Your Threshold for Sacrifice

[MJ DeMarco]

I was reading Russ' great thread

http://www.thefastlanetomillions.com/your-goals-your-fastlane-plan/544-how-develop-your-plan.html

And he wrote this ...

If you had to drive around an old Toyota pickup truck for only 1 year, knowing that at the end of ONE YEAR, you'd no longer have to work again for another day in your life, would you do it?

Sorry Russ, but I'm stealing that one for my book.

My question to the community is this ...

If you had to drive an old beater car and live in a tiny apartment for 1 YEAR and you knew after the 1 year, you'd never have to work another day in your life and do so comfortably, would you?

What is your threshold for sacrifice? Would you do it for 2 YEARS? 3? 5? 10?

The irony is, you will have to live like a few years like nobody else, so you can live the rest of your life, like no other.

How much sacrifice do you have in you?

 

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[AroundTheWorld]

Hmm. Will be very interested to see the response on this one.

Interesting question MJ.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

My actual *realized* level of sacrifice was about 4.5 years ... as I saw progress, the sacrifice became easier and to a lessor degree.

 

[^eagle^]

This is something I have been struggling with becasue of so many years I DID live with sacrifice both by myself and with my first wife.

For years I have lived below my means never over extending my credit alwyas saving and looking for investments. I have gone from homelessness to a small net worth. back to near homelessness and am currently slightly above where I was before disaster struck. I live comfortably and still below my means but I am not so willing to live the "spartan Life" as much as I used to. As I have not made it to supersonic speeds I have not seen the fruits of a minimalists existence.

I guess it would be because the spartan life has not proved fruitful. Yet again I had not the fianancial education back then as I do now.

One of the things RK teaches is NOT living within your means. Thus forcing you to become creative in how to finance your lifestyle. (not on credit crads but buying assets). I can be happy with the spartan life so I could easily rest on my laurels and live on 20K to 30k a year. But I have others to consider.

So currently my threshold is not very high.

 

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[Salinger]

How about living in your beater car?
You can always live in a car, but you can't drive a house (or apartment).

I think the tolerable level of sacrifice changes with different stages of life.
When you're young and single, you can deal with some pretty miserable conditions in pursuit of your goals. I think of the starving musician, sleeping on his buddy's couch, trying to hit it big.
Once you are married and have children to provide for it becomes very difficult, unless you are extremely self-focused, to ask them to tolerate similar hardships.

I do know of a family who for several years lived in the back of their restaurant (not an apartment in back, they slept on mats on the kitchen floor) until the business was providing enough that they could buy a small home. Now they have several restaurants and drive a Mercedes.

 

[tchandy]

Good question MJ and in a direct way Russ for initially starting the question. Let me try to take a stab at this; this is a true story.

If you had to drive an old beater car and live in a tiny apartment for 1 YEAR and you knew after the 1 year, you'd never have to work another day in your life and do so comfortably, would you?

I have gone through similar questions with my wife and friends since I still drive my 2000 Saturn coupe. I could go out and buy a new car today but why? The car has low miles, around 65,000 miles and has had no serious issues. To add to that, when the Saturn was about two years old in 2003, I bought a hoopdi to drive around Hawaii as a second car. My wife and I drove a 1994 VW Golf. We wanted to buy a car with all cash and not have to worry about loan payments. We kept the Golf for the three years while we were in Hawaii and it made a great beach car. Since it was an older car, we tried to keep it clean but if it got sand in it, it really didn't matter. So I think it is possible to drive an older car. The Saturn has probably reached the 10 year mark this month to be exact and I will drive it till it dies.


For the second part of the question, my wife and I lived in a small condo which looked like any other apartment complex. We rented a condo that was 850 square feet for the two of us. Prices in Hawaii are expensive but we stayed in the condo for two years before moving to buy an exact replica down the street. So not sure how small you consider small but compared to how we live now, the 850 square feet is pretty small.

What is your threshold for sacrifice? Would you do it for 2 YEARS? 3? 5? 10?

