Something funny happened after I spent $3,000 fixing up my 2015 Range Rover Sport. A 2026 Range Rover Sport in the same black on black with only 905 miles became available. It was the perfect setup, because buying a brand new car is a serious waste of money. When you're the family's financial provider, your goal is to retain and make more money, not incinerate it.
New, the car cost about $98,000 before tax. This one was selling used for $89,000. The previous owner had it for two months, decided he wanted the larger version, traded it in, and took a small bath.
I wanted the car. But I had just spent $3,000 fixing a coolant leak and an inoperable rear right window and door. So I shelved the idea and figured I'd reconsider after returning to Hawaii a month later.
When I got back, the car was still available, but the price had been lowered to $85,000. Now we're talking. Still, I needed to drive my car for at least another week to confirm the coolant was truly no longer leaking before making an informed decision.
A week later, my car ran without a problem. And the car I wanted dropped to $80,000. Oh, the temptation as I struggled between cost, safety, and pleasure. But still, I resisted.
Then a week after that, the price dropped to $75,000. Sweet! It’s go time. Maybe I could walk in with a cashier's check for $68,000 plus taxes and fees and they'd take it on the spot.
At the same time, I was staring down a $1,100 decision on two new 22″ front tires. So I rationalized that if I could haggle the newer car down far enough, it was worth buying, despite the money I had spent two months earlier.
Then It Was Gone
Just as I was about to email the salesperson who let me test drive the car before I left for my trip, I noticed the listing link no longer worked. Noooooo.
I finally had liquidity thanks to newly distributed SpaceX and VCX shares sitting in my brokerage account. I was finally mentally ready to move on and waste a lot of money on a depreciating asset. After 10 years of driving and taking care of my car, my family deserved it.
Alas, the salesperson confirmed it was no longer available. And after a full day of second guessing my second guessing, something unexpected happened.
I felt relieved. No more mental gymnastics balancing safety, reliability, and money.
There was now only one path. Spend $1,100 on two front tires and keep driving the car I already own.
After all these years of disciplined saving and investing for a brighter future, the future made the decision for me to save and invest some more.
Sometimes it's nice when a financial decision is made for you. Almost like being a kid again, when your only responsibility was to play.
Investing During The Downturn
Back in 2022, the S&P 500 declined about 20% after a euphoric +18.4% in 2020 and +28.7% in 2021. The tech-heavy NASDAQ was even more violent, up +42.6% and +20.7% those same two years, then down -33.5% in 2022.
I tried to keep investing in public equities in 2022. But I would be lying if I said it was easy to invest the same percentage I had during the good times. My portfolio was tech heavy and getting beat up. When you're losing lots of money, it's natural to want to clutch whatever cash you have left.
That year, I was offered access to a tier 1 venture capital fund through their friends and family vehicle. I had invested in its 2018 vintage but somehow never got notified about the 2020 vintage, so I said yes.
It felt good to reduce my mental load and let someone else decide when to buy the dip. At the time I was preparing to market my WSJ bestseller, Buy This Not That, while taking care of my 2.5-year-old daughter who was home with us full-time.
So I committed $400,000, with $200,000 to the early stage fund and $200,000 to the growth stage fund. I estimated the VC would call about 30% of the capital the first year, or $120,000, which is more or less what happened.
Now I was tied to the mast. Even if I chickened out on buying the public equity dip, at least $120,000 was going to work. And then perhaps another $120,000 in 2023, and another in 2024.
Taking part of the investing decision out of my hands felt wonderful, and worth the fees.
$100,000+ Swings Before Breakfast
Now compare that to VCX, my public venture capital investment I made in early 2023.
I felt a similar calm when VCX was private and I could dollar-cost average in, quietly building exposure to AI names changing the world. Then it listed on the NYSE three years later, and suddenly I was riding out a lockup like a startup employee whose company just IPO'd. All of the volatility, none of the ability to act.
To decide what to do with my shares once the lockup expired, I spent hours modeling VCX's estimated NAV for 2026, 2027, and 2028. Then I had to calculate the odds of retail mania returning as we edge closer to the IPO of the fund's largest holding, Anthropic.
