.

Whilst checking the spreadsheets is very appealing and does motivate to a certain extent I do feel that it could become counter productive especially if there were to be a severe downturn and the FI date was pushed out. As ex-pat says much better to count inputs but I think only counting inputs isn’t possible and therefore we as a group do need to be very careful how tied we become to the number.

ex-pat_scot

anonmoose said:

Posting this has also made me reflect on my work probably more than I have in  years. The problem with being self employed is I find it hard to turn down work (inner voice always telling me to make hay while the sun shines) and it's easy to get into a habit of doing too many hours.

I work 7 days a week and although less hours on the weekends I regularly do stretches of 4 months at a time without a single day off.

Its partly the nature of my job and can't be helped but I do think I need to try and find a better work life balance by fitting some time off into my life. Then maybe I would be less obsessive about early retirement.

That was my challenge when I was contracting - never turned work away, and was reluctant to take any time off in case it jeopardised the chance of a particular piece of work.  It was always "make hay whilst the sun shines", and it always shone.
I did occasionally officially work weekends, but always was / am doing something work-related.

Some people seem to be more able to switch off and turn work down. Not me.

anonmoose

Once I hit my number I am hoping to travel for a year or so and then come back and restart my business on a part time basis. So from that point of view being self employed does lend itself well to that.

My aim is to be at my basic comfortable number before I go so that I am not reliant on having to work when I get back if things change and I don't want to go back to work or just want a longer break.

But realistically I expect to want to work part time which would hopefully provide a bit more for luxuries and give me time to persue hobbies that I never find time for now.