When I started making some decent money in my first grown-up job in Milan, Italy, I decided that it was finally time to buy something that I had longed for a long time. A nice bicycle.
I have always been conscious about getting a good deal for my money. So I bought a bike with a very lightweight carbon-fiber frame and good gears, and upgraded the other parts. This way I had more choice to handpick the parts I liked, without paying for the convenience of a fully assembled bike. I worked on the bike for a few weeks, and the result was stunning. A nice lightweight bike that allowed me to explore the city in a totally new way.
During weekends, I would ride without a destination. I explored parts of the city that I had not visited before, discovering parks and architecture. On my bike I could see the city in a whole different way compared to quickly driving through it. Every neighborhood had its own unique flavor. Most people who visit Milan only go shopping or have business meetings. But the city can be stunning if you take the time to explore it. My favorite time of the year was August when everybody leaves the city for the mountains or seaside. With no cars around the city was all for me – “tutta mia la città”. I loved my new bike so much!
Since my bike was SO beautiful, I bought a heavy-duty U-lock that weighed almost as much as the bike itself. Still, whenever I parked my bike outside, I feared that somebody would steal it. Even when I was hanging out with my friends in bars and clubs at night, and supposed to have fun and relax, I had the urge to check on my bike outside. Sometimes I was even happy to leave a bit earlier so I did not have to worry about the bike anymore.
And eventually one day it happened, I had left the bike outside for just 10-15 minutes and somebody stole it. All that was left was the broken U-lock. I was so sad thinking of my bike riding away with some other guy, so jealous!
One of my friends was kind enough to offer me an old mountain bike that he kept in his garage. Nobody had been using it for ages. It was a sturdy mountain bike, not very nice, made of steel and heavy as a boulder. The frame and the gears were in good shape though, so I accepted. I thought it would be OK for just a few months until I bought a new bike. I fixed it with some spare parts and spent close to nothing on it. Once fixed, the result was a mix of new and old parts and the frame had quite a few scratches. Honestly, it was quite ugly.
But when I started using this bike, even though the ride wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as my previous bike, I felt so much freedom. I could go around and leave the bike anywhere without having to worry about anyone stealing it. And I started to even enjoy the discomfort of a heavy bike, because it was more challenging. I ended up keeping that bike for a few years until I left Italy.
Years later, when I moved to San Francisco and needed a bike for my commute, I knew exactly what to do. I picked a cheap but sturdy bicycle (my commute included no hills luckily). It paid for it $76 at Walmart. In San Francisco bikes are stolen very frequently and I had already learned my lesson.
I upgraded some parts and mounted a rear rack with a basket to carry my backpack so I did not sweat while commuting on hot summer days. For the rain, I installed fenders to avoid mud splashes and carried in my basked a foldable poncho and waterproof trousers. In the front basket, I kept a basic toolkit, spare tube, and a small air pump to perform easy maintenance or change a punctured tire. This bike was an unstoppable tank. It had, and still has, all that I need to ride it every day and in any condition. For years, I commute 15 miles/day without any problems. With the money I saved on public transport and Uber, I paid off the bike in just a few months. And I never worried about anyone stealing it.
What was the lesson for me here? My first bike was wonderful and enjoyable, but I loved it so much that I got attached to it. The fear of having it stolen was preventing me from enjoying the moment. In other words, I cared more for the tool that was delivering the experience, than the experience itself.
Yes, I could have a nice bike for the weekend, and a decent bike for commuting to be left outside. But do I really need two bikes since I can’t ride them simultaneously? That sounds quite consumeristic to me, and I think that it is better to embrace and learn to appreciate the little discomfort that comes with having something not as nice but still functional. Getting through the discomfort is actually liberating.
I tried to apply these principles later in life, and it turned out that it is actually a mindset that you can apply to most purchases.
For instance, I recently bought a HiFi stereo. This is also something that I wanted for a long time. If you also like music, you know how to appreciate the difference that a good stereo makes. But I took a dive into the HiFi world, I quickly realized that I could easily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for some nice equipment. And there is always something to upgrade. It never ends. Possibly it gets to the point when you need to upgrade your house for an amphiteater quality room. Audiophiles will strive for the perfect sound, to the point that perfectionism becomes more important than the music itself.
Yet, the more $ you spend, the lower the marginal improvement in the audio quality you get. So you can get some entry-level HiFi and still enjoy music so much better than from your laptop or Alexa. If you don’t believe me, check out Steve Guttenberg, he is the man for you!
For my HiFi, I imposed to myself a $1,000 budget. $1,000 is just a random number, definitely insufficient for a great HiFi. But it was a mental threshold. It represents the amount I wanted to spend on something I care about (music), without having to care at all for the tool that delivers my experience (HiFi). If in the future I decide to move and not to carry the HiFi with me, I won’t give a damn about it.
If you are curious about my HiFi, I bought the Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2, marvelous speakers, an old-school fully analogic Onkyo A-9110 amplifier, a Schiit Modi 3 DAC to convert digital music to analogic for online streaming, and a used subwoofer. I can guarantee that this setup sounds divine unless you are an expert audiophile who can appreciate the most subtle nuances of more expensive equipment.
Why do I think this is so important? Because I think that Financial Independence can lay an unexpected trap down the road.
Wealth trap
When you reach Financial Independence, you will have accumulated considerable wealth. After spending so many years living frugally and saving aggressively, you finally reached the time when you don’t have to worry about your lifestyle anymore.
You could spend money on all the things you like. You deserve to buy something that will give you happiness and beautiful experiences that are totally worth the price tag. A beautiful house? That nice sports car that you have longed for a while? I have nothing against spending money, and I want these wonderful things as much as anyone else. I also think that experiences are what matters at the end, not their price tag.
But if you also have a tendency to get attached to things, what you own will influence your future decisions. Your physical possessions and comfortable lifestyle will take away freedom from you. The price we pay for something should be a mere sunk cost. We should not consider it when we evaluate new experiences. Yet it influences our decisions. Just think about it: are you really going to leave behind your beautiful house, wonderful cars, the gigantic walk-in closet full of your favorite clothes, to go and travel the world for 5 years without having to return to them? Maybe you want to spend 3 years in Ushuaia in Patagonia, can you do that while leaving everything behind, or is it easier when you have nothing to carry with you?
Or even worse, we start thinking that we need nice and comfortable things to be happy. Regardless of what we spend, we don’t need nice things to be happy. And it is not just about physical things. If you travel to 5-star hotels, with swimming pools and spas, are you going to spend your time visiting and discovering new places or rather waste your precious time indulging yourself? If you have all the comforts in your home, will you be tempted to spend more time in it than hanging outside?
I really think that comfort is a trap that discourages us from finding pleasure in what matters the most. Maybe it is just my tendency, but I think it is worth reflecting on what we value. I have a feeling that our possessive mentality affects most people.
So think about it when you are buying something that will make your life a bit easier. The price you pay may be far higher than what’s written on the tag!