But who can really accurately forecast an NAV with so many moving parts, let alone retail sentiment? Nobody. But I had to try, given years of living expenses were at stake. Without sweet W-2 income, a FIRE investor can't be too wrong.
The temptation to take profits is high, given my entry point of between $10 and $18.97 a share. But my model says VCX can reach $60+ next year based on current data and expectations. So even though I could sell 3,000 shares and buy my favorite car new after tax, I resist. The potential to provide more financial security for my wife and children is more important.
Sacrifice Is Your Role
Being able to achieve FIRE came from patience, discipline, and taking constant calculated bets. Unless new negative data emerges, I will not sell a single share under $60. And if VCX gets to $60, I will crunch the numbers again before deciding what to do. And so I endure $100,000+ daily swings in one position alone, which quietly grinds away at me.
In the meantime, I distract myself with more writing and pickleball, instead of hoping for more selling so I can buy more. Then it’s Daddy Day Camp every day before the kids start school again. Because providing just money to my family is unsatisfying.
The goal is to push those swings into the background so I can focus on the day-to-day moments. Easier said than done. As the manager of our household finances, I never get to forget. Too much is at stake.
When Your Net Worth Becomes Your Self-Worth
Here's the part nobody warns you about when you become the family's provider and de facto investment manager. Your sense of self gets welded to a number you don't entirely control.
When income is up and the portfolio is compounding, you feel like a good husband and a good father. When there's a drawdown, or you hold something you should have sold, or you sell something that then triples, you don't just lose money. You feel like you failed the people counting on you.
Nobody in the house says that, partly because they have no idea what's happening with the investments behind the scenes. But you do. There's no whistle at the end of the shift and nobody hands you a review saying you did fine. The market publishes a number every day and you decide what it says about you as a person.
Separating your self-worth from how much you provide is an ongoing challenge.
Don't Take Your Financial Provider For Granted
After 13 years of grinding in finance, I had forgotten what living pain-free felt like. I only remembered what it was like to wake up feeling normal about three months after I engineered my layoff.
Missing out on that car reminded me how nice it is to have a financial decision taken out of my hands. Because for the 11 years since my wife left her day job as well, I've been the primary one navigating the financial waters, making sure we don't sink. And when the storms come, and new lives arrive to protect and feed, that weight can feel immense.
Is there any wonder why so many men and women are opting out of marriage and parenthood altogether? It's hard enough to build financial security for yourself without The Bank of Mom & Dad nowadays. Add children and the pressure to provide climbs to a level that's hard to explain until you're in it.
I don't blame any man for wanting to be a stay at home boyfriend or a stay at home husband. Who the heck doesn't want to be provided for.
I realized back in 1999, when I graduated college, that there was nobody I could depend on for financial security. My parents were already thinking about retiring from their modest-paying government jobs. So the only solution was to generate enough passive income to break free one day.
If you have a partner who is the main or sole financial provider, please do not take them for granted. They are likely carrying more stress than you're aware of, and possibly more than they're aware of themselves.
As the household finances hopefully grows, the stress often grows with it, because more is at stake.
Close The Loops You Can
The money is one thing, but the open loops are a constant strain. Every unresolved decision, every position you haven't trimmed, every year of tuition you haven't funded stays open in the background, quietly burning energy your family only experiences as you being a little distant at dinner.
So build decisions that close by themselves.
Automatic investing every month. A written target asset allocation. A capital call schedule from a fund that doesn't care about you mood. A target price to buy or sell to help reduce emotion from your decision. Assign a reason for your investments. The point of a rule isn't precision. The point is to stop having the same argument with yourself every morning.
And if you're not the financial provider in your household, the ask is simple. Ask them what they're worried about. Not the balance. The worry. Then tell them you appreciate what they carry, and that you could happily downsize to a cheap and tiny house if things ever go sour. They might finally open up, and feel lighter for it. You might even save their life.
Meanwhile, I'm still driving the same 2015 SUV, soon to have two fresh front tires. But if that black on black 2026 model comes back at $65,000, my provider brain and I are going to have words.
Reader Questions
If you're the primary provider or the one managing your family's investments, how do you disconnect your sense of self-worth to the rise and fall of your household's net worth? Has anyone in your household ever asked you what you're worried about?
