And I Thought I Was Low Maintenance…
June 21, 2013I try hard to live a very simple lifestyle and to be relatively frugal. But my cost-conscious lifestyle gets totally blown out of the water by this guy. I’ve joked about my retirement lifestyle being one where I live in a van down by the river…BUT I’M JOKING!!!
Ken Ilgunas took it seriously. In order to get his master’s degree without being as deeply in debt as he was after undergrad (he took a few years off in between in order to work and pay off his loans), he lived in a van on the Duke University campus. He cooked in the van, joined the campus gym to have a place to shower, and used the library not only to study but to charge all of his electronic devices.
His plan was absolutely spectacular. It worked very well. I’m envious! He graduated without debt and actually wrote about his lifestyle and is working on another book currently. I’ve met some extreme savers and they live a pretty simple life (Thoreau would be proud!), but even they would have to be impressed with Ken’s approach here.
He knew that getting started in life under a mountain of debt could be very hazardous to one’s financial future so he made sacrifices. Some would say HUGE sacrifices. Some might even go so far as to question his sanity… as I’m sure his friends (if they’re anything like my friends when I lived on my boat for 3 ½ years) absolutely did.
I heard someone say “you can have anything, but you can’t have everything.” Those words rang true for Ken. What did he want? A master’s degree with no debt.
What couldn’t he have? A lavish (or even completely comfortable) lifestyle. He had to make some sacrifices. That’s really the story of all of us though. If we want something and it’s important enough to us, we will make sacrifices to get there.
I know if I have a goal of dropping 5 lbs, I just might pass up dessert if I’m out at dinner and I’ll get the steamed veggies (which I actually love, including brussel sprouts, Ira) instead of the baked potato with butter, sour cream chives, bacon or whatever other artery clogging goodness might be offered. If I want to take my kids on a cool trip, I might eat some PB&J sandwiches to cut costs rather than head out to Chipotle for lunch. Money “in” is a finite resource and anywhere your money goes, it leaves less for other areas. The math on it is pretty simple. The mental gymnastics it takes us to embrace that math may not always be so simple!
Ken made the decision that no debt at graduation was his top priority. Having an awesome apartment and living a “normal” lifestyle were much lower priorities. He is no different than any of us.
What values do we have? What priorities do we have? What are we willing to give up in order to have our top priorities satisfied? The scary part for many of the people that I speak with about their financial lives is that they don’t know the answers to these questions. They simply go out and live their lives, pay their bills (hopefully on time) and put more thought into what movie they want to see next than they put into setting financial goals.
What can you do to learn from Ken? Priorities matter! And, if you think you’re frugal, there are probably a whole lot of people out there who could make you look like a sailor on leave!
Take a look at your spending patterns. What do they say about you? Are you happy with that? What would you change?
Guess what? You have the power to make these changes. So, carve out some time over the next weekend and take a look at where your money is going. When you know where it’s going today, you have the ability to change where it will go tomorrow.
Set a few meaningful financial goals. (Pay off one credit card by X date. Get my emergency fund to Y dollars by Z date. Increase my 401k contribution to capture my company match and then bump it each year by 1-2% so that I’m always building momentum.)
Goals are an interesting thing. When you set them and write them down, you tend to reach them. Set two or three financial goals that are reasonable and reachable within the next 12 months. Write them down. Prioritize them now so that if you can only fund one of them, you know where the biggest bang for the buck will be.
From there, be a little bit like Ken (but don’t suggest to your spouse that you move into a van….divorce is a very expensive proposition) and decide what you will sacrifice in order to reach the 2-3 goals you have set. You’ll be surprised at how clarifying that exercise is and how easy it will be to implement your plan once you have given it thought and know what your tradeoffs are. I promise it’ll be easier than spending two years in a van with a camping stove to cook your meals.