{"id":176,"date":"2022-12-26T12:55:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T12:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T16:41:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:41:04","slug":"how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cautionary Tale for Caring Less About Your Finances in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

tl;dr<\/em><\/h2>\n

\u201cWe make the mistake of assuming that joy is like cash\u2014that if we don\u2019t \u201cspend\u201d it today, it can be invested (and grow larger) for the future. We assume there must be a payoff\u2014otherwise, why delay it? <\/strong>Unlike with money, investing a bunch of joy for later doesn\u2019t<\/em> compound\u2014it just guarantees you\u2019ll enjoy less of your limited time here. <\/p>\n

The only way to create more<\/em> joy is to spend it right now<\/em>. It\u2019s a limitless resource, which means it\u2019s not worth saving for later. (And to the extent you have to spend some money to make it happen, remember: That\u2019s what money is for.)\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

When I was in my early twenties, I had a realization one day walking into work that changed everything.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve shared in the past, I was only a few months into working full-time\u2014not even in the same galaxy<\/em> as someone nearing retirement age\u2014when I experienced more acute existential pangs than those I had been fending off every weekend at overpriced bars and restaurants for the last year.<\/p>\n

For those who\u2019re unfamiliar, I\u2019ll recount the non-event quickly:<\/p>\n

Teetering on high heels and balancing my lunch bag on one side and my laptop bag on the other, straps digging into my forearms and phone already dinging with emails, I paused in the parking lot. <\/p>\n

\u201cHoly shit,\u201d I thought to myself. \u201cIs this the next 40 years of my life?\u201d<\/p>\n

I have no idea why this particular<\/em> mundane day sparked this panicky revelation, but for the first time in my adult life, I didn\u2019t feel excited and motivated\u2014I felt an unnerving clarity about my future on its current trajectory, and as a result, utterly trapped. My cubicle started to feel like a cage.<\/p>\n

Visualizing the next 40 years of such mornings\u2014roughly 10,000 more, just like this one\u2014felt like an endless expanse punctuated only by biweekly paychecks, occasional work wins, and many, many Thursday afternoons spent lusting after the weekend. <\/p>\n

It was around this time I found the \u201cFinancial Independence, Retire Early\u201d movement through media like the ChooseFI Podcast<\/em> and Mr. Money Mustache<\/em> and The Mad Fientist. It gave me a sense of control and hope in the existential morass of, \u201cWho am I? Does what I do every day on my shitty 4-year-old Dell laptop between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm even matter? What\u2019s the point?<\/em>\u201d (This is, ladies and gentlemen, what we refer to in the financial world as being \u201cdown bad.\u201d)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like that Ellen Goodman quote (oft-memed by FI\/RE devotees) that points out the cyclical absurdity of our lives: \u201cNormal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need to pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.\u201d <\/p>\n

My inner grade-grubbing \u201cSummer\u201d from School of Rock<\/em> perfectionist gleefully glommed onto my noble FI\/RE goal with the passion and commitment of a thousand exploding suns, and while I usually cite this experience as my Rich Girl villain origin story, in retrospect I can recognize it as something else:<\/p>\n

Yes, it was my baptism by FI\/RE, but it was also a quarter-life crisis<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

It had all the classic trappings of your quintessential existential implosion (minus the cherry-red Corvette and affair with a younger woman):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Confusion about identity and purpose<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Panicky, anxiety-filled reckoning with how precious life energy is being spent<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Irrationally strong reaction that externalizes the dread (read: becoming obsessed with money)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Money, I recognized at the time, was the way out<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

    And in the process of acquiring enough money to regain true autonomy over my life, money became both the means and<\/em> the end. Forest, meet trees.<\/p>\n

    This is where most FI\/RE rhetoric stops<\/h2>\n

    In the FI\/RE world, \u201cgetting rich and getting off the grid\u201d is where the story ends. <\/p>\n

    Once you reach FI, the lore goes, you\u2019ll finally<\/em> have free will again. Choice. Independence. <\/p>\n

    But rarely do we explore what all that freedom, choice, and independence actually means<\/em>\u2014and while FI\/RE acolytes will insist that\u2019s the easy part, I\u2019m not so sure. <\/p>\n

    (I\u2019ve been writing this blog for almost three years, so the evolution of my opinion has been fossilized for eternity. This post<\/a> from the archives attempts to address this question with the same degree of \u201cDuh, Carol!\u201d flippancy I\u2019m criticizing right now. So young! So na\u00efve. You\u2019ll have to survive some redundancy; consider yourself warned.) <\/p>\n

