Once a year, usually around this time my kids start school, I write something about time.
Maybe it’s because the start of another school year makes it impossible to ignore. Another summer is over. Another year has passed. My kids just started 3rd and 5th grade.
I swear they were just starting kindergarten. Now we’re talking about middle school.
They’ve also reached the age where sports take up a huge part of our lives. My daughter plays soccer. My son plays basketball and football. So we spend a lot of time in gyms, on soccer field and standing on the sidelines. Hours every week.
And I love it.
But I also know we won’t get those hours back.
We’re also in the process of buying a cottage. That has me thinking about all the things I want to do with my family while we’re still at a point where everyone wants to do them together.
I’ve also started noticing more gray in my hair.
None of this slows down.
In fact, it seems to speed up.
We’d all love to make time stand still, but we can’t.
And that’s what got me thinking about money.
Because I think we have the wealth curve backwards.
We spend much of our lives trying to accumulate money so that someday we’ll have the freedom to enjoy it.
We save. We invest. We work. We defer.
We’ll take that trip later. Spend more time with the kids later. Slow down later. Enjoy ourselves later.
Later, when we have more money.
Later, when we retire.
Later, when the mortgage is paid off.
Later, when work isn’t so demanding.
There is nothing wrong with saving. Quite the opposite. Saving and investing are among the best things you can do for your future self.
But somewhere along the way, future becomes the destination.
And I’m not sure it should be.
Think about the curve.
When you’re young, you generally have the most time and energy but the least money. Later you have more money and hopefully plenty of time and energy. Eventually you may have more money than ever but less time than you once did.
And you may not have the same energy or physical ability either.
So we spend decades sacrificing years when have the most time and energy. Assuming we’ll make up for it later.
But later isn’t guaranteed.
That’s the part that we don’t like to talk about.
We know it intellectually, but most of us don’t live as though we believe it.
We keep moving the finish line.
When I have $1 million.
When I have $2 millon.
When I retire.
When the kids are out of the house.
When the business is running itself.
When I finally have enough.
But what is enough?
And what exactly are you saving all that money for?
That’s the question I think we should ask more often.
Because there are things money buys that get better with time.
A bigger portfolio. More financial security. More choices. More flexibility.
But there are also things money can’t buy back.
Your kids being 8.
Or 10.
Or 12.
Your parents being healthy enough to travel.
Your knees working the way they used to.
Taking a trip with your family when everyone still wants to go.
Those things have an expiration date.
You don’t get to put them on hold and pick them back up at 70.
This doesn’t mean you should stop saving for retirement. It doesn’t mean you should spend recklessly. And it certainly doesn’t mean tomorrow doesn’t matter.
Tomorrow matters enormously.
That’s why we invest.
But today matters too.
There has to be a balance between building wealth for the future and actually using some of what you’ve built along the way.
I’ve thought about this more as I’ve gotten older.
Maybe it’s the kids getting older. Maybe it’s the gray hair. Maybe it’s buying a cottage and thinking about all the memories I hope we’ll make there.
Or maybe it’s simply realizing that time feels different now than it did 20 years ago.
When you’re 20, a year feels like forever.
When you’re 40, you blink and another year is gone.
And somehow, it feels like it’s getting faster.
That’s why I don’t think the goal should be to accumulate as much money as possible and then finally start living.
The goal should be to use money to make your life better along the way.
Take the trip. Go to dinner. Leave work early. Take the kids to the playground. Buy the nicer bottle of wine. Visit the people you love. Use the vacation days.
Whatever it is for you.
I’m not suggesting any of those things are financially optimal.
That’s kind of the point.
Life isn’t a spreadsheet.
There is a return on experiences that doesn’t show up in your brokerage account.
And there is an opportunity cost to waiting forever.
We talk constantly about the power of compounding when it comes to money.
Invest $10,000 today and let it compound for 30 years.
Of course.
But life compounds too.
The memories you make become part of your family’s story. The meals become stories. The trips become stories. The random Tuesday night at the cottage becomes a story you’ll remember years from now.
Money compounds. So do memories. But only one of them has a deadline.
So save for tomorrow. Invest for the future. Build wealth. Absolutely.
But don’t spend so much of your life preparing for a future that you miss the life happening in front of you.
Because someday, you may have more money than you know what to do with.
You may have the house paid off. You may have the retirement account you always wanted. You may finally have the time.
But your kids won’t be 8 anymore.
They won’t need you standing on the sideline.
They won’t ask you to come watch them play.
And you won’t be able to go back and buy those hours, no matter how much money you have.
There is a point when another $100,000 won’t change your life nearly as much as another year would.
Maybe the real goal isn’t to maximize the amount of money you have at the end.
Maybe it’s to build enough financial freedom that you can actually enjoy the middle.
The sidelines. The 3rd grader and the 5th grader. The cottage. The gray hair creeping in.
That’s the middle. That’s happening right now.
This window doesn’t stay open.
Walk through it.
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