Mindset That Helped Us Achieve Financial Independence and Retire Early

We recently shared all our best financial decisions, the ones that helped us get to where we are today. These were big decisions and small decisions but what they all had in common is that they had a lasting impact on our ability to grow our wealth. 

Whether it was graduating debt free or not owning a home or taking responsibility for our own investments instead of using an advisor…all of these decisions had a lasting impact on our financial journey. 

But those good decisions didn’t come out of nowhere. Over the years, we’ve cultivated the mindset — in fact, multiple mindsets — that have helped us make the right financial choices. These mindsets set the foundation for us to achieve financial independence and say goodbye to the corporate world. 

Making unconventional choices

The first mindset that put us in a good position to achieve financial independence was the willingness to make unconventional choices and not follow a script for our lives. When we first entered adulthood, we both saw that there was a certain expected path to follow that included getting married, buying a home, having kids, and settling down. 

Although we have ticked some of these boxes, we’ve also made some unconventional choices that paved the way for the life we have today. For example, Gillian joined the military at the age of 17 and eventually went to Canada’s Royal Military College. A third of the students were women so she felt she was in good company. Where her path differed is that she was the only woman in her year to be trained as an armoured officer. 

This meant spending her summers training to command a troop of tanks. Facing the hot summers in full combat gear and being constantly assessed on her ability to lead troops was the hardest thing Gillian has ever done. And being the only woman had its own set of challenges. But she got through it and ended up among the few women in Canada to finish the training. And learned a lot about perseverance and hard work along the way.   

Another unconventional choice that we made together was to uproot our lives and move to Singapore. We were both mid-career at the time and had no friends or professional contacts in Singapore and had never even heard of anyone who made a similar move. In fact, when we first started discussing  the idea, we could barely find Singapore on a map. However, we knew that Singapore had a dynamic economy and, if we took the risk to relocate there, it could be a really great move for our careers.

These are just a couple examples of how we’ve decided to follow our own path. For us, choosing to retire early is just another unconventional life choice. Not everyone is willing to take the leap and step away at the peak of their careers.

Always DIY first 

The next mindset that has served us very well is the willingness to always try to do it ourselves first. Before deciding to go with a professional service — whether it relates to home maintenance or pet needs or any other service you can think of — we like to really understand what the issue is and see if we can solve it ourselves. This attitude has helped us learn how to groom a dog, clear stubborn drains, landscape a garden and lots more.

A great example of how this attitude has saved us money is when we were entering the EU for the first time with our two dogs and needed to complete a ton of paperwork and tests. Many people would simply go to a pet relocation agent and buy an expensive full-service package. Instead, we dug into the details to figure out exactly what testing and paperwork was needed, saving us a huge amount in the process. Sometimes it makes sense to get a professional to do the job. But sometimes it’s worth it to just do it yourself and learn something new along the way.

Deal hunting

When we do need to use a professional service or for any major purchase, another mindset that has helped us save a lot of money is hunting for the best deal. 

Whenever we need to buy a product or service, we will get multiple quotes every time. And we don’t just mean settling on the top three results in a Google search. We will typically go very deep into Google searches, forums and Facebook groups to come up with at least four or five vendors who are often overlooked but still have good reviews. By being super thorough in our search, we can often save half or more off the price of the vendor that ranks first in Google.

Value versus price 

It’s clear that we are fairly frugal. However we are prepared to spend — and spend big — when it’s really important to us. That’s because we make decisions based on the value something brings to us and not just the price tag attached. 

This is the difference between impulse buying something on sale at the mall — because it’s such a great price — versus buying something because of the value that it brings to our life. 

A recent example relates to our travel gear. When we first started our full-time travels, we more or less set out with the things we had on hand, plus some suitcases that we bought second hand. A couple of broken wheels later, our gear was in serious need of a refresh. 

When we bought our new backpacks and suitcases, we didn’t automatically look for the cheapest options; we looked for the products that were best suited for our needs. Because our gear gets a lot of heavy-duty use, we were comfortable to pay more for quality and a 10-year warranty. This is the mindset of making decisions based on value. It’s helped us be more selective in our purchases and really appreciate the products and experiences that we do choose to buy. 

Goal oriented

I absolutely love setting goals and working towards them and tracking my progress. Tracking my goals and hitting my numbers was always a big part of my professional life. When we decided to aim for financial independence and ramp up our savings, we applied the same discipline in our personal life. 

On our journey to retire early, we set goals for spending, saving and investing. Being really focused on achieving those goals helped ensure that we got there instead of just hoping that it would happen on its own. 

Experimenting 

We’ve also spent a lot of time experimenting to see if we can achieve improvements in how we live. This was something we explored in depth when we were trying to be more frugal during our last couple years in Singapore. 

We were willing to challenge and disrupt our own habits to see if we could do things in a different way that would ultimately be less expensive. The experiments led to small gains that added up to big savings in the long run. Some of the experiments we tried included going without Netflix for a month, not eating in restaurants, going to a cheaper gym, baking our own bread, and switching to the e-library instead of buying books. 

Delaying gratification

Out of all the mindsets on our list, the one that has been the most critical to help us get to financial independence and retire early is delaying gratification. We put a lot of stock in the concept of giving up immediate rewards in favour of a larger, more significant reward later in life. 

In our pursuit of financial independence, we chose to make a few sacrifices, including cutting our spending on things we really did enjoy, like meals out and vacations. But we were comfortable doing so because we felt that the money would be better spent on our future life once we had retired. Knowing that a two-week vacation costs the same as a month or two of slow travel in the future helped make the decisions even easier.