    To save you the time, allow me to regale you with 2020 Katie\u2019s master plan: <\/p>\n

    Get rich, get off the W-2 grid, and do Money with Katie full-time. Sail into the sunset inside the roomy coffers of my 401(k) and \u201cdo whatever the f*** I want to!\u201d (Sigh<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

    Rereading my assessment of my situation at the time, I have to laugh: <\/p>\n

    \u201cThe savings from one job simply aren\u2019t enough to get me to $1 million invested quickly\u2014right now, I have four sources of income, and I spend the better part of every day working. I\u2019m convinced this is something you get used to, and working from 6am until 8pm isn\u2019t so bad when you mostly like your different gigs.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Oh, honey. The absolute Stockholm syndrome of working 70+ hours a week. <\/p>\n

    \u201cI like it!\u201d she says, eye twitching. \u201cIt\u2019s not even that bad!\u201d she cries out, buttchugging a vat of Red Bull.<\/p>\n

    In my defense, though, this line still made me laugh:<\/p>\n

    \u201cI felt like I had finally arrived at the raging party everyone told me about for the last four years, and it was just someone named Pam\u2019s 40th birthday party with a couple of guys in button-down shirts standing around a punch bowl talking about customer acquisition.\u201d<\/p>\n

    She ain\u2019t wrong, but she\u2019s also not all the way right<\/em> about her conclusion that reaching a 7-figure net worth is the solution to her existential dread.<\/p>\n

    2022 Katie checking in here: Guess what, sister?! You did it! You\u2019ve gotten \u201crich\u201d (well, for a 28-year-old, at least), you do Money with Katie full-time, and for the most part, you do what you want, when you want. <\/p>\n

    I\u2019ve reached what the cool kids call \u201cCoast FI,\u201d where I\u2019ve invested enough that I can Netflix-and-chill for the foreseeable future. I can\u2019t retire<\/em>, but I also don\u2019t have to keep saving<\/em> for retirement. As a result, the fetters of income-producing labor are a lot looser than they used to be. By basically every reasonable measure, the job is done. <\/p>\n

    The freedom I so desperately wanted? I have it. Permission to exit the rat race. An invitation to exit the cubicle cage.<\/p>\n

    On one hand, that\u2019s one hell of an endorsement for getting your shit together early and grinding it out for a few years. It\u2019s a happy ending to the story.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s also a confusing beginning<\/em> to another one.<\/p>\n

    An ever-expanding finish line<\/h2>\n

    Slapstick humor pap\u00ed Jim Carrey once said, \u201cI think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cYeah,\u201d I used to think, \u201cmaybe for most people! But I know about the 4% rule. I have hobbies! Getting rich is definitely the answer for me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

    While \u201crich\u201d is subjective and I\u2019m certainly not \u201cfamous,\u201d now that I\u2019ve reached financial security, I understand what he means. The peace and contentment I figured I\u2019d feel when I (a) no longer worried about paying my bills and<\/em> (b) could do Money with Katie full-time? It lasted for a couple of months. <\/p>\n

    And for those few months, wow<\/em>, was I happy! Fulfilled! Proud! Content! (Feel free to read that last one as \u201ccontentment\u201d and also like \u201ccontent creator,\u201d because holy shit, I was making a lot<\/em> of content.)<\/p>\n

    Then, that became \u201cnormal.\u201d My goal compensation was exciting for a few months, but I quickly affixed my eyes to a new summit: A seven-figure year<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    2020\u2019s goal of a seven-figure net worth? Quaint. I was ready to up the ante. <\/p>\n

    It might be human nature, but I found my own behavior to be a little unnerving. I felt like the guys in The Hangover <\/em>blacking back in after a blurry, indiscriminate expanse of time in a trashed hotel room\u2014except I wasn\u2019t surrounded by strippers and a wild animal. I was surrounded by Post-It Notes and media plans and discarded cold brew containers, trying to understand why I was still<\/em> working close to 70 hours a week next to a whiteboard that said: 2023 REVENUE GOAL: $5M<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

    Cages of our own making<\/h2>\n

    Whether we\u2019re consciously aware of it or not, most of us voluntarily attach our happiness to some distant point in the future. <\/p>\n

    Back then, it was, \u201cI\u2019ll be content when I\u2019m worth a million bucks and can do my passion project full-time. That\u2019s when I\u2019ll finally relax and enjoy my awesome life.\u201d <\/p>\n

