“Parting is such sweet sorrow” is an oft-referenced quote from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In the balcony scene, Juliet says she dreads being apart from her love (sorrow). However, she knows this time away will produce more longing and anticipation and stronger feelings (sweet).
This beautiful Shakespearean line has become part of our vernacular. Bear with me while I take a new twist on Shakespeare with “Parting (With Your Money) is Such Sweet Sorrow.” I can almost hear the collective sigh of English majors clutching their pearls and searching on Amazon for pitchforks and torches.
Sure, losing all your money would be sorrowful, but that is not what I am saying. Instead, I am inviting you to part with the illusion that spending it on things you don’t need will somehow bring you happiness.
I am saying you should pull your hard-earned money out of circulation and put it in the bank. That is the sorrowful part. It’s sorrowful because it means denying yourself. It means having the discipline to go without. It means not buying into what advertisers, influencers and others suggest will somehow improve your life. It means not worrying about what the Joneses have.
The sweet part comes to fruition over time. It comes from missing the money you put away, but all the while knowing it is growing and maturing while your appreciation for it grows that much more. The sweet part comes with the value of long-term compounding. The sweet part comes when you don’t have to lose sleep worrying about whether you can make a needed car or home repair. The sweet part comes when you meet your emergency and midterm savings goals. The sweet part comes from the discipline you show that impacts other aspects of your life. The sweet part is buying your first car, helping to send your children to college, or launching your own small business.
As my colleagues at the bank will attest, I drove a late model Ford Taurus when I started at the bank in 2008, right when the great recession was about to hit. My wife and I watched as real estate values tumbled mightily and we saw our opportunity to pick up multiple pieces of real estate at the bottom of the market. I drove that clean-but-old Taurus over 200,000 miles and my wife and I put ALL our money into real estate. Not spending money was uncomfortable, if not painful, at times. However, it was the single best financial decision I ever made.
If you can deny the immediate and if you have a lot of runway ahead for which to save, compounding interest will be your best friend. This is not investment advice. However, if you were to start with $1,000 and add $1,000 each year, compounding once annually, over 20 years at the S&P’s historic 10% return, you would have nearly $70,000 at the end of that 20 years, even though you only saved $21,000.
Permit me to go back to Shakespeare, if for no other reason than to make me feel good about my not-inexpensive liberal arts college education. Shakespeare also wrote, “If money go before, all ways do lie open.” He is basically saying money makes the world go round. Money can afford you access, influence, freedom, opportunity, and time.
The Notorious BIG had a track entitled “Mo Money Mo Problems” with the last part of the refrain saying, “It’s like the more money we come across the more problems we see.” Yes, having more money can present a unique set of challenges you have not anticipated or that you may not be prepared for. There have always been and there always will be, people and things trying to permanently separate you from your money. While you deny yourself and employ the discipline of saving, spend time to also enrich yourself with knowledge so that you are equipped to make the best and most well-informed decisions.
Resources available online can help you learn about money management. Below is a link to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). At the top of their page, you can select from multiple languages and under “consumer education” you will find a lot of good information on saving. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/start-small-save-up/start-saving/
Finally, Shakespeare was renowned for writing both comedies and tragedies, so don’t let your finances become either! Don’t worry about past mistakes or regrets. Be in the moment and focus on what you can do today to prepare for the future.