I Obsessed Over Money Until It Became the Least Important Thing in My Life
Frugal Chic® 67: My Payday Routine for Thinking About Money Less
I obsessed over money until it became the least important thing in my life.
In my humble opinion, in order to achieve great things in life, you have to be a bit unhinged. By that, I mean committed to your goals, with an unwavering curiosity and desire to learn. Researching, having nerdy conversations and experimenting.
That’s what the world of finance felt like for me as a fashion student. It was so separate from what I was learning about and the career I wanted to pursue that it felt exciting.
You could say I went further than most people need to.
Most people just need the basics: a tax-advantaged account, a pension, a good credit card used responsibly and a high-yield savings account.
Meanwhile, I was learning about REITs, money market funds and IPOs.
But why?
Well, for me, I grew up with zero financial literacy. Going to a state school, I didn’t learn about it there, nor did my parents know most of the more advanced stuff. It left a gap in my knowledge. It was clear that rich people knew something I didn’t, and I wanted to find out.
In this issue:
Why being slightly obsessed with money can help you build financial security
The simple systems I use to automate my finances
My exact payday routine as a company director
Why financial security makes money feel less important
How to protect your time, energy and headspace by thinking about money less
So, I went on this path of wanting to get to my first £100k, which I did by 25 years old through a mix of living at home for two years after university, being incredibly frugal and working 60-plus-hour weeks across my 9-to-5 and side hustles.
For that period of time, money was the most important focus in my life.
But what if I told you the very goal is to stop thinking about money altogether? The beauty of having enough of it is that it works in the background. You set up systems and automations, and you put your values in place so that spending on what matters becomes easier and easier.
There’s a quote by economist Eugene Fama that perfectly encapsulates this: “Your money or portfolio is like a bar of soap. The more you handle it, the less you’ll have.”
This extends beyond investing. The set-it-and-forget-it mindset is helpful in all aspects of your financial life, not just your investments. I spoke recently about having different financial seasons in your life, and in the Curate season, the scarcest resource is your energy. Therefore, anything that saves me the mental headspace of manually having to transfer something, I will automate.
So here’s the routine I set up so my money runs in the background.