    Now it\u2019s, \u201cI\u2019ll be content when my passion project nets a million bucks a year. That\u2019s when I\u2019ll finally feel like my work is valuable.\u201d <\/p>\n

    When that happens, I\u2019ll probably decide the new mountaintop is an 8-figure revenue year, or some other ludicrous, arbitrary goal to which I\u2019ll devote myself fully, sacrificing everything else in pursuit of it. <\/p>\n

    As in: \u201cMy life will actually<\/em> begin when [x] happens. Until then, I\u2019m just working toward that<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

    We hoard our happiness\u2014our contentment\u2014like scarcely allocated Schrute Bucks to be saved in service of some unspecified time in the future when we check some box or surpass some goal, at which point we assume we\u2019ll finally allow ourselves to release and enjoy all of our pent-up, exploding joy. \u201cAh,\u201d we\u2019ll say, \u201cI\u2019ve finally arrived.\u201d <\/p>\n

    And money is an extraordinarily<\/em> tempting manifestation of this phenomenon, because it\u2019s a metric that so obviously lends itself to such benchmarking. (Or, by extension, some other adult rite of passage like home ownership, which obviously requires quite a bit of money to achieve.)<\/p>\n

    While some financial pundits criticize humans\u2019 inability to delay gratification, I\u2019d argue it\u2019s all we do.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    What else can explain the resigned willingness of the majority of the American workforce to clock in and out for 40 years to hopefully eke out a few sick golf trips in old age? We\u2019re amazing<\/em> at delaying enjoyment of our lives to some distant point in the future. It\u2019s the fundamental premise of \u201cretirement,\u201d after all. <\/strong><\/p>\n

    We largely criticize<\/a> Gen Z for bucking the norm in favor of international travel or aspirational housewifery (the anti-girlboss, if you will!), but as I see age 30 in the distance, I realize:<\/p>\n

    The door of my cage has been open for awhile, but I still willingly climb into it every morning. In fact, the cage is where I feel most at home. To quote the great 21st century philosopher Taylor Alison Swift, \u201cIt\u2019s me. Hi! I\u2019m the problem. It\u2019s me.\u201d <\/p>\n

    I tell myself I can\u2019t take time off because what if something slips through the cracks<\/em>? <\/p>\n

    I tell myself I have to be careful about spending money on cool experiences because what if my momentum slows and our revenue dips and I lose everything and my life goes to shit?<\/em><\/p>\n

    I tell myself I might as well cozy up in the cage and keep vigil for any trouble on the horizon, and get a little bit more work done while I\u2019m at it!<\/em> <\/p>\n

    The KPIs and whiteboards and challenges to overcome are a shelter, not a cage. They protect me from having to actually<\/em> face the question that sent me spinning into an alternate reality of compounding returns and net worth goals just a few short years ago in the first place: What\u2019s the point? <\/em><\/p>\n

    You can\u2019t save joy for later<\/h2>\n

    One of my favorite books about writing, Bird by Bird<\/em>, offers some poignant wisdom: Anne Lamott talks about how this striving keeps our lives small.<\/p>\n

    \u201c[It\u2019s] based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won\u2019t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren\u2019t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they\u2019re doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Is this the part where I declare that obsessing over your financial or business goals is merely a distraction from your ultimate mortality? Yes. Yes it is.<\/p>\n

    If you think you\u2019ll be happy once you attain a certain amount of money (whether it be salary or net worth), career success, or achievement-related prestige in your life, I humbly invite you to think again. Hell, allow me to be your cautionary tale. This revelation is not new: Consciously, you probably realize this is wobbly scaffolding around which to build your life. But subconsciously, you may be doing it more than you realize. For most of us, adulthood is saying, \u201cI just need to make it through this week, and then things will calm down,\u201d over and over again for 40 years.<\/p>\n

    Almost five years have passed since that fateful Tuesday morning. I have a hell of a lot more money and free time than I did back then (thanks to my assumption that these things would fix the gnawing feeling), but I\u2019m just now<\/em> starting to chip away at the answer to my question, \u201cWhat\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cDeservingness\u201d is a myth<\/h2>\n

    If you\u2019re saving your enjoyment of life for some distant point in the future when you decide you\u2019ve worked hard enough or made enough money to deserve<\/em> it<\/strong>, I\u2019ll remind you that nobody \u201cdeserves\u201d anything in this life. \u201cDeservingness\u201d would imply that some Pareto-optimal \u201cfairness\u201d governs our outcomes on this rock hurtling through space, and unfortunately, that\u2019s not the case. Life is far more cruel and random and complicated than that.<\/p>\n

