That Time Losing $50000 Left Me Better Off

I walked away from a deal that meant losing $50000 over three years’ time. It wouldn’t have required me to work extra hours or join any sketchy cult/server/multi-level marketing biz, either. Nabbing that moolah would have put my net worth at roughly $290,000 as of the time of this writing. That’s a whole lot of cash I could’ve put to good use and do not currently have.

The irony of losing out on $50000 isn’t lost on me. No person in their right mind – let alone an award-nominated finance blogger – would say no to that! Right?

Well… it depends. Losing a $50000 deal sounds outrageously sucky on the surface; it doesn’t exactly leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. However, losing out on that $50000 ultimately meant my life was more quiet, peaceful, cleaner, healthier, and easier. Who knows, losing out may have even saved me from a fiery death or horrific disease! We don’t know that for sure so you can’t argue with me on the dramatics.

Now as for the deal itself, I actually doubt most of you would have chose differently. The question of how-I’m-fine-with-losing $50000 becomes clear with a simple would-you-rather question:

Dearest reader,

Would you rather:

Live in a 6’x8’ bedroom with no heat, A/C, or considerate housemates for three years, OR

Lose fifty thousand dollars?

Yep, that was the deal I walked away from. Or, more specifically, I walked away from the room I rented all of my senior year of college. It was a three bedroom apartment that we had turned into six bedrooms, because none of us were willing and/or able to pay the much higher Boston rental prices elsewhere. My room was originally a storage space I managed to shove a twin bed into. A couple took over the living room, which made Bedroom #5. An enclosed porch looking out to the street served as Bedroom #6, making our home host to roughly seven people sharing a bare kitchen and bathroom.

Did I mention none of us were considerate? I’m including myself in this because I spent as little time around as possible. That meant one less person around to tidy up any of the greasy messes others left around. I only cleaned up after myself in that place, not that it showed. Living that way well and truly sucked. The only time I was ever around as a college senior was to sleep. That’s it. Ain’t no way you’d find 22-year-old Darcy willingly hanging around that dump.

But still, moving the hell out of there in 2016 meant giving up my low, low rent. I only paid $375 a month for that room, which is about a fifth of what I currently pay. Saving 80% of my rent payments would’ve made me much more than $50000 if invested.

Does The Loss Make You Pause?

We could take this what-if game further. If I had split my current apartment with a roommate from the get go, I’d be $30,000 richer now. Ditto for staying in the apartment I moved to after my Senior Year of Fun (Fear) which was a little pricier at $600 but still an absolute steal. Had I stayed there I’d have at least $39,600 more in my coffers. Invested in my S&P index funds would’ve bumped up either amount into at least the mid-40s range.

New question: would you rather,

• Live with a hypothetical stranger as a roommate, who may or may not be health-conscious during a COVID crisis in 2020, or
• Lose tens of thousands of dollars?

In any case, I’m admittedly being disingenuous by using the word “losing”. It’s not like I had that $30-50000 already, only to end up losing it all. It’s only easy to calculate how much more I’d have because these are known numbers; I’m already aware of how much money I would have spent/saved had I chosen differently. It’s more that I walked away from a $50000 deal, which… still doesn’t sound that great initially.

If the loss of that much money gives you pause, then congrats babe, you’re good at thinking through your options. You strike me as the type of reader who wants something better than the average. You’re willing to put in work to reach your goals and dreams. To change your mindset and become the best version of you the world will ever see. And I love that so much, as long as you don’t miss the forest for the trees. Put another way, as long as you don’t make your life undeniably worse in pursuit of riches that aren’t truly helping you.

Because There’s Always a Line You Don’t Need to Cross

However your life has shaken out, there’s likely a ton of ways you could have saved serious bank at the cost of something else. For me that would have been living in not-so-great places (see above). For others that could mean several, much more ridiculous things, such as:

• Scavenging roadkill to cook for dinner
• Secretly washing your laundry in your neighbor’s pool (the chlorine makes for an excellent detergent!)
• Inspecting the vacuums at car washes for spare change (because wealth is built a penny at a time. From grandma’s sedan.)
• Sharing a bed with three other people, platonically

I’m willing to bet some real, non-hypothetical money that you don’t indulge in any of the above to save money. There’s a line between, say, taking advantage of your local library and taking advantage of your friends and loved ones. It goes back to deciding whether your money-conscious decisions are you being thrifty or you being cheap. Take it from me, a reformed cheapskate, when I say you don’t want to be cheap. If you unironically chose against “losing X amount of money” when we played Would You Rather, you’re missing the point.

