Buying freedom

How many years of freedom are you buying this month? I used to be able to answer that. So here's a confession from the far side of the number: I don't do the math any more.

When I'm about to buy something now, no spreadsheet fires. Five questions, and none of them is about the price. Do I want it? Will it last? Will I actually use it? Is this the best option for what I want — or is there one that works better and saves me upgrading later, or a cheaper version with better value? And if I change my mind, will they take it back?

That's it. That's the whole system.

My mentality used to be very different — it had to be. Around the world on €3–5 a day, money only had one unit: how much longer it kept me moving. I published every budget on my travel blog at the time — the full numbers for five years by bicycle are still up.

One rule survived from those days intact. For the bike trip I bought good gear that would last, even when it cost more, instead of cheap stuff that would break along the road and end up costing me more in patches and replacements. Cheap that breaks is the expensive option.

What did I skip because the freedom-price was too high? A Porsche. Kidding — I don't dream of anything that expensive. That's the quiet part of the system working: the wants stayed smaller than the freedom.

Ask me what the people around me misprice, though, and the answer comes fast.

Drinks and partying. Clothes worn once or twice. And the one that honestly annoys me: the weekend holiday. I get it — most people don't have the time. But the flights cost the same whether you stay three days or a month, and a hotel for three days costs more per night than a nicer place rented for weeks. And the experience isn't even the same product: land, see the sights, get drunk, fly home — against actually living somewhere for a while and getting to know the people in it. Slow travel is cheaper per day and richer per day. Nothing else I know does both!

So what do you do with this if you have a normal job and no plans to quit anything this month?

First, the boring checklist: look at where the money actually goes and ask if all of it is worth it. Sometimes it's silly things — an internet contract you could halve by switching, an old insurance that quietly leaves your account and adds nothing of worth. Do it once.

But that's just the checklist, and the checklist was never the point. The real questions are bigger. What do you actually want your life to be? What are you doing at the moment to get there — and is it getting any closer?

Because past a sane baseline, the bigger lever usually isn't cutting harder. It's the income side: the new project, the side business, the change of work that moves you towards the life instead of just through the month.

If you want the reflex I had on the road, the price tag tool is here — put any purchase in and see it in the only currency that matters. Run it until it runs in your head.

Then aim for the day you don't need it. So — what's the first thing you'd stop paying for?