What financial decisions have you deliberately taken out of your own hands, and did outsourcing them actually reduce your stress or just move it somewhere else?
Have you ever felt relieved to miss out on a big purchase you thought you wanted?
And for those of you who aren't the provider, how do you support the person carrying the load?
Get A Free Financial Checkup
If you have over $100,000 in investable assets, take a moment to get a free financial checkup with Empower. Half the burden I described in this post comes from not knowing whether the plan actually holds together. The other half comes from knowing, but never saying it out loud to anybody.
A checkup solves for both. You get a second set of eyes on your asset allocation, your fees, and your retirement projections, from someone who isn't emotionally attached to the positions you picked. I've run my own numbers through Empower's free dashboard for years to track my net worth, x-ray my portfolio for hidden fees, and stress test my retirement plan against different return assumptions.
There is no cost or obligation to speak with a financial professional. Just don't be surprised if they find a 401(k) fund quietly charging you 0.75% a year for the privilege of underperforming the index.
Empower is a Financial Samurai affiliate partner. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Sam I really enjoy your articles and takes on finance. However, I cannot understand why you would want to buy another Range Rover after what you have gone through and still going through with your current car. You complain of the cost to repair and the headache of the mystery issue yet you are here wanting another one? Maybe I should just skip all the car articles because you can’t have it both ways where you complain about the cost and headaches but want to buy the same exact model again.
Don’t think I’m complaining. But feel free to point out where I am. I believe everyone is rational and will take action instead of only complain.
I just stated the fact about the $3,000 repair and how I then had to weigh buying a new used one at an attractive price when an opportunity arose. So there’s some mental gymnastics involved. And in the end, I felt relief to just continue driving what I fixed.
Definitely skip my car articles if they are too much for you. I understand these topics can be triggering to some.
Perhaps you can share how you deal with the burden of being the financial provider in your family if you have one? thanks
Yep, a Grand Highlander hybrid would be the better choice versus another RR.
I’m sitting on my own little nest of VCX, and you’ve convinced me not to consider selling until at least 60$.
What is your NAV estimate? It’s important to crunch your own numbers too.
I don’t have the training or knowledge to provide a credible estimate. My background is in psychology, not tech or finance.
But at this point, in my experience working with high school students, they can barely make a decision or do a math problem without checking it with an LLM.
The bit about there being no whistle at the end of the shift landed. We run a job board for traveling trades workers, and the providers on our side have the opposite version of it. The whistle blows at 4:30 and they are 800 miles from their kids, and that distance is the price of the paycheck. What closes the loop for them is not a market call, it is one number: what an offer is really worth after the per diem, the drive and the weeks away from home. Once a guy can actually see that number, the decision stops being the argument he has with himself every morning. Different income bracket, same job you are describing, being the one who never gets to forget.
I can identify with this post as I am the family CFO / CIO. I think you are WAY overcomplicating this. What is wrong with merely investing in VTI / VXUS and chill? My returns have been 12%+ for doing nothing but DCA into them every month. Going on 20+ years (mutual fund shares before ETFs) it has worked. I realize you write a blog and invest in two ETFs and be done isn’t nearly as exciting but talk about mental load lifted! Zero mental effort into investing allocations, decision, valuations, PEs or any of that noise. I focus on tax planning and asset location. All else is supplemental but would not create very interesting content!
It’s the simple desire to outperform. I invest a healthy amount in the S&P 500 too. It’s a great place to park your money and perform with the majority.
But I like to take more risks with a portion or my money every year to try and outperform. I’ve been doing so since 1999 and it helped accelerate my path to FIRE in 2012.
Coming from the investing world, I also have an innate curiosity for investing.
Where are you on your Financial independence journey? And given this post is about the pressure to be a provider, what is your household situation and is your partner not working a w-2 job as well? Thx
See: Never Stop Fortune Hunting
You are spot on. Being the one in charge of finances is stressful if the other person is a spender. I am working and my spouse is now medically retired and handles some of the softer stuff dealing with other family members. I fret about making things go. It is a lot to carry when you have to make the inflow/outflow work and other parties don’t care to know all three sides of the equation: inflow, outflow, and investments (both the choices involved and matching it with the time element for all three facets).One thing I have found helpful is requiring practically all spending (sans mortgage, taxes, insurance, and utilities) to be run via credit card. When the bill comes in, you can tell right away if the month was a loss or not.