Why Losing $50000 is More Preferable

There are lots of reasons why I’ve gotten as much money as I do. There’s also a lot of reasons why that amount isn’t higher. Clearly, one of the reasons is related to my housing choices. I pay $1,700 a month for a two-bed apartment just outside of Boston; this could be much lower with a roommate (or several) or much higher if I wanted to live in a city high rise. There’s a cost to damn near everything in this country, so save money in the areas where you can and spend when you can’t.

Finances are not actually my ultimate goal; living a good life, on my terms, is. My money is nothing more than the vehicle I’m building to carry me there. Never forget money is the tool, NOT the be-all, end-all.

I’m certainly not forgetting since money’s landed me in such nice digs. That $600 room from earlier, like the $375 one, wasn’t heated. I only had one roommate as opposed to six, but our apartment still didn’t have a living room. Said roommate was also a stranger until I moved in, shaping up to be one weird dude. He was nonchalant about a rat once climbing up from the plumbing and banging around under our kitchen sink. He only worked on Tuesdays and, upon coming back home, made it a routine to close the door behind him and swear after a gusty sigh. Don’t even get me started on the guy who lived the floor below us, who was super creepy and made me uncomfortable living there.

Knowing these options makes that Would You Rather question shift on its head.

Would you rather:

Live with people you wouldn’t trust to not start a grease fire, while also battling against freezing winter temperatures and sweltering summers?

Or:

Live with zero roommates in a place with ALL the amenities, while still saving over half your income?

Staying financially on top of things in every other aspect of your life means the right choice is so much more sweeter.

Bet You’ve Got a “Losing $50000” Story, Too

If you’re anything like the average person, you’ve made decisions too that went against raking in the big bucks. I’m not talking about investing in crypto before the craze or in a meme stock before Reddit caught wind of it. I’m talking about the decisions you made where money wasn’t the deciding factor.

• Did you get into a program or hobby that you loved, but which cost quite a bit to participate in?
• Did you go to the university of your dreams instead of sticking to the more cost-effective options?
• Maybe it was an unforgettable vacation, made especially so with the huge bill at the end?
• How about, I don’t know, buying all your furniture new? Or clothes new, for that matter…

I guarantee you’ve made choices in the past that didn’t bolster your financial security. These choices might’ve been wildly costly to you, whether in the short term or the long term. You might regret some of these choices because of how much more money you’d now have. None of us have a crystal ball to show what these choices lead to; all we have is today, with the hopes we’ll be somewhere better tomorrow.

But for the rest of the choices?

Those hit different.

Those are the ones you don’t regret, despite missing out on who knows how much money. Choices like those were the ones that enhanced your life more than the extra cash would have. It’s hard to say that when, again, we don’t have that crystal ball for our future escapades. We genuinely don’t know what the future will hold beyond death at some point and taxes every year. (What joyous constants…) Instead, we have the present to account for as well as the future. If something you spent money on made you genuinely happier and more able to get through your low points, then that’s money spent in the best possible way.

Final Thoughts

As long as we live in a culture where cash is king, we need to frame most decisions in a financial light. And if the financials were all that mattered, your girl would be spelunking in the Charles River fishin’ for crawdads and cattails for breakfast. While secretly living inside a thrift store clothes rack. With roommates. Luckily, money isn’t actually the be-all, end-all! I know! You have my blessing to go buy avocado toast and enjoy a drink with (vaccinated) friends. Frolic! Enjoy life! As long as you’re happy with the tradeoff, who cares!

Losing that $50000 turned out to help me far more than I could’ve expected. I could afford to “lose” it with my sky-high salary, especially since I could make up the “loss” in other ways with clever budgeting. Even better, nabbing this apartment means getting one step closer to my goals and dreams right freaking now. Sure, it’s not that castle fortress hidden away up in the mountains. I’m not yet that rich. But it is a home that’s fully mine to decorate and enjoy as I please. If that mountain castle can’t give me this, then that is money not at all well spent.

If you need more money to reach your ideal life, it’s time to save or invest or get a higher salary. Money is a tool you should use to create that ideal. It’s up to you what that looks like and not anyone else.

Especially not these “would you rather” questions, anyway. You’ve got better things to spend time on.

Cover image credit: Ali Kazal via Unsplash