Fulfillment Costs Less Than You May Think – Everyday Fulfillment
No Vacation Required
Early in our relationship, we decided to live on one income and save the other.
The goal wasn’t early retirement. It wasn’t financial independence. We weren’t trying to optimize our lives or hack our way to wealth. We simply knew that someday we wanted to build something together, and having a little money set aside would give us options.
What we didn’t realize was how much that decision would change the way we thought about money.
Living on one income forced us to pay attention. We started questioning purchases that had previously felt automatic. We became more intentional about what we spent money on and, more importantly, what we didn’t.
And something surprising happened.
We discovered that many of the things we assumed would make us happy didn’t matter nearly as much as we thought they would. At the same time, many of the things that brought us the greatest sense of fulfillment had very little to do with money at all.
That experience planted a seed that has shaped much of our life since.
In this final episode of our fulfillment series, we’re talking about money. Because money touches everything. Our careers. Our choices. Our sense of possibility. The stories we tell ourselves about success. The futures we imagine for ourselves.
And yet one of the most important questions often goes unasked: How much is enough for the life you actually want?
Onward and Inward,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓How does money affect your personal fulfillment? While money is necessary to live, the relentless pursuit of it often stands in the way of true fulfillment. Many people fall into the trap of believing they need to be wealthy to be happy, only to realize that their spending habits are driven by societal expectations rather than their own genuine desires.
❓What does it mean to be "freedom rich"? Being "freedom rich" means prioritizing control over your time rather than the accumulation of wealth. It involves flipping the traditional script – figuring out how little money you actually need in order to live the life you want, rather than working endlessly to afford a lifestyle you don't have time to enjoy.
❓How can living on one income improve your life? Choosing to live on one income (when two are available) can act as a powerful constraint that forces you to scrutinize your spending. This practice often reveals that much of our spending is done simply because the money is there, and that scaling back does not actually decrease happiness.
❓Why do we spend money on things we don't need? Much of our spending is tied to the "dream of the planet" and the desire to prove our success to others. People often spend money to keep up with friends or to maintain a certain image, rather than on things that genuinely bring them joy.
❓What brings the most joy in a fulfilled life? The greatest joy often comes from "tiny connected moments" that cost little to no money at all. Being present, regulated, and connected with yourself, a loved one, or a special place is far more valuable than any grand adventure or expensive purchase.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Mind Share: The richest man in the world and the meaning of wealth
(01:30) The early decision that changed how we think about money
(04:03) Why this fulfillment series ends with finances
(06:07) Living on one income and questioning assumptions
(07:23) The problem with tying success directly to money
(10:47) What we think is necessary vs. what actually is
(11:45) How spending less unexpectedly increased happiness
(14:00) Becoming “freedom rich”
(15:35) Flipping the script on money and time
(16:33) Priorities, tradeoffs, and intentional spending
(17:40) Why fulfillment makes financial decisions easier
(18:48) The social pressure of choosing a different path
(20:00) Mailbag: What really matters?
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TRANSCRIPT
Kent (00:00)
What's on your mind this week, Caanan?
Caanan (00:01)
Okay, so I'm sure everybody's heard about the SpaceX IPO and Elon Musk becoming the world's first trillionaire. Actually I think now he's like a double trillionaire. I can't even keep up. But I was thinking you know, one of those things that shows up for you and then lives kind of rent-free in your brain.
Kent (00:23)
Yes.
Caanan (00:24)
Joyce Carroll Oates, the author.
Caanan (00:27)
Did this tweet, and I actually pulled it up so I can read it here, about Elon Musk, and I cannot stop thinking about it. Share. Yeah, so she said, so curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates. Scenes from nature, pet a dog or a cat, praise a movie, music, a book, pride in a friend or relative's accomplishments.
Caanan (00:55)
She goes on and on. In fact, he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty and meaning in life than the quote most wealthy person in the world, unquote. And I can't stop thinking about it because it's so true. Here is the richest man in the history of the world, and he's just seems like the most miserable person.