I was the primary earner and have been the money manager for my husband and I since I sold a business and retired at 42 in 2000. Our net worth has grown substantially since then and we have more than enough for our lifetimes, but I still feel guilty when I spend. I also manage my mother’s finances and my father’s testamentary trust. I do feel stress when the market dips but try to take it in stride. I remind my adult children that if I spend it all traveling or the market tanks I will be reminding them that I paid for their college and helped with house purchases!
Thanks for bringing this topic to light. I now appreciate more the feeling, as my wife stepped away from her corporate career 2 years ago. Prior to that, we were dual income for decades. Since then, she focuses on charity, health, community, and family…it’s great. Our net worth is about $7.8M ($6.8M in investments, $1M in house/cars/etc), no debt. My income is ~7 figures and we live on $250-300k/year for the last several years. While my job is ok, the travel and stress are significant. I’m eager to get out and repurpose, though also feel the 1 more year syndrome, as well as the pressure to ensure our 3 kids have all the support they need to succeed, as well as ensuring we can continue as charitable contributors to causes that are important to us.
It’s a privilege to be in this position, and it’s also true that the stress is real. There are levers we can pull any time (she goes back to work, either/both take part time jobs locally, scale back spending and/or giving, etc). The challenge is that everyone is living a great life and as the provider, my role is to keep it rolling and avoid those levers needing pulled.
Here’s to continued prosperity, and one day not saying “1 more year!”
You dodged a bullet. I recently refreshed my 7-year old Audi by having a shop fix the curb rash on my wheels and then powder coat them in black for $700.. After getting it detailed, I feel like I have a brand new car. Time to keep rolling another 4-5 years at the sweet spot of the depreciation curve.
I love to hear that you felt relieved that car was sold, what a blessing! That’s your true decision right there. This reminds me of a story I recently heard about a student who was rejected from a high school his parents really wanted him to attend. The boy started crying when he got the news. His parents thought he was sad and upset, but he was actually shedding tears of RELIEF and joy that he didn’t get in. He knew in his heart that he didn’t want to go there and luckily the decision was made for him that he wouldn’t have to go there.
I’m not the main earner in my household (not that I’m a slouch), but I am the primary person in charge of finances. The stress has increased a little as our net worth has accumulated over the years. I feel that the household spend creates a lot more financial stress. Even though we have plenty coming in, a lot is going out. Not that we are anywhere even close to financial insecurity, though it just never seems like we are stacking away as much as we should.
The thought of continuing to support our children and the household by working for at least another decade does weigh heavy on us. Unfortunately, we don’t really have much of a choice, but to stay the course. I try to enjoy the things we have since we are very fortunate.
If I’m being honest, what I really want to have is FU money. Enough to leave the workforce and be set for life. Anything that sets me back from that goal is also stressful and is probably the reason I’m driving a 9 year old car.
Side note: I sold 1/3 of my VCX shares. gonna use the proceeds to pay down student loans, sock some away for college funds and reinvest the rest. Isn’t that just so much fun!
How old are you now and how much is FU money for your family?
Perhaps the better strategy is to encourage your spouse to find a new job or work harder. I’ve seen many husbands I play tennis and pickleball with successfully convince their wives to keep grinding in their 40s+. It is impressive.
I’m 43 and I think my FU money number is about $5 million (excluding my house). I would be able to stop working and my wife could stop too if she wanted.
I think that if I suggested she work harder, I would be served some divorce papers!! My wife is a physician and is already maxed out in terms of the hours she is putting in.
To hear about your friends that convinced their wives to keep working, while they go mess around playing tennis is impressive indeed! Sounds like some sort of hypnosis or Jedi mind trick.
Nice! One of my friends hasn’t worked in 15 years now and he’s 52. Well, he coaches pickleball on the side.
His wife is an anesthesiologist, so he’s living the good life!
It’s actually easy to convince doctors to just work forever given all you have to remind them about their number of years of schooling as well as their oath to take care of humanity.
You’ve hit the jackpot. Time to enjoy it to the Max!