    In fact, there probably is<\/em> someone who works far less hard than you do and<\/em> earns way less money, who\u2019s having a way fucking better time<\/em>. If you\u2019re a workaholic by choice, you don\u2019t have to \u201cdeserve\u201d your rest and enjoyment\u2014you just have to decide you want it. It\u2019s yours for the taking at any time for any reason.<\/p>\n

    We make the mistake of assuming that joy is like cash\u2014that if we don\u2019t \u201cspend\u201d it today, it can be invested (and grow larger) for the future. We assume there must be a payoff\u2014otherwise, why delay it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    But what if you\u2019re already living a life worth enjoying right now<\/em>? <\/p>\n

    What if\u2014when you reach whatever flavor-of-the-year goal you\u2019re focused on\u2014it\u2019s still just\u2026you?<\/p>\n

    In Bird by Bird<\/em>, Lamott relays a story of her little brother procrastinating on a school project to create a bunch of birds (what in the Common Core?<\/em>) until the last minute. Overwhelmed, he expressed panic at his self-inflicted pickle. Her parents\u2019 advice? Just take it \u201cbird by bird.\u201d <\/p>\n

    In other words: Don\u2019t focus on the end product, focus on the process<\/em>. <\/p>\n

    Unlike with money, investing a bunch of joy for later doesn\u2019t<\/em> compound\u2014it just guarantees you\u2019ll enjoy less of your limited time here. <\/p>\n

    The only way to create more<\/em> joy is to spend it right now<\/em>. It\u2019s a limitless resource, which means it\u2019s not worth saving for later. (And to the extent you have to spend some money to make it happen, remember: That\u2019s what money is for.)<\/p>\n

    You shouldn\u2019t rest or have fun or enjoy your life because it\u2019s \u201cproductive\u201d to do so\u2014you should do it because enjoying the journey is the whole point. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    tl;dr \u201cWe make the mistake of assuming that joy is like cash\u2014that if we don\u2019t \u201cspend\u201d it today, it can be invested (and grow larger) for the future. We assume there must be a payoff\u2014otherwise, why delay it? Unlike with money, investing a bunch of joy for later doesn\u2019t compound\u2014it just guarantees you\u2019ll enjoy less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178814,"featured_media":2398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"si-template-single-post-everyday-spending-and-budgeting.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,36],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-money-psychology","category-spending-and-saving","tag-everyday-spending-and-budgeting"],"yoast_head":"\nA Cautionary Tale for Caring Less About Your Finances in 2023 - Money with Katie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Cautionary Tale for Caring Less About Your Finances in 2023 - Money with Katie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"tl;dr \u201cWe make the mistake of assuming that joy is like cash\u2014that if we don\u2019t \u201cspend\u201d it today, it can be invested (and grow larger) for the future. 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We assume there must be a payoff\u2014otherwise, why delay it? Unlike with money, investing a bunch of joy for later doesn\u2019t compound\u2014it just guarantees you\u2019ll enjoy less […]","og_url":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/","og_site_name":"Money with Katie","article_published_time":"2022-12-26T12:55:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-09-05T16:41:04+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1001,"height":757,"url":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CreditCards_Green-Highlight_100x756.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Katie Gatti","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Katie Gatti","Est. reading time":"12 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/","url":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/","name":"A Cautionary Tale for Caring Less About Your Finances in 2023 - Money with Katie","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CreditCards_Green-Highlight_100x756.png","datePublished":"2022-12-26T12:55:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-09-05T16:41:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/#\/schema\/person\/51ab3e47f462d7af0d7d2b00ab153000"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CreditCards_Green-Highlight_100x756.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CreditCards_Green-Highlight_100x756.png","width":1001,"height":757},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-care-less-about-your-financial-goals-in-the-new-year\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Cautionary Tale for Caring Less About Your Finances in 2023"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/","name":"Money with Katie","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/#\/schema\/person\/51ab3e47f462d7af0d7d2b00ab153000","name":"Katie Gatti","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/59c980f5acd370ecf7e985b2da3db33f1883bc4b53677d75e5b8f124f8e1ed74?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/59c980f5acd370ecf7e985b2da3db33f1883bc4b53677d75e5b8f124f8e1ed74?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Katie Gatti"},"url":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/author\/katiemoneywithkatie-com\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178814"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2126,"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/2126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}