There are many elements to creating your perfect lifestyle, from the home you live in, the holidays you take, the business/career you have, the car you drive and the clothes you wear. We live in an Instagram world where we are consistently bombarded with images of the perfect ‘lifestyle’ with amazing homes, luxury hotels and beautiful people in beautiful locations living their ‘best’ life.
But if you cut through the bullshit what does lifestyle ultimately boil down to. For me, it is creating a life that I want to live and prioritising doing what is important to me. Yes, there are the luxuries I want such as the nice or the dream house, but for me it’s something more intangible which I think boils down to living a life I am glad to have lived.
In my role as a financial planner I have many conversations with people about their lifestyle - some who believe they gave a simple lifestyle, others a more extravagant one. The thing with lifestyle is that it is relative. Your simple lifestyle might be extravagant to some and vice versa. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It isn’t about what other people are doing or how they are living your life. It is about how you want to live yours.
A dream lifestyle is not dependant on how much money you earn. It is dependant on understanding what you want out of life. I am sure we would all enjoy travelling first class and having a super yacht, but not having it doesn’t mean we can’t build a great life.
So, you need to think about what a dream lifestyle means to you. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about what I want out of life and the experiences I want to have. My life plan underpinned by my financial plan is focused on achieving this.
I am no where near living my ideal lifestyle but my advantage is I know what it is. The key to creating your dream lifestyle is to understand what it is, then you can go about taking the actions necessary to create it.
I thought it may be useful to share my dream lifestyle and the different elements to this. These are personal to me but I am sure many can relate.
The big one, of course, is my family. The lifestyle choice I made was deciding to run my own business so I can be around more while my children are younger (and while they still like me). Therefore, a job that involved travelling was a no-no. Even commuting an hour each way was not what I wanted.
I am blessed that we live in a nice house, in a great location near Stockton on Heath or Costa del Heath as it is sometimes called. The kids go to a great school and have great friends. I am near my sister and my parents. Again, I am lucky to have a close family and to be able to spend time with them.
My ultimate purpose when it comes to my plans is to create great experiences for my family, whether that is expensive trips to Disney or visiting Scarborough which the kids go equally crazy for.
My family is at the heart of the lifestyle I want.
Spending time with nice people is another priority. I feel very fortunate to have a small number of really close friends from school and university. We are also creating a close circle of friends where we live, with kids of a similar age who enjoy spending time together.
Beyond my close circle and the fact that I play a lot of sports means I get to spend time with different people. Because I am a social creature this is something I really thrive on. A key driver is spending time with people i like. Simple but important.
The primary purpose of setting up my own business was to be able to create the lifestyle I want. I am sadly not at the stage of being able to work six or nine months of the year - my ultimate goal. Yet I don’t have to commute or travel away. I can be there to pick the kids up from school, have dinner with them and put them to bed.
Financially, I would be better off working for someone else. However, this is a long-term decision and I am prepared to build my business slowly to give me the lifestyle I want now, but also in the future. I am a firm believer that no one lies on their death bed wishing they worked harder.
I also wanted a career that works with people and the best part of my job is helping people live their version of a great life. It is meaningful work that has a positive impact and that I can be well paid for. A win-win.
A big area of my lifestyle - I have always been into sport, especially team ones. I get to play footy twice a week and cricket on a Saturday (yes, I do have a very kind partner). I play golf often with friends and run regularly. I enjoy doing it for the pleasure involved and it helps keep me in reasonable shape. An active lifestyle is a must for me from a health and wellbeing perspective. A personal goal would be for me to be able to afford a personal trainer.
I have a couple of dogs and now a cat. I have always loved animals and never had a dog when I was younger. My wife is an animal lover so our lifestyle is dictated partly by the fact we wanted dogs. We can’t go away for the weekend at a moments notice, but we love our pets and they are an important part of our lives.
I also wish to use my business to help support rescue dogs, which is why I donate 3% of turnover to Dogs 4 Rescue.
With having set up a business and a global pandemic there has been a lack of holidays abroad recently. We love to go to Calpe in Spain and have been lucky enough to go to Florida many times. Being able to go on ‘nice’ holidays regularly in the future is a key tenant of the lifestyle I want. There is quite the wish list of places to visit, South Africa and Canada being high on the list. Regarding traveling, I have been to several countries but never really travelled per se. It is not a massive driver of my lifestyle currently but I do want to go on holiday to lots of countries. Maybe when the kids are older or have left this is something that we will focus on. My wife is the wannabe traveller so something we need to balance in our future.
My wife is Japanese so we want to be able to visit Japan regularly and for our kids to experience the culture which is part of them. We also want them to be able to spend occasional summers there, learn the and feel like it’s a second home. There is a possibility that we may take a sabbatical there for six to twelve months when the kids are older.
Now we are getting into the nice to haves. A bigger house would be an ideal in the next few years. Nothing too extravagant but a four to five bedroom ideally with a cinema room! I am not massively turned on by cars, but a new Skoda electric would be nice and my wife is eyeing up a convertible.
An upgrade of the wardrobe would probably be beneficial and we have made a financial decision to only buy quality items from not on, whether that is clothing or other goods. Beyond that, I wouldn’t say that a life of luxury is a massive driver for me. Business-class flights would be a bonus but beyond that, I am struggling to think of any luxuries that I really need.
One for the bucket list is owning our own apartment in Calpe though.
I wouldn’t class my desired lifestyle as extravagant but once I start totting up the holidays, the dream home, the apartment in Calpe - it all adds up. I also want to be able to make work optimal around 60 so I have to factor this in, and that money will need to be put aside for this. I estimate that my dream lifestyle it will cost around £150,000 a year (including the mortgages). Okay, it feels extravagant when I put it like that. On top of this, I want to build my investments and pensions so I need extra money for that.
Knowing the lifestyle I want allows me to understand the financial milestones I need to hit to create the life above.
When it comes to creating my dream lifestyle I think of it as an upgrade on the life I am living now. The fundamentals are all there from work-life balance, spending time with family and friends, playing sport, living in a nice house and having nice holidays. As my business grows and my earnings increase, I can start to enhance all these elements of my life. The fundamentals will not change although the specific goals might. The focus isn’t on the money. It is on what the money enables me to do in creating the lifestyle I want.
The lifestyle you create should be one aligned with your core values but in order to be able to create this, you need to know what it looks like.
The first step, as ever, is to ask yourself what you really want.
