Asset Driven Lifestyle Creep
Mile High FI Podcast
Doug Cunnington explores three key themes in this bonus episode of the Mile High FI Podcast: asset-driven lifestyle creep, overcoming fear a
Key takeaways
- Asset-driven lifestyle creep is a positive reframe of traditional lifestyle creep—spending more because your assets can afford it, not just out of habit or excess.
Main topics
- Asset-driven lifestyle creep
Notable quotes
"Asset-driven lifestyle creep is a cool way to reframe it."
Conclusion
Doug encourages listeners to embrace intentional spending, normalize asset sales in
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, what's going on? Welcome to the Mile High Five podcast. I am Doug Cunnington, and this is a bonus episode. I'm going to go over a few smaller topics, hopefully without rambling too much. These are usually inspired by reading something or listening to another podcast. And usually what happens is I've heard maybe a specific theme in multiple episodes of different podcasts. Plus conversations that I've had. So it has to show up a few times for me to think, oh man, I really need to talk about that. Additionally, I occasionally listen to the Mile Hi-Fi podcast to just check it out, see how it sounds. Hopefully I'll be entertained. And again, same kind of thing. If it shows up. this theme shows up again and again, I'm like, oh, that's something to talk about. Maybe that's a whole show to get into. These are just seeds of ideas. So number one, I listened to the Mad Scientist podcast. A new episode came out. Brandon doesn't publish too often these days, maybe like once or twice a year or something like that. So when it comes out, it's very exciting. So he gave an update. I think it was 10 years of being retired, and he had a few things that he observed and learned, things that he's changed his mind on, sort of. One thing that he mentioned was lifestyle creep, but he put a qualifier in front of it, asset-driven lifestyle creep. And I thought that was a brilliant way to put it. Speaker 1 (1:49) He has a new tool. I forgot the name of it off the top of my head. I feel like it's Wealth Machines, but I could be wrong. I'll link up to it. So if you want to check it out, you can. But the idea is basically like lifestyle creep is usually a negative label where you're spending more just because you can, or maybe you shouldn't be, but you're spending more. But the asset-driven portion of it, is where a lot of early retirees find themselves. And this is your assets are, they're producing more income than maybe you expected, or maybe you've kept your lifestyle at a specific level, but your assets can actually afford you to spend a little bit more. Now, spending more just for the shit of it is not a great way to spend money, just because you can spend 4 % or 5.5 % or whatever you're operating with, just because you can doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so. Now, this idea of lifestyle creep overlapped with a recent episode of Mile High Five. Amberlee Grant and I recorded an episode about things we've changed our mind about over the years, usually related to financial independence. And Amberlee brought up lifestyle creep. And she gave a great example. And we recorded this, that episode in like early July. So like Amberlee and I had that conversation, you know, before Brandon recorded his and published it, which just came out in the last week or so. Anyway, great way to look at it. And it's something like I'm trying to figure out too, where it's like, we can spend a little bit more money. than, you know, maybe what we expected or what our current lifestyle is dictating, but we're very happy. And we're like, okay, like, should we test spending in these areas or that? And an asset driven way to look at lifestyle creep is a cool way to reframe it. So Brandon, great idea. The second thing I want to bring up is the idea of being scared. to sell your assets when you're in a decumulation phase. And I've heard people mention this, and I'm trying to get people to stop saying it. Dusty Young was on the show not too long ago. Roxanne sat in as well. And we recorded it recently, but I don't think the episode is out. But a little bit of a spoiler, Dusty mentioned something about selling her assets and this is all part of the plan, right? Like we were planning on retiring early. However, people are used to being in the accumulation phase. They're used to saving and they've, they take pride in saving, which is, I mean, it's a good thing, but we spend years, sometimes decades saving. The whole fucking plan is to eventually stop saving. and start spending some of your assets. And many of us over-save, and it's totally okay to sell these assets. It's part of the plan. It's literally the other part of the plan, depending on when you retire. It might even be longer than the accumulation phase. All that to say... It can be a little bit anxiety producing, but you should be expecting it. So I'm encouraging people like get in that mindset. Like you're going to, you're going to sell some stuff eventually, right? It's part of the plan. Speaker 1 (5:42) It shouldn't be scary. Again, I'm telling people like, don't say it's scary. Other people say it's scary on other podcasts. It's not scary. It's part of the plan. I've been selling each month for a couple of years now. I think I started a little bit smaller, but I mean, I am not earning an income, right? So I turned off all my courses and income producing activities. And this show, While we do have buy me a coffee, it's only like $300 a month, which hardly pays for the software. Speaker 1 (6:21) All these subscriptions end up adding up. And then recently I had to get a new computer. So that actually was fairly expensive. And producer Chris will also need a new computer. They just got old after a while. And Chris and I, like we were talking, I think both of us had like eight year old computers. They're getting a little slow. They're getting a little slow. So we were actually having some trouble with editing. And just generally using our computers. So I upgraded, got a refurbished one. I mean, I still like a deal, but it's working much better. And we've upgraded the camera here. So you can see in 4K, which really not necessary. I'd look much better if it was blurry, but here we are. So anyway, it shouldn't be