Looking at my past, I could sacrifice for three years if I knew that I would not have to "work" again. I never really had much so the way I see things now is if I get something I feel blessed. I feel blessed to be where I'm at and to buy something without thinking twice about the price, within reason of course.

Tom

 

[qwerety]

I was reading Russ' great thread

http://www.thefastlanetomillions.com/your-goals-your-fastlane-plan/544-how-develop-your-plan.html

And he wrote this ...

Sorry Russ, but I'm stealing that one for my book.

My question to the community is this ...

If you had to drive an old beater car and live in a tiny apartment for 1 YEAR and you knew after the 1 year, you'd never have to work another day in your life and do so comfortably, would you?

What is your threshold for sacrifice? Would you do it for 2 YEARS? 3? 5? 10?

The irony is, you will have to live like a few years like nobody else, so you can live the rest of your life, like no other.

How much sacrifice do you have in you?

That is a good question, but there is one tiny issue with it, and that is you ask and you knew... My point is that if you knew for sure it makes the question a lot easier to answer and answer yes to that question. A thing that hold many people back from doing anything or making those type of sacrifices is that they do not know and they do not want to take that risk. I mean, I have made sacrifices all my life, some at the time I had no choice, because I was young and relying on my parents. I would answer hell yeah, I would deal with that if I knew. Nobody really knows though.
Its the risk/reward thing that gets people to not do it, as well as their lack of confidence and drive.

The question sounds good, but its a bit too easy to answer when saying if you knew. I would a better question is would you drive an old beater car and live in a tiny apartment for 1yr, 2yrs, 3yrs or longer if it helped you towards reaching your dream?
It implies sacrifice as well as it says helped, which is not saying its known you will do it. Or maybe keep the question the same but instead of saying and you knew say after that 1 year you had a chance of never having to work another day and live comfortably...

My answer to the question no matter how its worded is a resounding yes.
As for the amount of time, I will say I had to deal with about 5 years of major sacrifice and had nothing in a way to show for it, so I could do it again, but another 5 would be rough considering the 5 I went through, but that would be depending on how much sacrifice was to be made. I could do 5 though.

 

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[rcardin]

I did it for 3 1/2 years. Totally different level of success

I moved to the middle of nowhere, not knowing a soul in town, in 1994 to finish College after 5 different schools, in 4 different states, and 9 years of playing around.

In 95 I bought a 14x70 mobile home for 2500.00. Had it moved by wheeling and dealing and had it dropped on a small lot for 100.00 a month rent. I spent three days with a 20 ton bottle jack leveling it on cinder blocks. I dug the hole and buried the meter pole that I bought through the greensheet. The lot I was on sloped badly. The rear of the trailer was about 5 feet tall and the front was on the ground. Within a week I had a roof over my head for less than 4k.
I then focused on school like it was a job. 8-5 everyday and then go deliver pizzas at night. Also picked up a few lawns in town to make some extra cash on the weekends.
I graduated with a 3.6 GPA in December of 97. I was immediately hired by the school district that I did student teaching in. Spent the next year and a half working for them as a district technology trainer.
Met my wife and moved where the real money was.

It may not be the scenario as given, but it all depends on what the definition is of "From Rags to Riches".

I would do it all over again if I knew it was the last time...........

 

[biophase]

If you had to drive an old beater car and live in a tiny apartment for 1 YEAR and you knew after the 1 year, you'd never have to work another day in your life and do so comfortably, would you?

What is your threshold for sacrifice? Would you do it for 2 YEARS? 3? 5? 10?

The irony is, you will have to live like a few years like nobody else, so you can live the rest of your life, like no other.

How much sacrifice do you have in you?

I don't know if I would ever call any years "sacrifice", it would be a shame to waste any time.

Let me ask the question differently.

If you had to sit in a 15x15 room and be isolated from everyone else for one year with no communication from the outside world, but you would be handed $3 million dollars tax free as you walked out, would you do it? I certainly wouldn't.

My point is that sacrificing 1 year is probably in your mind. Over the course of the year, you are working hard, learning new things, you still have time to workout, take walks, etc... You are living a normal life still. I guess I see it as part of living and not sacrificing anything. You are where you are.

