If you suddenly fell into unlimited wealth, what would you do with that money to live your version of “the rich life”? Let’s have this be a selfish exercise, meaning, avoid answers like "give to charity” or “make sure my kids, relatives, friends, dog are set for life." I’d like this question to be about examining your basic assumptions about material or experiential wants, your perception of what money can buy or provide access to, and how you look at your own life framed through degrees of more or less wealth.
I used to say that it’d be great to have just enough money to not have to think about money, but I know that people in that position probably think about money a lot, maybe even more than I do. I also would say it’d be great to have enough money to avoid a financial catastrophe brought about by a health situation but a better solution than private means would be if our health care system didn’t create financial catastrophes for people on top of the health crisis.
And then a few truisms pop to mind: “more money, more problems” and “do more with less” and “money can’t buy happiness.” Indeed, some interesting research shows that your life satisfaction (which is different than “happiness”) increases with more money but only up to a certain point. Ex: the famous Kahneman and Deaton paper notes that life satisfaction rises with income up to about $75,000 and then levels off. An opinion poll put that number closer to $750,000, but the overall point seems to be that we aren’t talking about buying happiness but also that life is hard with too little. Back in 2016 when North Dakota’s Baaken oil boom went bust, my academic institution made big cuts. They offered early retirement packages to the longest tenured faculty. I distinctly remember the conversations with them after they’d met with financial planners: did they have the magic number or not to retire?
I am barely financially literate, and I dislike capitalism, finance, classism, and corporate greed. However, I do like thinking about the values and philosophies around money, and so let’s have some fun with imagining what we’d spend money on if we suddenly had an unlimited amount.
For me:
1. Given what’s happening with development out here and sketchy neighbors, I’d locate an even more remote property, build my own little home and not have to worry about the price of digging a well or putting in a big 240/48 solar system.
2. I’d hire a personal chef. Cooking for myself is a real drag.
3. I’d get a long, full body massage every single week.
There, that’s what I’d do with my extra pesos. What this exercise shows me is my life must be pretty dang great already. I don’t have enough to buy any of those things, but my happiness and life satisfaction wouldn’t get a huge boost from them either. This is truly about optimizing at the far margins rather than any real need or lack.
Related to this, I want to share a few tidbits from the past week:
I made two trips to the forest near Cuba, NM to gather fuelwood. I get a big kick out of this. I love the smells, being in the forest, the work rhythm, the icy cold Coke I drink after, the satisfaction of seeing the stack accumulate, the warmth and smell of the woodstove in winter. It’s all so delicious. This year, I finally mastered the 8-lb. splitting maul. In year’s past I used a small mallet and wedge to split the bucked logs, both labor intensive and aggravating for my elbows and wrists. Swinging the maul feels terrific, especially since I doubted my ability to do it.
My garden’s producing well this year. I planted three Sun Gold cherry tomato starts, thinking they’d die again, but all lived. I love cutting the tomatoes in half, lightly coating with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasting in my Ninja Foodi. Then, cook some pasta, Butler soy curls, and riced cauliflower, toss with basil, chopped walnuts, lemon, onion powder, garlic powder, and the roasted tomatoes, and pretend a celebrity chef showed up to make this dish (yes, it’s that delicious).
Thanks to my sister’s example last summer when she dried some of her catnip for my kitty Freddy, I planted catnip this year and am drying some for Freddy’s winter pleasure. It made the whole place smell awful for the first couple days but it’s worth it, knowing how happy Freddy will be later.
Then, I had occasion to look at my health insurance card and noticed the title of my plan is followed by “with GYM.” I’ve had this marketplace plan for eight months and just noticed this now. I’ll say in my defense that the provider didn’t draw my attention to this benefit and made it very difficult to figure out how to activate it. But I prevailed and now have a gym membership where I can work out (the boy who doesn’t like being wet is now swimming!), relax in the steam room and enjoy a hydromassage chair, as well as getting a regular shower. This all feels crazy-opulent! The gym is a 12-mile bike ride away and a hundred percent either gravel/sand or bicycle trail. Fantastic.
These little moments in the past week felt so satisfying. To be a little cheesy, I’ll admit a Martha Stewart punchline came to mind as I took a long pull on the icy cold Coke and looked at the gathered wood: “It’s a good thing.” It made me laugh out loud, but I felt this to my core, this living of a good life with good things. Fun to discover I’m rich!
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