I am very proud of a certain young lady right now. Over the past eighteen months or so she has been working something like sixty hours a week in one of the humblest of occupations - fast food. She has fed, clothed and housed herself the entire time, without help from the nest from which she sprang, and has seldom complained about it.
She has no car, but prefers self-propelled transportation or bus. She has a third-hand laptop and a second rate cell phone, but she gets by.
It helps that she is more fond vintage baggy sweaters and well-worn jeans than spiked heels, designer skirts, but the truth us, she is cheap like her dad and cute like her mom, so she gets away with it. She fears debt like the plague, saying she couldn't sleep if she owed money. Good attitude.
Without consulting her advisor father, she opened up her own Tax Free Savings Account, and has been tucking away surplus funds there for several months. The daughter who couldn't wrap her head around grade-eleven math has managed to tuck away a small fortune - enough to fund a dream or two -- some schooling, a car and/or a journey to a foreign land should she so choose.
She will remember these days fondly in the years ahead, and if this keeps up, she won't want for money. Half of the battle we have with money is finding the head space to feel sufficiently wealthy just because we are debt-free, our bellies are full and our feet are warm and dry.
An old story comes to mind:
Sometimes we might be like the young merchant from Boston, who in 1849, as the story goes, was caught up in the fervor of the California gold rush. He sold all of his possessions to seek his fortune in the California rivers, which he was told were filled with gold nuggets so big that one could hardly carry them.
Day after endless day, the young man dipped his pan into the river and came up empty. His only reward was a growing pile of rocks. Discouraged and broke, he was ready to quit until one day an old, experienced prospector said to him, "That's quite a pile of rocks you are getting there, my boy."
The young man replied, "There's no gold here. I'm going back home."
Walking over to the pile of rocks, the old prospector said, "Oh, there is gold all right. You just have to know where to find it." He picked two rocks up in his hands and crashed them together. One of the rocks split open, revealing several flecks of gold sparkling in the sunlight.
Noticing a bulging leather pouch fastened to the prospector's waist, the young man said, "I'm looking for nuggets like the ones in your pouch, not just tiny flecks."
The old prospector extended his pouch toward the young man, who looked inside, expecting to see several large nuggets. He was stunned to see that the pouch was filled with thousands of flecks of gold.
The old prospector said, "Son, it seems to me you are so busy looking for large nuggets that you're missing filling your pouch with these precious flecks of gold. The patient accumulation of these little flecks has brought me great wealth."
Not everyone has a rags-to-riches story, but there are many tales of modest means in the filing cabinet next to me, several having since become millionaires. At the end of the day, financial planning is pretty straightforward. The question: "Do I have enough?" is as much contingent on our spending habits as it is the size of our portfolio.
As retirement reality sets in, the next task for these perpetually frugal souls is to find it in their hearts to let go of some of their carefully accumulated stash and enjoy a few years of carefree life while their health is good. It's a nice problem to have.
Mark Ryan is an advisor in Prince George with RBC Wealth Management, Dominion Securities, and can be reached at [email protected].
