S1 E5: How can I live for today & save for the future?

Ever feel torn between treating yourself today and saving for tomorrow? In this episode, I dive into one of the most challenging aspects of our money journey - finding that sweet spot between present joy and future security. Drawing from both financial therapy and practical planning strategies, I explore how we can better connect with our future selves while still honoring our present needs. Want to know why some experiences are worth splurging on? Or how the "rule of 25" might transform how you think about saving and investing? I share actionable insights for achieving this delicate balance, including a visualization technique that makes delayed gratification feel less like deprivation and more like caring for your future self.

Whether you're someone who tends to overspend on today's pleasures or feels guilty about any present indulgence, this episode offers a fresh perspective on creating a more mindful relationship with your money across time.

Book mentioned: Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes, PhD

00:42 Balancing Present Enjoyment and Future Savings

02:40 Mindful Moment with Your Future Self

03:32 Practical Tips for thinking about the Future

06:34 The Rule of 25 for Retirement

08:18 Finding Satisfaction in Saving

10:50 Imagining Your Future Self

• Read The Transcript Here

  [00:00:00] 

   Rachel: Welcome to the Money Healing Club podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Duncan. I'm a financial therapist and art therapist, and you've come to the softest place to land in personal finance. This podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. For help with your particular situation, please seek help from a licensed professional in mental health, taxes, and finance.

  Here, we talk about all the things we don't usually say when we talk about money. Let's begin.

  Speaker 2: So one money behavior that I would love to attain and sustain involves being present enough to enjoy what you have worked for, your money of today. And experience that and enjoy nice [00:01:00] things in the present moment while simultaneously Saving for the future and for rainy days and for retirements and vacations.

  How does one Balance those two different dynamics. I want to be able to enjoy What I know I'm deserving of what I'm worthy today and not feel guilty about liking nice things and liking some of the finer things while at the same time, having that room and giving myself that space to expand and grow beyond the present and into the future.

  Rachel: It sounds to me like you have really good taste. And I don't say that as a joke. Having really good taste and curating a beautiful life is such a strength. But the underside of this is, I think you're alluding to, is that's expensive. It's expensive to have good taste and to, as you say, enjoy the finer things.

  But you're already in a place I can [00:02:00] hear of looking ahead, saying I've worked hard. I have earned money. I want to enjoy things now, but I know that old age is expensive. I want to enjoy that time as well as I'm enjoying things right now. So I think that dilemma is really honest and I appreciate this question.

  Let me just say that we are all multitudes. And when we think of us as vessels that are carrying so many parts, we have young parts, we have current parts, we have older parts, and these different parts step forward to sometimes make financial decisions at different times.

  So I'd like to walk you through a mindful moment.

   And I want you to imagine that you are sitting with your older self right now. They're in the same space as you and notice what that's like. What are they like?

  How do you feel being in their presence?

  For a few moments, just enjoy this [00:03:00] connection and take it in.

  Ask your older self, what's their daily life like? Be open to the responses.

   What has surprised them about retirement?

  You can ask them right here, do they have any regrets? What are they proud of in their life?

  Now ask your older self what they would like you to know right now. Again, be open to any of their responses. Now, as we come back to the present moment, do jot down any of these gems of wisdom that you may have gleaned from this conversation with your older self.

  I do want to talk to you to a bit of the practicality, as you're saying of right now, you mentioned vacations and retirement. I don't know how old you are. If you're a person who really does love peak experiences, make sure that's a priority in your life and savor it, however, also delay some gratification. So can you have five peak experiences a [00:04:00] year? I'm not sure. Could you do one really good one? Probably. So I'm not saying denying yourself, but there is an aspect of tapping on the gas and tapping on the brakes with our spending. And that is just a fact of the resources that we have.

  And I'm wondering if you're still in touch with that older part of you, that older self, I wonder what they think about that. Hey, what do you think, 70 year old me, if I do that big international vacation this summer? What do you think I should cut back on? Ask them, what do they think? What's important to them as they look back on their life?

  I will say also on a very practical level that aging is very expensive.

  We're all going to probably need more money than we realize in savings and investments in order to retire. This is a painful thing to even say because the economy that we've all been living through has made saving really difficult for many people.

  But it's never too late to start saving.

   [00:05:00] I recently read a book called happier hour by Cassie Holmes, and she's a time researcher in a business school. One thing she talks about is When we are in our younger adulthood, we really value intensity, high peak experiences.

  And the trend is now this isn't for everyone, but the trend is as we age, we value the day to day, we value the mundane more and more. So just something to keep in mind is that In your younger adult years, it makes a lot of sense that let's say big travel and things like that are very important to you.

