“It’s only money”

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

We’re back in Laguna Beach for the winter; a lease we signed before we bought our Connecticut house. We’ve been walking daily from Main Beach up via Heisler Park through North Laguna, where we’ve always rented before this year. The neighborhood is a mix of very expensive oceanfront houses and beachy multi-unit apartments; some of the latter have been slowly morphing into stylish modern apartment units that were never conceived as homes.  The proliferation of out-of-state license plates underscores the presence of short-term vacation rentals at significantly higher monthly rates than a year-round lease would bring.

And then there are the cars. You could watch the parade of luxury vehicles on Pacific Coast Highway all day long.

Now, this is Southern California, and car culture is a real thing here. The closest Cars and Coffee Saturday meetup is heavy on Porsches, vintage Jaguars, and Aston Martins (there’s a dealership in the same parking lot). If it’s important to someone to drive a $250K vehicle (looking at you, McLaren owner), then that’s their choice. It’s only money, we say.

But money is something very front and center to you (okay, to me) when you retire. And it’s not like we haven’t faced this epiphany before. You’d think, given our respective and combined backgrounds, we’d be old hats at this.

I still recall the first time Chris fell to earth. It was shortly after he retired from butlerhood and he was planning a new driveway for our home in East Hampton. He wanted tarmac with a Belgian block apron and edging the entire length of the drive. And then he did the math and got a shock. Not so much at what it would cost – he was familiar with the relative price through several projects he’d done for past employers– but at the sudden realization that we didn’t have that sort of ready cash for such a project. For some twenty years in households of the wealthy who bought what they want when they wanted it, it had been his job to procure it. So while he assiduously shopped to get the best price, the check he wrote wasn’t his. Now it was. And WE couldn’t write that check, not without some planning, saving, and budgeting.

Lesson learned: No immediate gratification anymore.

It was a lesson that we somewhat forgot a few years later when we bought A Butler’s Manor. We were running a high-end luxury bed and breakfast, ergo the property had to look and feel great all the time. Nothing worn or tired. Shabby chic was not our style. Linens, towels, beds, guest bathrooms: crisp, ultra clean, fresh, comfortable–always. Something that broke (the air conditioner, a toilet seat, a cable box, the internet, a beach chair) needed to be repaired or replaced immediately because we faced the loss of income (and loss of face?) for every day something was out of service.  This resulted in somewhat of a “no budget” world. We still had to consider how to pay for the big things, but if it was in the guest rooms, the common areas, or the garden, it was definitely going to get done sooner rather than later. I realize in hindsight how much this fueled a constant undercurrent of anxiety in me. We had to be perfect. Write the check.

But – crucially – the B&B was our livelihood. So while we never collected a salary, we had the advantage of living in this beautiful place, and we plowed pretty much all of the profits right back into the property. Thus we never were serious about a budget for maintenance, upkeep or upgrades because it wasn’t an option to leave things undone, unrepaired, or undecorated. (Our quarters and backstage areas? Not priority. It took us eight years to bite the bullet on renovating our bedroom to include an ensuite bath and private sitting areas.)

Now that neither we nor our house generate an income, I need to remember that long ago lesson once learned about immediate gratification, which is frustrating — and scary. I realize my fearful reaction is in great part due to the changes that have come about this year as a result of retirement, and that we are still transitioning, mentally and emotionally, to not being breadwinners. I need to reset my mindset around “It’s only money.” because now it’s very definitely about our money.

It has taken us close to a year to get a budget on paper. Partly because we needed the information (what does electricity cost here in the summer? winter?), but mostly because I have resisted being pinned down to numbers, resisted the idea that now we need to evaluate when or whether it’s feasible to make a large purchase such as landscaping or an irrigation system or a new truck or a kitchen remodel, and what that means for the monthly budget of buying much smaller things, like window treatments or shelving.

And, as we sigh at the meticulously restored classic cars with the customized paint jobs and the polished engine blocks, we remind ourselves of the blessings we have, the choices we’ve made, and why owning a Mercedes Benz SL Roadster right now just isn’t one of them.