Team FI

The journey to Financial Independence is hugely rewarding - but it isn't always easy. It can get frustrating, be demoralising and feel hopeless. It's definitely a challenge that is best faced together, as a team.

Concentric Rings of Support

I see my support network like a series of concentric rings:

They are all important, but if the inner circles are not aligned, then the journey is going to feel sabotaged.

In This Together

I'm super lucky. While I was onboard with the Financial Independence concept before my wife, she's definitely joined me on this ship. Which is a relief, because this is practically impossible without your partner's help.

If it isn't obvious why, imagine trying to be frugal and scrape together $100 extra a month, only to find your partner has just blown half of it by getting a taxi rather than a bus after a few drinks. Or they have looked at the bank account before going shopping and figured that yeah, they could buy that new shirt.

If you have kids, it's actually way more likely that they will be the reason your partner chooses to spend. Don't your kids deserve nice things too?

When your own will-power is at a low ebb, you need someone to step in and offer some support, not to readily agree with the devil on your shoulder. Too tired to cook tonight after a tough day? You know Pizza Hut is only $10…

Where's the Benefit?

In a "traditional" home with a couple of young kids, the chances are one parent works full-time and one part-time. And I think it's a safe bet that in most cases the person who is more passionate about FI is the full-time working parent. Of course they are.

Financial Independence will allow you to work less, if you choose. You might still want to work part-time of course, because jobs are great at providing an external validation of our skills. You'd probably also like to spend more time with the kids.

Which might well be what your partner is doing already!

To them, pursuing FI may just feel like cutting back on the things they enjoy without any real hope of a future benefit. There is just nothing in it for them.

If they can't put themselves in your shoes, and see the benefit to the whole family unit, then this is going to be a tough sell.

Community Support

This blog most likely occupies one of the outer two rings for you. It's my fond hope it's providing encouragement and ideas for your own journey to Financial Independence.

How you sell the benefits of the Financial Independence journey is going to be a unique challenge. It's most likely not FI itself that is the stumbling block, but a push-back against perceived frugality. If you cherish your little moments of decadence, like buying a take-out coffee each day, and your partner is asking you to stop because at some point in 15 years they might be able to stop working…? Well, it's going to be a big ask.

My recommendation would be to find some time for yourselves, and look at what you want for your family. A good exercise is to both spend five minutes and write down the things that make you happy day-to-day. Then do the same again with your longer term aspirations.

The Best Things in Life Are Free

90s throwback earworm. My pleasure….

Look at what you've both written down for making you happy.

How many of those require you to actually spend lots of money? Most likely you'll have written things like 'spend more time together', 'read bedtime stories to the kids', 'get out on the bike more' - none of which cost very much at all.

Talk about how you can do those things in a low-cost way that satisfies you both. Grab a bottle of wine, and keep the conversation colloborative. Wherever you find common ground, you're winning. Simply having the conversation means you're on the path to a more deliberate and fun life.

Don't get frustrated if your partner doesn't instantly share all your opinions. They'll have their own goals and expectations on how the next 20 years will pan out. You've got years to work together and find a compromise.

Once they start to see how a deliberate life is happier, more fulfilled and provides richer options, then they might find the next steps easier to take. The hope is that the more they engage with the lifestyle that is planning for Financial Independence, then the more they begin to see how exciting it is.

In the Long Term

For the long term aspirations you both have - do they align with your planned FI journey?

My wife and I have many, wildly different, career goals, but none of them obstruct the path we're on towards Financial Independence. Just because we could retire, doesn't mean we will. It simply means we're free to shoot at riskier targets, because we don't need to fear that a miss will bankrupt the family. I expect as we close in on FI, our income will multiply due to our willingness to leap further.

It's the hope for a substantially better future that is the real hook for Financial Independence. After only a year, I can feel the weight of money concerns lifting as we start to implement our financial plan. It's a worry that I didn't even know I felt until it started to ease.

There's no doubt it's a tough sell to ask someone to believe that a more frugal life now is better than one of casual consumption, though I whole-heartedly believe that it is. When people try it for themselves, and feel the future start to open up before them with more options than they could have imagined, then they will start to believe it too.