 

[yveskleinsky]

Great post Bio. ++rep

You are where you are.

I think it was in the book Don't Make Me Think, where the author talks about being on the scent of information--that people are less inclined to give up if they sense they are moving in the direction that they want to be heading. Same is true when starting a business. When I had the bar, I often slept upstairs on the couch after being there all day--I never thought of it as sacrifice--I thought of it as part of ride. Yeah that part kinda sucked, but it never really bothered me as I was so focused on where the ride was leading.

As far as "sacrifice" goes--I guess my needs are really pretty simple. If I have a car (or a bike and a grocery store close by), a decent place to sleep and clean clothes I am satisfied. Pretty much everything else is gravy. ...I think my line would be less along the lines of could I drive a crappy car and live in a studio apt--as I know I could, because I have before--but my line would be living in a tent in the mountains and not having clean clothes on a regular basis. That, I don't think I could do.

 

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[MBinMT]

I would guess most of the people on this board who have ever dared to reach beyond their safety zone have done a version of this "what if". Probably more than once. I don't consider myself good at setting goals or working a plan, and I can think of 2 times in my life I have done something similar, and I am doing another version of it right now.

first one:
My first wife and I lived in a $225/month apartment in 1991-2, had an '84 camaro, we each held a full time job (waitress, counter person at bowling alley) plus we each had 2 other part time things we did for W-2 wages. The goal wasn't a lifetime of not working, it was to save enough to buy a residential lot and build a new home. In a financially comfortable manner. First time owning and we wanted it brand spanking new. We did it. I was such an owly bastard near the end.

second one: due to the financial deterioration of a company I worked for, a manufacturer of food products was looking around for a new company to distribute their products. I new that if the company pulled the line out of the failing distributor, it would be awarded to someone else free. But there were capital commitments and vehicles to get lined up in order to get it to all come together. As it turned out, three of us partnered up to start a new company that served 5 cities plus surrounding areas in Montana. Part of my responsibility as a co-owner was to go to a town 140 miles from where I owned my home, take up residence and build the route until it became developed and secure enough to hire a driver and train them. After staying with relatives for a while, I rented a teeny little place where I slept on the floor, ate meals as I sat on the floor and either read or went back out to work at our retailer customers after dinner. No going out for drinks, no eating out, no TV, no radio, no shower just a bath, no mattress or pillow. In the winter when the temps sometimes hit 30 below zero plus wind chill, I had to be up and out by 4:30 a.m. to load the truck and begin deliveries. My product would freeze, the diesel would gel if I didn't pay attention, our suppliers my or may not make their twice weekly drops if the roads were bad, or my order may not show up correctly or it could be incomplete. At no time were there any promises to me that this would even work out.
It did take me a year to reach the gross receipt threshhold we needed so I could find and train someone to begin working the route. It went OK for a while. I learned a lot about teaching and managing expectations. Mine and others. I learned about accountability to a business partner, accountability to myself and to everyone that I wanted to do business with.
Here is the part most people are scared of. The ending of this story is that after being good for a while, I sold that particular route to the guy working it. He paid for about a year, then pissed off 2 MAJOR stores who went up the line of command and insisted he was no longer allowed in those stores. The big corporate business that was our main supplier was forced to vacate his ownership of the route. I had right of first refusal to take it back, but I already had too many other irons in the fire to recommit resources into the route, so I passed. The kicker is he owed me about $40 grand and defaulted on the note (of course). He had a wife and 3 young girls, so I had to decide if I should ruin him financially by going after him or just letting it go. I just couldn't wreck him. I ended up calling it tuition in the school of life and let it go. That's the risk.

I will post story 3 later

 

[yveskleinsky]

Great story MB! ++rep

 

[MJ DeMarco]

When I use the word sacrifice, I'm not referring to throwing away your life. I mean it to refer to hard work and tough decisions that "everyone" else wont make. When your friends are out partying, you are pushing your plan. When your friends buy their brand new BMW's, you are pushing your plan and driving the 140,000 mile beater. Sacrifice as in ... doing what is necessary to push your plan versus pushing the plan that society wants you to live.

