Chance and Community Chest - Charity

When I was in college, whenever I had extra money, I’d fold up a bill into a little square, a $20 or a $5, and hide it in my wallet. When I was short on money, I would sometimes find my little cache which provided a nice bonus to tide me over to the next cash infusion. I still remember the rush of surprise finding that bill tucked deep into a corner of my wallet. Like past me had bequeathed future me a gift, for which I was always grateful. And I always tried to pay that money forward when I had it to the next impoverished me, as well as share with those around me when I could.

The gift economy was an important part of my college career. As I said earlier, my grandmother gave each of her grandchildren in college a small annual gift as spending money. She had gone to college in a time when it wasn’t common for women so she knew from experience how much that meant. I was always grateful, as I was for any gift certificates I received. My aunt, a librarian, usually gave me one to a favorite bookstore for my birthday. The four or five novels a year it allowed me to buy were invaluable to me.

Reading these essays, you might be under the mistaken impression that we think that we bootstrapped this all by ourselves. We did not. As I said in the first essay, we have been very fortunate. We have received gifts and inheritances. What we might have done differently than other people was that we put most of that found money to work rather than splurging on ourselves.

We didn’t create this little bubble universe we live in from whole cloth, but we did tailor it to our tastes.

When I was younger, I had the naïve philosophy, based on scattershot experience, that money would come to me when I needed it. Not when I wanted it, when I really needed it. I remember so many times in college having unforeseen gifts or bonuses or found money I’d squirreled away save me from a repair bill on my car or allowing me to pick up an extra book I didn’t know I needed for a class.

Oddly, while I believed in it, I never relied on it. I also had the firm New England Congregationalist philosophy that the gods help those who help themselves. I was never fully willing to commit my destiny to random chance though sometimes that random chance favored me.

And sometimes it didn’t. The Greeks were right: the gods are as capricious as a teenage girl shopping in the mall with a purse full of hand grenades.

But I also believed, and still do, that if you give back where you can, the universe is a little more likely to turn a kind eye upon you. Maybe that’s just some primitive, animistic sociology.

Over the years, we have contributed to charities, organizations and individuals. In the past few years, our gifts have gone directly to individuals in need to avoid the overhead of organized administration. Those have generally been special circumstances we don’t much discuss for a variety of reasons.

I’m not here to talk about that. You all have your favorite charities and ways you contribute to them that work for you.

If there is a theme to this series of essays so far, it is the proverb, “Waste not, want not.” I know, I’m supposed to be a writer. How utterly cliché.

For many people I’ve known, that proverb translates into hoarding everything they’ve collected in their lives and not being able to part with any of it because one day they might want it (“File it under ‘I’ for I might need that someday”). Most people I’ve met have a hard time letting physical items go. Cleaning out their closets is a struggle of blood, sweat, toil and tears, often quite literally. Somehow, they get bound up emotionally with the circumstances of how they acquired whatever it is they hold in their hands.

For whatever reason, I am not generally cursed with that psychic entanglement. Perhaps in part this comes back to my belief in the power of simplicity.

Other people I know incorporate that adage by selling any of their excess existential largesse secondhand. I would never advise against it for someone who needs the money and has the time. For us, and many others, that often just becomes an excuse to defer and delay. We have chosen a different path.

About twenty years ago, we noticed that our closets, cabinets and cupboards had gotten full, mostly with detritus we’d collected over the years. In Florida, we are not blessed with attics and basements to store life’s excess bounty, most of which we never looked at or used but somehow couldn’t part with.

Once upon a time, moving on a regular basis provided the perfect opportunity for winnowing. Often what we could carry with us was enforced by the size of the car we drove, the truck we could rent, or the number of friends we could feed to move it all with us. Once we nested in the same location for ten or more years, those enforced opportunities vanished. And the detritus accreted into a kind of historical sedimentary rock. In the deepest closets, it seemed to be on its way to metamorphizing.

For a long time, I’ve had the philosophy that I needed clear pathways to move through my home. My general rule is that I should be able to place my clenched fists against each other at my solar plexus and still be able to navigate the house without hitting my elbows, which for me is just about the width of an open doorway. As well, I’ve found my mind functions better when everything around me is neat, clear and organized.

