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The Cost of Living Is Cheap Exclusive to STR The
cost of living is cheap. How do I know this? The proof is everywhere,
for those who will see it. Bag ladies prove it every day; so do the
poor, homeless veterans, and street people of all ages. Many
are living on the street by accident, others by choice, but somehow they
still manage to survive for years, even in the harshest of climates.
These people have no home, no food, no income, no pension, no IRA, no
health insurance, and no savings, yet they live on. How do they do it? They
have learned to adapt to the worst of living conditions no matter what
they were accustomed to before adopting their current lifestyle. Some of
them are also mentally ill, but most will never seek treatment, let
alone receive it. Others
would adamantly refuse to change their chosen lifestyle even if you paid
them to do it. For this group, personal choice prevails. Anything else,
by definition, is something less than freedom. This group understands
that truth and no one has any moral justification to attempt to persuade
its members to alter their lifestyles, as long as they are adults who
have freely chosen them. This
group knows just how cheap the cost of living really is, at least in
terms of dollars. The other costs of living on the street (health,
injury, disease, victims of crime, longevity, etc.) can be substantial,
but they go with the territory. What’s
expensive is the cost of living the way you would like to
live. Many people work two jobs just to keep up appearances, or to keep
their heads above water, or to maintain a certain lifestyle—one that
they really can’t afford and would probably be much better off
without—but who am I to judge the free choices of others? The
problem is that in many cases these choices are far from free; they are
often products of “something for nothing” thinking, the “free
lunch” mentality of the State, and the “money from thin air” magic
of the Fed. Easy credit, interest-only loans, refinancing, and
artificially low interest rates all exacerbate the problem, resulting in
millions of supposed adults who spend like drunken sailors on liberty,
instead of saving for a rainy day. These
people are living a lie; they are all one paycheck from poverty,
wondering why they just can’t seem to make it work. They would be much
better off if they first selected a simple lifestyle that will make them
happy and then determine how much it will cost. A
simple lifestyle is not only much less expensive, it offers valuable
free time for other enjoyable and inexpensive pursuits like thinking,
reading, writing, walking, shooting, and fishing. Thoreau would agree
completely. Once
a simple lifestyle is chosen, a budget can be constructed. The
possibilities leap out at you once you realize that a large nest egg is
not required. The key is simply having sufficient cash flow to support
your chosen lifestyle. How you achieve this is up to you. In
my case, two early retirements will provide me with more than enough
monthly cash flow to support my simple lifestyle, even without touching
my reserves. Granted, for many people today, this won’t work because
most pension windows are rapidly closing. Still,
I highly recommend early retirement to everyone I know; it allows you to
change the scenery, travel, start over, make new friends, move overseas,
or all of the above. Here’s
some of what I teach my students about early retirement:
Some
people handle retirement much better than others, but timely preparation
can ease the transition. Those who wait until the last minute to
determine what they will do after retiring often do not fare very well. Don’t
let this happen to you. Plan ahead. Start early and retire early. The
cost of living is cheap. Being happy is a choice; it’s not about the
money. See my related essay, Get a Life.
discuss this column in the forum Joe
Blow
is a
privacy advocate with proven subspecialties in strategic planning.
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