I love this breakdown, and it emphasises an important point (that was not mentioned in the post) that living expenses might actually be the highest variation, and often most critical factor in determining how much we might be capable of both giving and saving.
It was a combination of reading about Toby and the further pledge at the same time as reading some behavioural economics and learning about the hedonic treadmill that led me to switch our finances to “pay ourselves a living allowance” at a time when we were on a very low combined income and as our incomes grew so did both our savings and donations. It was because of the lower spend rate more than the savings that I felt able to take the risk of pursuing startups, big pay cuts to work in nonprofit sector, and we both took time off between jobs in 2019. It’s certainly a privilege that not everyone has (e.g. things like living in a country with reasonable basic public healthcare certainly helps), but it’s something that I’ve seen many peers not pursue (no matter how much they earn, just always spend what’s in their account) and then look upon me enviably when I’m pursuing things that give me more meaning.
I love this breakdown, and it emphasises an important point (that was not mentioned in the post) that living expenses might actually be the highest variation, and often most critical factor in determining how much we might be capable of both giving and saving.
Oh yeah, a big one.
It was a combination of reading about Toby and the further pledge at the same time as reading some behavioural economics and learning about the hedonic treadmill that led me to switch our finances to “pay ourselves a living allowance” at a time when we were on a very low combined income and as our incomes grew so did both our savings and donations. It was because of the lower spend rate more than the savings that I felt able to take the risk of pursuing startups, big pay cuts to work in nonprofit sector, and we both took time off between jobs in 2019. It’s certainly a privilege that not everyone has (e.g. things like living in a country with reasonable basic public healthcare certainly helps), but it’s something that I’ve seen many peers not pursue (no matter how much they earn, just always spend what’s in their account) and then look upon me enviably when I’m pursuing things that give me more meaning.