mo money, mo problems / #5
the (first) one about finances and fear
The night before I quit my job, my ceiling started leaking.
Not metaphorically, or in some cute, symbolic way. I mean actual water, dripping ominously from above, the crack seemingly growing bigger each time I look.
It sent my brain into full doomer-mode.
It was like the universe took a look at my spreadsheets, at all my careful planning, at my well-reasoned exit strategy, laughed and said: Okay, but what if you suddenly need to drop $10K on emergency repairs?
Obviously, in this personified version of the universe, it’s out to test me and make sure I didn’t get too comfortable with this whole sabbatical (or life reset, career break, or mini-retirement — I’m still workshopping the name).
I ran the numbers once again, as if I hadn’t already spent months (or years, maybe) doing that, over and over, waiting for the numbers to give me permission to leave.
This is part of the truth: I could have left my job earlier.
I should have left earlier.
But I had several things keeping me tenuously linked to it: the identity I had crafted as part of being a good worker; the stability of a job well done (until that was put on shaky grounds with constant “team restructures”); more objectively — a number in my head, an arbitrary finish line that, once crossed, would magically make me feel secure enough to walk away.
Enough to make me think, well, what’s another few months of dread for a few more paychecks, as I crunched the numbers once every few weeks.
And so: the night before I finally pulled the trigger, my brain had one last trick to play: What if this is a sign?
The fear of running out is hard to shake.
What’s funny is that scarcity mindset never showed up when I was making $18K a year in my first job. I wish I’d started journaling back then, if to understand what a fresh-faced me was thinking.
Back then, I wasn’t obsessively tracking every dollar, bracing for market dips, running simulations like a gremlin. I didn’t have much, but I wasn’t gripped by the fear of losing it.
Was I brave(r) back then, by any chance? Was it just naivety and ignorance?
Or maybe I hadn’t learned how to be afraid yet?
For now, I have a 12+ month cash runway to ride out this break, and a portfolio that could support a lean retirement, if I wanted to scrimp for the rest of my life.
Last weekend, I caught myself fixated on whether the latest tariff announcement would tank my investments, where most of my portfolio is tied up.
It didn’t; the market registered barely a blip after December’s all-time high. But for a moment, I felt that old panic creeping in, as if one bad week could suddenly render all my planning meaningless.
Even now, as I type this, my brain is still surfacing terms like black swan event and the technocrats are going to do something and if I lose everything, I’ll have to rethink my plan.
And this is what scarcity mindset does.
Scarcity mindset doesn’t care about the math.
It doesn’t care that I spent years building this stability, my financial overhaul in 2019 starting with barely anything in liquid assets, learning more about personal finance and dragging myself up the ladder of financial independence.
Nor does it care that I got here through deliberate choices — no big money bets, an inheritance, or being told I’m royalty of a small European principality (listen, I’m very excited about Princess Diaries 3 and going back to Genovia) — what I had in my favor was a methodical stacking of knowledge, and a lucky ride of the market in the last five years.
Scarcity mindset cares about one thing: What if it all disappears?
It sneaks into conversations. Friends tell me I’m brave for taking this leap, and without thinking, I joke, or at least until the money runs out!
I say it casually, but I know I say it because I don’t fully believe I have enough. Even with everything I’ve done to put myself in a strong position, part of me is waiting for the floor to drop out.
Maybe that’s why I kept delaying my exit, refreshing my spreadsheet like the numbers might finally silence the fear.
It reminds me of the Kahneman and Deaton study; the one about how money improves happiness up to a certain point, but beyond that, it stops making a real difference.
I used to think that number was too low ($75k/year to be happy?! Impossible!), but now I wonder if they were right.
Then there is that belief that once I hit a certain number, I’d feel safe. But now that I’m here (ish — I haven’t actually hit my actual FIRE number!), the goalposts keep moving.
Every milestone unlocks another just out of reach, growing larger by the moment. Every time I reach ‘enough,’ it turns into ‘almost enough.’
So it’s not about the money itself, but the fear of not having it, of losing what I’ve built, of miscalculating, and of somehow still not having enough.
And that makes me double down: on knowing that this sabbatical isn’t just a break from work, but a break from that kind of thinking.
Net worth isn’t life worth.
For all the mental energy I’ve spent trying to make sure I don’t run out of money, I haven’t spent nearly as much making sure I don’t run out of life.
I left my job for a reason, and it isn’t just financial independence (or the fabled “fuck you” money) — it’s to actually live, to do the things I said I wanted to do, and to make my time count in ways that spreadsheets never could.
If I keep waiting for a number to tell me I’m safe, I might miss the whole point of why I left in the first place.
I don’t want to be so busy holding onto money that I forget to hold onto everything else. Die With Zero makes the case that money is meant to be used, not hoarded, and I want to make as many memory dividends as my brain can possibly hold.
Let’s chalk it up to yet another thing I’m unlearning: Because if I never feel like I have enough to start living, when will I?
One thing I liked this week:
🎨 Art/Video: Primping the lawn, with textile designer Yuri Himuro
Sometimes, creativity tickles my brain in a way that I want to replicate.
Other things
I wrote 70% of this post while riding on the bus across — literally — Singapore, because apparently that’s a thing I’m doing for adventuring while being tethered to this island 🚍
Thinking very seriously about how to quantify myself, since I already track all the data (i.e. sleep, fitness, steps, time, books, nutrition, habits…) and it would be super cool to pull it all together for insights, or even just turn the Hawthorne effect on myself further. Watch this space!
Until next time,
J
Die with zero was one book that made a significant impact to my perspective. Great read!
Loved the NNT references.