Our clutter hadn’t yet overflowed into the walkways, though some furniture we’d acquired in our early post-college days was somewhat awkwardly placed.

So, over the course of a staycation, we went room by room, collecting all the things we no longer used. I took a brutal eye to everything I touched. Need, want, nice-to-have transformed into used frequently, rarely or not at all. Was anything worn, damaged or obsolete? Were the items with sentiment attached to them truly irreplaceable or just associated with well-worn memories that would never go away? Were we ever going to get around to that deferred project or repair? How many were impulse buys I never should have made?

Nothing in the house went untouched except the cats. And even their toy box got raided.

I became like Genghis Khan on a mission, slashing and burning everything in sight. My decisions were instantaneous and brutal. I entered a fugue state. By the time I reawakened, we’d filled up half a bay in the garage. Who knew we could stash away so much stuff in what wasn’t really an overly large house with a dearth of closets?

That stash sat in the garage for a bit while we decided what to do with it. A few items got hauled back in, a few others that had been on the fence went out. But 95% of it stayed exactly where it was.

In the end, we donated everything still functional to a no-kill pet shelter than ran a thrift store to fund its operations. Anything they wouldn’t take that was still useful went to Goodwill. The books, DVDs and CDs, we gave to the public library which runs their own bookstore to supplement their acquisition budget. Anything that wasn’t useful got set out at the curb. Some of it disappeared before the trash guys came around, either as metal recycling or someone else’s reclamation project.

The funny thing was, when we were done, we felt both exhausted yet lighter. When we walked around the house it was like the scales of our existence had fallen from our eyes. We noticed the things we’d kept and appreciated even more because there was less to clutter up our view. We quickly found didn’t need or miss the excess.

Now we do this every year. While we never filled up that large a space again, in the earlier years we generated more than we thought could still exist. Things we couldn’t part with one year were often easily let go the next. Our goal was to move out more than we brought in.

For us giving all those unwanted items to charity made it easier as we could envision our island of misfit toys making someone else a little happier and benefiting an organization we believed in along the way. Win-win-win.

That belief and visualization meant we could clear out faster, let more go and move on with our lives while hauling around less baggage. Like a caged bird scenario, I sometimes believe that if the universe really wants me to have something, it will come back to me. I know that sounds a little metaphysical, but it works for me. In the intervening time, 99% of what we let go, I haven’t missed. Of the hundreds of items I’ve given away, I can count on one hand the ones I remember and regret.

There’s an interesting psychological principle at work here. People, in general, feel better with less clutter. In both children and adults, studies have shown that the fewer choices an individual has when making a decision, the happier they are. Fewer, not none (3-7 is optimal). Too many choices, whether in entertainment or available flavors of jam, tend to paralyze us in indecision rather than liberate us.

Of course, there is also an evolutionary principle pitted against that. Most people can’t let things go because they are convinced that they might want them again in the future and not be able to find them. We are wired not to pass up resources even if we don’t need them at the moment.

For most people, finding the balance can be difficult. I am probably blessed in that, for me, it’s not. I often ask myself, how many pairs of shoes can I wear? How many dress shirts do I need? How many cars can I drive? The list goes on. I find it to be a useful exercise.

Uncluttering our lives meant we could more easily see our goal. We could rule our stuff rather than our stuff ruling us. Simplicity multiplied in having less maintenance to do on existing items, along with less stress over doing it or losing them. And less cleaning. All of which freed up more time to do the things we wanted or thought were important. It also freed up living space. Donating our excess to charity paid dividends for us. It was always an integral part of the process.

Give back in ways large and small and the universe will give back to you. I fundamentally believe that no matter how it strange it sounds. Some of that reflects back to the Three Treasures of Taoism: Charity, Simplicity and Humility.

Some of this philosophy has extended down to my writing career.

Back in the 90s, I frequented a Taoist internet forum. I have been fascinated with the philosophy since college and enjoyed reading insights and interacting with similar people there for years.

Slowly but inevitably, the site became unstable. Christian evangelicals decided to colonize our forum from their sister site, first under the auspices of understanding which quickly transformed into proselytization and finally into open warfare. In case you don’t know many Taoists and Zen Buddhists (who preferred our company to the predominately Theravada Buddhists who frequented their forum), this is a neat trick to pull off. Somehow, we allowed it to happen.