 

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[Pinnacle]

It has taken me roughly 8 years to get to this point in my life where I feel I am knocking at the door of early retirement and financial independence. The "sacrifice" has been living the drudgery, monotony, and psychological anguish of the rat race. I did not start waking up until I was close to graduating high school in 2001. It has taken me this long to financially educate myself enough to teach. It has taken me this long to develop a solid plan (with modification along the way): figure out where I was coming from, where I am going, how I am going to get there, what resources I will need to do it. It has taken me this long to learn how to position myself, my brand, my product and market effectively enough--though, I am still learning, of course--to reach my brass ring.

In short, my threshold is about 8 years. I would tackle the old pickup truck scenario with immeasurable fervor.

 

[AroundTheWorld]

I read this thread, thinking about how I would respond. The thread I read right before this was https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/your-goals-your-fastlane-plan/23000-whats-your-bucket-list.html and I was thinking about how I would respond to that thread.

One is all about living your life to the fullest, and the other one is about asking you what you would sacrifice. Then, came this from bio:

My point is that sacrificing 1 year is probably in your mind. Over the course of the year, you are working hard, learning new things, you still have time to workout, take walks, etc... You are living a normal life still. I guess I see it as part of living and not sacrificing anything. You are where you are.

Ahhh. Thank you. This is exactly right. Sacrifice is only a state of mind. You decide what is important to you and then you do it and you enjoy the journey. Maybe building a business is on your bucket list, and if it is, then you are not sacrificing by staying focused and working diligently on your plan. You are crossing off another thing from your bucket list.

 

[FDJustin]

When I use the word sacrifice, I'm not referring to throwing away your life. I mean it to refer to hard work and tough decisions that "everyone" else wont make. When your friends are out partying, you are pushing your plan. When your friends buy their brand new BMW's, you are pushing your plan and driving the 140,000 mile beater. Sacrifice as in ... doing what is necessary to push your plan versus pushing the plan that society wants you to live.

That's a very good question, and I think the part about not pushing society's plan is an important part of it. On the surface it's easy to think "Yes of course I could do that!" but it's harder than it seems. I think, for a lot of people who find out their answer is "No, I really can't." they need to pick apart the reasons why, and make changes until the answer is "Yes, I can do that."

When I was much younger, I could have easily said "Yes, of course!" as I was far more strongly indipendant. A right proper Capricorn.
Somewhere along the way there was a change, and I'm much more driven by other peoples input. Because of that, when I came here last year I probably would have said "No."

That no would have come from not having a way to keep the desire alive during the times of no progress, or setbacks. Since I don't seem to draw power from being the underdog anymore, I would need to make sure I put people in my environment that will acknowledge the steps taken. I don't need praise, I just need acknowledgement and a distinct lack of "Well that's stupid, what if you fail?!"

My next sacrifice is to reduce the amount of time I spend on these forums. It's too much of a good thing.

 

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[NHS]

Going back to the original quote I find it rather funny. I drive the biggest piece of shit van every day and you know what I LOVE IT!!!

Now if all I had to do was drive a shitty toyota for a year thats not much of a big deal. LOL

-----------------Here is one of my stories I like to share with others-------------

Now at one point I was in school and living with an ex who wanted me gone. We did this for 8 months and I didn't have a penny to my name. I gave her my share of the rent for one year and didn't speak to her or ask her for anything. I studied my a$$ off for that 8 months and lived on PBnJ and mountain dew and didn't even have money for the subway so I rode my bicycle everywhere. At one point I got hit by a car in the middle of January. The guy totaled my bike and I stood my ground and made this big guy give me money. I said "I am in the toughest spot in my life and I need this bike. You have to either give me money or kill me." Guy gave me $100 and I got home, hammered the bike into shape and road it like that and used the $100 for food for the next 2 months. When I finally got money one of the first things I did was restore my bicycle and I still have it to this day and will never sell it.