   That might not be your go to for your whole lifespan, but it will probably get swapped out again. I feel like this is a huge wet blanket, but you might not do international trips to Thailand when you're 70. But you're probably going to need some more money on hand to pay for repairs around your home, do think a [00:06:00] little realistically about the supports that your older self is going to need and the things you can put in place now that will be supportive, understanding you're probably going to enjoy your day to day life a lot more.

   You might not really crave or prioritize high intensity, high expense experiences. You may enjoy, a slower pace of living, or long lunches. As we age, those trends, shift our lifestyle expectations. But when it comes to health care and getting support, those expenses will go up.

  So how much do we need to have to retire? It's a big question and there are some kind of simple answers for it. There's something called the rule of 25. What does your ideal life cost you in a year?

  You could take your life right now as a baseline and say, Oh, maybe you want to bump it up a little bit. I don't know. Whatever you want to do. Take that cost for a year. Multiply it by [00:07:00] 25. The idea is that is the amount you need in your investments in your assets to start drawing from for you to be able to retire on the growth alone.

  So that means like we don't know how long we'll live. We'll probably continue to, live longer and longer. But the rule of 25 means that is enough money for you to live on the growth of that fund without it ever going down. So as you can imagine, even for a modest lifestyle, it's a heap of money, y'all. We millennials will probably get some social security, but it's probably not going to be the full amount that people are getting now.

  So social security probably will be there, but it is nothing to count on.

  With that in mind, your greatest asset is time. So the money you can put in right now, even if it's a small amount will grow over time. It has enough time to go through the ups and downs of the market. By putting some money into very accessible things [00:08:00] like target date funds, index funds, within a retirement vehicle like a Roth IRA or a SEP IRA in the States or whatever retirement vehicles are available to you wherever you are, the sooner you can do that even in small increments, the more time it has to grow.

   Something I notice when people come to me and really start their money healing journey, they can't imagine not enjoying spending so much, but what happens when we start to heal our relationship with money and healing that relationship with ourselves and those reward experiences is that excitement that we get from buying the thing or the experience shifts to excitement over watching your money grow.

  I know it sounds boring and it is, but there's a deep satisfaction that comes from seeing your savings , your retirement grow, and it starts to slowly balance out [00:09:00] the interest you might have in spending money on the finer things at the moment.

  I do not advocate for a highly restricted lifestyle.

  It tends to not last very long. It tends to result in a release that might look like a relapse.

   That's why it's important that you do continue to exercise your great taste and enjoy some of the finer things. And don't deny yourself that, but as you start to see your savings grow, you'll find naturally that you're weighing these spending decisions against your retirement account.

  Do we do that weekend trip or do we put, that money towards retirement? That will start to have some equal weight to it as time goes on.

  If you had any kind of clarity from the exercise of meeting your future self, try to encapsulate it in a quick image. What were they wearing? What were they like? Was there something they said that was maybe charming or surprising? Jot it down [00:10:00] and keep it handy. And you can use them as a sounding board for spending decisions or saving decisions right now.

  We all have this counsel inside of us. And if we take a quiet moment, they tend to be very wise. So do listen to those wise counsels when you can.

  There is a balance between rewarding yourself and having some delayed gratification without extremes. The things that are important to you, make it count. Make sure they happen and spread them out a bit. Get used to some delayed gratification and start enjoying watching your savings grow, watching your retirement grow, knowing that you are providing future support and wonderful experiences to future you.

  For me, I love thinking about what my retirement will look like. I just love working, so I imagine I'll be doing quite a bit of volunteering.

  Greeting [00:11:00] people at the museum.

  Tutoring math in the schools.

  Collecting spiders for the Denver Museum's spider project. All kinds of dorky things. I imagine long, leisurely lunches with my friends and neighbors.

  And sure, a wonderful, meaningful trip here and there. I imagine taking art classes, working creatively, writing, Napping a lot, taking care of my health. As I age, I can already feel that lifestyle feeling closer and closer. And I do want my bases covered so that I can retire into that very meaningful life that is coming up, isn't it?

   I would love to hear from any of you. Drop me a voicemail and tell me in all the details, what does your future self do day to day? What do they enjoy? What are they proud of? What do they long for? What wisdom can they give you right [00:12:00] now?

  Your older self is also on their money healing journey along with you. Thank you for your question.

  Thanks for listening to the Money Healing Club podcast. You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at moneyhealingclub. com slash podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, you'd probably really love my free email course on curbing impulse spending with compassion and mindfulness.

  Check it out at moneyhealingclub. com slash challenge. Do you have a question about how financial therapy might help you? Leave me a voicemail at moneyhealingclub. com. And I might answer your question in a future episode of the pod. We are in this together and I really appreciate it.