Anyway, sometime after 9/11, the individual who ran the forum shut it down, due to those and other issues. A couple daughter sites sprang up run by former members. I frequented one of those for a little while. There I ended up in a discussion with a woman I didn’t know about creative works and people who were poor.

At the time, the music sharing controversy was still running at full steam. The free economy hadn’t yet transformed into the gig economy in the wake of the Great Recession. The mantra that information wants to be free had just begun to echo, along with all the implications of that on anyone who held a copyright (which were seen in these circles as the stamp of ownership by the corporate beast).

Which was pretty much the direction I saw this conversation headed as it unfolded, which didn’t sit well with me.

I’ve known people who make their living from the sweat of their creativity. Not the big, splashy names that in music had the backing of major labels, but smaller indie names most people had never heard of. People who write their own songs, print and market their own CDs, setup and tear down their own equipment and loaded it into the van they drive to the next gig themselves. People who if they sold a thousand CDs at an appearance were having a really good night. People with mortgages and bills to pay, struggling to keep a fingerhold on the lowest ledge of the middle class. People who earned their money.

The equivalent description applies to the vast majority of writers I’ve met, most of whom will never be Stephen King.

Anyway, I got the sense that this woman was mostly self-rationalizing her own behavior of taking works to enjoy rather than paying the artist their due so they could keep creating (like many others I’ve met). And I said as much.

But still, I listened. Because, as I mentioned in other essays, I’ve known people who lived in poverty. I have more than an inkling of what their lives can be like.

And something in that conversation must have resonated. Because just after I started Noddfa Imaginings, when the Great Recession struck, I decided that I would give back to people by not charging them to read what I created. By then, I easily could have, at least the better stories. Self-publishing was not a difficult process. It still isn’t.

I’ve known the numbers of this business since the beginning. When I left engineering, the average advance on a first science fiction novel was $2-3k. A novel generally takes a year to write. You can do the math. And that was before the publishing industry started into full collapse, though it’s stabilized to some extent since. 

I’ve told people all along that getting published, while a nice indicator of success, wasn’t essential for me. I didn’t need the money. This decision seemed like a natural extension of that principle at the time.

Even as the economy has recovered, I haven’t gone back on it, though I do sometimes reconsider. Perhaps that just means I am still looking for some external validation. Most writers or creative types aren’t in that position. There is a persuasive argument to be made that giving away works for free devalues not just the works but the artists. Though I suspect art endures not for payment but for its own sake. At the same time, it’s nice to be able to eat. The starving artist stereotype is a trope that’s been way overplayed.

Setting up a lifestyle where I could afford to make that decision started with living debt-free by paying off the house. I understood the implications of compound interest, both positive and negative depending on which side of the equation we were on.

I am guessing some of you are wondering how any of this essay relates to the others. That’s easy. There is a point when enough is enough. I don’t need more stuff I’ll never use. Which means I don’t need a bigger house to store it all in, or a bigger car to haul it all around. Which means I don’t need a high paying job to maintain it all.

As well, for me, it was always about remembering the initial goal, not fixating on the process. Our goal was financial independence, living a dream and retiring early so we could do the things we enjoy. Which has never been to have bigger, better or shinier toys than anyone else. It was never about having more. It was never a contest or a race.

As I’ve said, I don’t spend as much time managing our finances as people might think. I could spend a great deal more time min-max each decision and investment for the highest return. I’m not sure what the purpose of that would be. My goal was to be a writer (“Dammit, Jim, I’m a wordsmith, not a hedge fund manager!”). But I do have an affinity for numbers and a certain intuitive predisposition to working them.

One final story. When we made an offer on the house, I already had a handle on the compound interest tables I’ve mentioned. We really wanted the house, but it fell just outside our price range. We knew it had been on the market for a while and had dropped in price once or twice because the housing market had softened. So, I ran some numbers and came up with a strategy.

First, I looked at what the owners had paid for the house five years earlier, which was in the paperwork of the listing. I subtracted off a 10% down payment, which was standard at the time. Knowing roughly what the interest rates were five years before, I calculated what they still owed. I then added in a rough estimate of their selling commissions and fees, and compared that number to what they were asking which was significantly more. I took the difference, subtracted it off of what they needed to break even and said that should be our offer.

