Some days you just have to say screw FI today! Yes, you read that correctly. Financial Independence is such an amazing concept and I am all in on optimizing our lives and finances for the pursuit of that goal. We make every financial decision with FI in mind but, that being said, FI should not be an all consuming ideology that DICTATES every decision you make.

“Will this further our progress to FI?” – that is one question we ask ourselves when making a decision but it is far from the only question. Will this bring me happiness? Do we derive joy and fulfillment from this? Is this best for the little human we are raising? We ask these questions on a daily basis. Though generally very informally and quickly for small everyday decisions, the same thought process is always present. “How will this affect our goals?” Things as small as deciding whether you’re going to grab that item from the dollar spot in Target can benefit from a quick pause. Asking yourself “Do I really need this?…”

For the larger decisions it does take a bit of family communication and a more step by step approach to those questions. Surprisingly though, the tough decisions become much simpler once you understand what’s driving you and your family, your WHY of FI.

Every once in a while we will make a decision that is in direct opposition to our path to Financial Independence… and that is okay!

Look, we have over a 50% savings rate, we max out our tax advantaged accounts, and various other retirement strategies so we are no talking about adding years to our path with these decisions. They are not goal destroying, BUT… they may push the goal back slightly.  This isn’t a” hooray for us”, pat on the back, we deserve nice things idea. It’s just that sometimes things come up that will bring us immense value and we, as a family, determine they are worth the pay off for us. Simple as that.

So what is worth saying “SCREW FI”?

We love to travel. We have a travel budget which is actually our largest line item in the budget, and we usually stick to it. In 2016, however, we were presented with a vacation opportunity that was not planned and therefore not budgeted for. You see my husband’s entire family is from Chicago and they are life long Chicago Cubs fans. The Cubs apparently hadn’t won a world series in over 100 years, I know, who cares? I didn’t, but they did VERY much. 

So When the Cubs made it to the world series my husband and his father looked at each other and said “Let’s go!”. Just like that we booked flights and a hotel. There are many reasons we could have said no to this, I was pregnant, it wasn’t planned, we didn’t even have the time off of work yet, but this was literally a once in a lifetime opportunity.

This is one of those times having a high savings rate makes all the difference, we could just not save anything for that month and cashflow this vacation. I know. I know. That few thousand dollars compounded over time will be X number of dollars down the road. I understand the math. I also understood how much this meant to my husband and his dad, and THAT is more FI than a few thousand dollars is.

You see FI isn’t just a race to get the most money. It’s a journey that puts you and your family in a position that allows you to make choices. These choices are based solely on what truly matters to you, what brings you value. Once you get money out of the way, life becomes a whole different journey where you can follow your dreams, listen to your heart, and make calculated money “mistakes” if you choose.

I have ZERO regrets from this decision. I did not know what to expect. It was just my husband, my father in law and my pregnant self on this trip. We had no plans and had no tickets to the game we just knew we wanted to be there.

You know what? By us saying “screw FI” and taking that trip it created this adventure none of us will ever forget. We jumped at any opportunity while we were there because we had no real plan. That lead us to hanging out with an incredibly awesome (and humble) MMA fighter, being invited in by random families to their rooftop World Series parties with a view of the scoreboard, and even getting ourselves in to the VIP section of game FIVE. That’s right, no plans and no idea what we were going to do and we ended up inside a game fulfilling a dream my husband and his dad had had for so many years.

That couple thousand dollars may have made me so much over the course of our lifetime, maybe even gotten us to FI a little sooner. But for that couple thousand dollars we said “screw FI” and instead have priceless memories that can never be replicated.

I will say that that adventure could have cost us a great deal more. Even though we jumped at a once in a lifetime opportunity, felt spontaneous, and really did live life to the fullest, we did so with calculation.

The flights were mapped out for the cheapest routes, I found a hotel on Groupon which wasn’t a Ritz but the location was incredible, and we used some restraint with our spending while we were there. We knew what we could cash flow and we knew the trip was possible on that budget. Did it take some saying ‘no’ to buying the high end fan gear and instead running over to the local Marshall’s? Yeah, a little. In our minds that isn’t sacrifice though. That’s how we make adventures like this work!

FI is a journey where you learn to say ‘no’ to what isn’t important, to money wasted and poor financial decisions. It takes a little bit of willpower and a lot of communication to make it work, and it’s really important to learn to say ‘no’. BUT it’s also really important to learn when to say ‘YES’.

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