Caanan (01:30)
So long before we created No Vacation Required or even had the idea of living a no vacation required life or what we now call no vacation required life, we knew very early on in our relationship that we wanted to do something together. That that
Kent (01:47)
Yes.
Caanan (01:49)
came up very early. Yeah. And so we had an understanding that in order to do that much later in life.
Caanan (01:57)
as we thought at the time, that we would need to have a little nest egg.
Kent (02:03)
Yep.
Caanan (02:03)
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it was very early in our relationship when we decided and realized that we could live off of just one of our incomes and that we would challenge ourselves to not let our lifestyle get out of hand, that we would put in this constraint
Caanan (02:25)
Yeah. By s we'd save one of our incomes, we'd live off of one of our incomes, and we would just keep our lifestyle in check. Yep. In that way.
Kent (02:33)
Yeah, because I remember before we started ideating ⁓ in kind of the NVR version, ⁓ what we ended up doing, ⁓ you know, consulting to see the world and all this stuff. We had all sorts of ideas. Yeah. and we've talked about this before on the podcast. But yeah, I love that you brought this up for this week, especially. We stuck to this idea of living on one of our incomes as being a good way ⁓
Kent (02:59)
to keep things in check because we knew okay, we're not gonna be doing those things right that multiply money. Yes. That other things do. So I think the point here is we need to start looking at money differently.
Kent (03:17)
In everything we've done, in our personal lives and as sought after business and career development consultants, we've learned one consistent thing. Most people just don't know themselves. NoVacationRequired.com is where we talk about how you too can build a life that you don't need a break from and how it all starts with knowing yourself. There you'll find all of our podcast episodes, information on services, and the scoop on us. And to really raise the bar, we model this as a couple.
Kent (03:46)
To show that a relationship doesn't have to be a compromise or a counterproductive union. When two people are each doing their own work, the heightened connection becomes a shortcut to building a no vacation required life.
Kent (04:01)
I'm so bummed that this four pack of episodes on fulfillment is coming to an end because this is one of my favorite things to talk about. We've described it, I think, in each of the last three episodes, as baseline information, and that's because just to get you up to speed quickly, we're doing this whole new season.
Kent (04:25)
where we're really centering things in our stories and what we've learned more than anything else ⁓ from ⁓ our own life and from our decades working with other people. we're saying a lot lately ⁓ One consistent thing has popped up that people don't know themselves. ⁓ And ⁓ a sense of fulfillment ⁓ is ⁓ a thing that's just been lacking
Kent (04:52)
From so many, but almost everybody we've worked with. They don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They don't know how they make decisions. All these things as we talk a lot about that track right back to, you know, knowing who you are, but talking about fulfillment. And in the first episode of this pack, we talked about the power of the dream of the planet and how that can just keep you outside of yourself. And the second episode, the power of
Kent (05:22)
everybody else's opinion on what you should be doing and the pressure you feel. In the last episode we talked about the accepted overriding idea of success that so many people find themselves falling... following ⁓ and doing ⁓ despite not even wanting a lot of the things that that model of success promises. And then this week we've been so excited to talk
Kent (05:53)
about money. And I love that you told that story, that you wanted to tell that story where early on we knew, okay, if we want to do something on our own together and this is when we were thinking, you know, as a retirement play.
Caanan (06:08)
Yeah. These were much more basic dreams than we would ultimately have. But they still we had a little vision for our life. It was kind of mundane, but we knew that we would need a little nut to make that happen at some point in the distant future.
Kent (06:25)
We knew that we would need money, so we wrapped our minds around money differently. And I think as you said, when we decided to live on one income, it really forced us to of course look at our spending. You know, we were both kinda budgeters in a way, so to speak, but it really it caused us to scrutinize how we spend. And since then, we've realized
Kent (06:54)
This idea of money is something else that keeps people away from ⁓ being fulfilled because they're so focused on money, which is a huge part of people's idea ⁓ of success ⁓ that they can't imagine doing something differently ⁓ because ⁓ the money they have ⁓ barely
Kent (07:21)
makes them whole. Yeah. Remember the story I was telling you, I think it was just last week, I read an article about all of these people, feeling trapped in different places around the United States with inflation and food has gotten so expensive and all these things, talking specifically about food, what was it that one person spent
Kent (07:41)
a hundred and twenty dollars on food a day and it was a realistic model among all these people profiled. They were not exclusively eating out at all.