Karen was dubious about my strategy. She really, really wanted this house. So did I. But once I explained the numbers and the psychology to her, she agreed to go along. We submitted our offer and gave them 24 hours to reply, knowing full well it would be rejected. But we didn’t want to give them time to think.

I was counting on, and received, a counter-offer, also with a 24-hour ticking clock. What I anticipated was a back and forth that would end somewhere south of the asking price, hopefully near the midpoint. What I got was a final price with a caveat that it was take-or-leave. The number? Within $1000 of the exact number I’d calculated they needed to break even. We didn’t pause when we heard it, just said we’d take it which I think surprised everyone involved.

As I said at near the beginning, knowledge is power. That calculation shaved roughly 12% off the asking price, putting it back on the border of our initial budget. After all these essays, that number should ring a bell. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine how much interest that might have saved had we paid the mortgage to completion. Of course, we took a risk, but that risk rested on solid calculations and psychology. It paid off.

And if it hadn’t? I’m sure we would have found another house, one we’d be just as happy with today.

I know I am fortunate. I have always been goal-oriented. A disciplined mindset is a part of my personality. Because of my engineering background, things like tracking expenses in a backward-looking budget come naturally to me. I was exposed to the people who could explain the power of compound interest and the power of paying down debt. My experience told me to never pass up an opportunity or a discount, at least a real one. Planning and organizing are second nature, as is trying to repair or maintain what I have. Spotting opportunities in the market is mostly intuitive. Letting go of things so that others may benefit from them does not cause me existential pain.

I was doubly-fortunate that I had a spouse who encouraged me and was willing to follow where I led even when our lives became uncertain, knowing all this experience gives us a huge leg up now that she’s retired. We’ve been through all the major decisions and planning sequences before, though not all the variations and subtleties on the theme. And we’ve picked up a few tricks and tips in case things slip sideways.

Hopefully, now, you have, too.

I started this process with a goal. I wanted to become a writer. But my overdeveloped sense of responsibility said I couldn’t just dive into the pond without mapping out the waters. So, I came up with a plan. I crafted a budget and tested it against the way we live. I adapted my mindset. I paid off my debts. I changed my lifestyle, my accustomed manner of living. I invested, not just for my future but for our futures. And with perhaps an equal mixture of skill and luck, it paid long-term dividends, some of which should last for the foreseeable future.

Planning, patience, simplicity and discipline. For us, that’s what financial independence is all about. It’s how I’ve been able to live the dream of writing for over twenty years.

Now, some of you might be thinking that I benefited from all this more than Karen. After all, writing was my dream, not hers. She was the one still working.

A few points to consider. First, this was always a path she encouraged me to take, sometimes quite vigorously before we even had a plan. Second, it was my excess salary, which until quite recently was still higher than hers, that put us in this position. Third, as I said early on, ideally before executing this plan, I would have found another job in engineering elsewhere in the country, likely in the Pacific NW. She didn’t want to leave her job here or move that far. And finally, while we make joint decisions, it is my planning, research and financial stewardship that sees us through each year.

When Karen had the opportunity to retire early last year, she chose not to take it because she still enjoyed her job. Her longstanding dream was to be a geologist studying hurricanes and coastlines with the USGS. Sometime between then and now, that changed. She retired in August after 30 years of Federal service that she likely wouldn’t have reached had I stayed in engineering. The locations of my best jobs and hers didn’t coincide. She got to live her dream, too.

In short, we have both contributed to and benefited from this path. Your mileage may vary.

But the reality is this: Many people with different talents, proclivities and predispositions can do what we’ve done. Some of you already have, perhaps even better. I would never say ours is the only way or even the best way. It is just one way. Many paths, one mountain.

Which brings me full circle to something I said in the very first essay. Part of the reason I wrote this series was to give back, or perhaps to pay my good fortune forward like that folded bill tucked inside my wallet. If anything in these essays helps even one person get a single step closer to their dream or goal, that’s reward enough for me. But all I can do is help and maybe guide through example. The rest is up to you.

The thousand-mile road begins beneath your feet. Godspeed and safe journey.

© 2019 Edward P. Morgan III