Never Retire - 3 Ways Simplicity Will Help You Achieve A Rosy Financial Future
Guest post from Simple + Straightforward's Charlie Brown
I first discovered her work on Medium. Then, here at Substack in the Simple + Straightforward newsletter.
Across the universe that is the internet, nobody else’s writing resonates more with me personally or shares such a deep affinity with our Never Retire theme than Charlie Brown’s.
So it makes sense for us to collaborate.
Charlie Brown writes today’s installment of the Never Retire newsletter.
Charlie’s thoughts on money apply to anyone. If you know you’ll Never Retire, they carry considerably more weight.
However, Never Retiring has to do with a lot more than money.
So, if you’re not already a reader, consider subscribing to Charlie’s newsletter.
Her Simple + Straightforward approach to everything can help you craft a strategy to live the life you wanna live now and for the duration.
Now, here’s Charlie!
Life is super freaking complicated. That includes finances as much as anything else.
There are thousands of ways to approach your financial future. There are “gurus” living in every nook and cranny of the internet spouting advice to anyone who will listen. You could look at crypto, index funds, cash, real estate and a hundred other ways to make, invest, and save money.
Man, it’s enough to make your head spin.
When Rocco and I cooked up a plan to collaborate on each other’s Substacks, the topic I wanted to talk about to you lot came to me in about three seconds.
Simplifying finances in order to secure a better (and easier to execute) financial future.
After all, it’s what I do over at Simple + Straightforward - I try to untangle life’s complications into something more palatable, approachable and realistic, every single week.
And that includes your money.
Alas, when it comes to securing the financial future you want, there is no magic bullet. I’d love to tell you do this and you’ll be golden, but there are as many financial situations as there are people in the world. You may have huge amounts of debt, or not. You may have a mortgage, or not. You may have savings, or not (you get the idea).
Only you know your own situation.
That being said, there are some universal truths when it comes to wrangling your finances into a simpler shape.
Here are three big ones:
Flexibility
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I used to have very fixed ideas about what I wanted from my financial future. But somehow life always gets in the way.
That could include factors in your control (for instance, I’ve just done a U-turn on not wanting kids and those suckers cost a lot) and not in your control (Brexit has made my plans to live abroad much more expensive to execute).
It’s why Rocco here has such a great concept. A “never retire” approach is flexible, it can mean anything you want it to.
By keeping work as part of your future, you can roll with the inevitable punches when life doesn’t go the way you expect. It means you can change your mind about the sort of future you want. It means when bear markets slap you across your pie-hole, you can figure out a way out of the mess.
Ultimately, being flexible in your approach to finances means there is always a way out of sticky situations, because you know how to adapt.
Simple.
Forget the noise around you
There will always be a new way to invest, a new strategy to think about. Hang around places like Twitter long enough and you’ll soon feel you’re the only person in the world not investing in whatever financial product is flavor of the month.
It can be distracting and before you know it, you could have your money tied up in hundreds of different places, and worse, actively having to manage it all.
Simplifying finances means forgetting all that. It means digging deep about what you want and need (more on that in a moment), figuring out your own strategy, and importantly, sticking to it.
That’s not to disregard my flexibility point. The way I see it, the best financial strategies are passive and reactive, but not active. You set them up, you leave them to do their thing. If things get rough, you act accordingly and get flexible and creative. And sure, you can look into new ways of investing if they fit within your goals.
But you don’t try to actively manage your finances on a day on day basis. There’s no simplicity in that.
So forget about the noise, disregard the FOMO and figure out saving and investing strategies work best for you and your future.
Zoom out
I’ve never been a detalis (my editor - husband - pointed out that, somewhat ironically, I misspelled details but I felt like in the spirit of the point I’m making I should leave the typo in) person. I like big picture thinking. I believe it to be a strength because I don’t get lost in the weeds of a problem, which can make it seem both more complicated and more stressful than it has to be.
Finances are no different.
Zooming out and approaching your finances from way up there means you can figure out what you want and need from your future - and how your money can get you there - without getting bogged down in minutiae.
Focus on the big stuff, not the small. Stuff like eliminating consumer debt or reducing the big expenditure hitters like housing and transport.
Keep your goals in mind always. Write them down somewhere if that helps. Use spreadsheets to keep you on track if you’re that way inclined.
Thinking about the big is much more simple - and manageable - than worrying about the small.
For many people, simplifying finances doesn’t happen overnight.
But you are allowed to want (and should be encouraged to have) simple money goals, and simple strategies to realize them.
Money has become complicated but that doesn't mean it has to remain so. Being flexible, forgetting about FOMO and zooming out so you can see the big picture is what can kick your finances into a simpler, easier to manage shape.