Caanan (07:55)
Yeah, the hundred something dollars was like a
Kent (08:01)
They had in twenty one, I think.
Caanan (08:02)
Hundred and twenty one they were achieving that by putting in some stops and being mindful about their spending.
Kent (08:11)
Yeah.
Caanan (08:12)
They that was that was considered an achievement. Yeah.
Kent (08:17)
So
Kent (08:20)
Money is a huge part of our ability, one's ability to look at fulfillment, look at life, look at dreams and success in the way that you want to. but like so many people, I think these people profiled, and so many of our clients have this idea of success.
Kent (08:45)
Which is why we did success last week and we're doing finances this week, that is so inextricably linked to money. They go hand in hand. Yeah. Of course it's so late stage capitalism, like yeah. It's so obvious, but money gets you the things that create a good life.
Kent (09:09)
and I know we talked about doing the success episode and the money episode as a combo pack because they're so ⁓ they're so tied together. And then we realized, well, really, all these four topics, ⁓ the dream of the planet, the dream of your loved ones, success, money, it's ⁓ all wrapped together. ⁓ And ⁓ money is the thing that's seen ⁓ as ⁓ fueling
Kent (09:37)
All of these other notions. And in fact, it is. You need money at the core of the dream of the planet. Or the you know, the better the job, the more traditionally successful you are, the better the job, the more braggy your family can be, the better the job, just the more inherently successful you are in terms of everybody's expectations. So
Kent (10:06)
People are so focused on the money, If they have it, I'm miserable, but the money's good. And if they don't have it, I've just gotta do something to make more money. Yeah.
Caanan (10:18)
And it's ⁓ it's very sad to me because, you'll never hear us say that a no vacation required lifestyle doesn't require money. we're not trying to communicate that yeah in any way. And, you know, that ⁓ that can happen at times. You hear these ⁓ lifestyle influencers or whatever, and they kinda make it sound like
Caanan (10:42)
you can live off the grid ⁓ without money and ⁓ and make it in the world. And that's not the case. You do ha you have to have some money to live. ⁓ But the problem is like success, like the dream of the planet, what we've come to believe is ⁓ necessary ⁓ is so far outside the reality of what is actually necessary
Caanan (11:09)
To live. And in fact, ⁓ it's gotten so ⁓ fetishized and freakish ⁓ that to your point, the money is now ⁓ solidly standing in the way of people achieving fulfillment. So I'm just trying to say you need money to live in the world today. Yeah. What you think you need ⁓ is probably keeping you ⁓ from being fulfilled
Caanan (11:38)
in the world today.
Kent (11:40)
Yeah, that's why want to wrap back to that beautiful story you started with. ⁓ Why we decided to live on one income, what happened when we decided to live on one income? ⁓ When you really start looking and you take more pride ⁓ in, ⁓ my God, we're living on one income. ⁓ More pride in that than what other people think ⁓ of your life, ⁓ it is powerful because ⁓
Kent (12:09)
We ⁓ even at that younger age when we did not have a no vacation required life ⁓ in our site, ⁓ we started to realize ⁓ wow, ⁓ our degree of happiness ⁓ has not declined ⁓ at all. In fact, ⁓ it it improved instantly ⁓ when you, ⁓ much as we've said in the other episodes, are actually in touch
Kent (12:38)
with what you want to be striving for and doing, and in this case, ⁓ spending your money on, ⁓ when you're in touch with that ⁓ and living it, ⁓ there is no greater satisfaction. And you quickly start to realize, ⁓ as we did
Kent (12:56)
Back then, like, we were just kind of spending money because we had it. And we were spending money to do stuff because our friends were doing it, or we were doing it with them. But to actually treat your money as part of this holistic equation, yeah, of building a life you don't need a break from, as we say, building a life you don't need to break from. We kind of talk about that,
Kent (13:24)
equivalent to fulfillment, you realize like wow, I was looking at money in some warped ways that had nothing to do with how I really want to be spending money and how I want to live and have everything to do with doing things that show what I can do or prove with my money.
Caanan (13:47)
Thanks for listening. We'd be honored if you'd subscribe, like, and share. It means the world to us.
Caanan (13:57)
So as you were talking, Kent, I wrote down something that we used to say a lot, a term we used to say a lot, and we don't so much anymore, but it's perfect for this episode. And the term is freedom rich. we recognized very early on, and I don't know, we need to really, you and I need to talk about this more because I don't know how we had the foresight for this, given the culture in which
Caanan (14:25)
We were both raised. but we knew somehow that controlling our time was going to be the most important thing to us. That we never wanted to be under somebody else's thumb. And I think a lot of you out there listening can recognize that in yourself. Maybe you haven't thought of it in terms of controlling your time, but you do think, God, I wish
Caanan (14:52)
I could do whatever on a Tuesday. I wish I could go hiking today. I wish I didn't have these specific kinds of obligations. you and I Kent knew that we wanted full control of our time. And
Caanan (15:07)
We set out to make that happen. That that was the genesis of our no vacation required life. Yes. But I wrote down Freedom Rich because in this culture, everybody's talking about how much money they need. No, let me rephrase this. The equation is backwards. Everybody's thinking I need to make a lot of money so that I can ultimately control my time. That's it. That's it. So that I can be
Caanan (15:37)
I need to be rich so that I can have freedom.
Kent (15:39)
Yes,
Kent (15:39)
then I'll make decisions on what that means.
Caanan (15:41)
Exactly. Yeah. And that that never pans out.
Kent (15:45)
Make the decisions, you just keep focusing on this blind idea of success and this blind idea of a lot of money.
Caanan (15:50)
Yes. And you and I flipped the script. Here's the thing they don't want you to know.
Kent (15:58)
Yeah.
Caanan (15:59)
That we said we want to be free. how little money do we need in order to achieve that? And the answer is far, far, far, far less than we would have ever assumed had we not flipped the script.
Kent (16:18)
Yeah.
Caanan (16:19)
So you and I are very comfortably financially, but we are freedom rich. We are billionaires when it comes to controlling our time.
Kent (16:29)
Yeah, and I just think of priorities, and I kind of want to end on priorities, because that's ⁓ so huge in this ⁓ segment of our fulfillment sequence when we're talking about money. ⁓ It comes down to priorities. ⁓ And as we did, and you need to find your own, you know, device or whatever, our deciding to live ⁓ on one income. We had to make those decisions. We had to prioritize.
Kent (16:58)
And at that point, as Caanan was saying, because we had an idea in mind, freedom of time, more time together, building to do something together, that became far more ⁓ motivating. So when I speak of priorities, I think of things ⁓ like clothes. We both used to enjoy, you know, ⁓ living the
Kent (17:24)
fashion lifestyle that's so common. Caanan that's something that you really spearheaded when we started thinking, you know what, we're gonna do our own thing. We're gonna live on one income. ⁓
Kent (17:34)
All this stuff that then eventually led to no vacation required. One of your big things was I'm over it. I'm I'm tired of constantly buying clothes. Because I know for you, and then it rubbed off on me, it started to seem so silly. And I think this is what we've been trying to impress upon people this entire episode is when you do have that higher vision and you know yourself and
Kent (18:00)
you know that what you're chasing is actually aligned with you ⁓ and not some random dream that everybody else is pursuing, ⁓ then priorities fall into place much more easily. And you can see those things eating out ⁓ food. Yeah. ⁓ Whatever your personal big ticket items are. Like, okay, is this worth more than ⁓ this goal ⁓
Kent (18:28)
I'm striving for. As Caanan said, how much money do I really need ⁓ for the life I want? ⁓
Caanan (18:36)
Yeah. And that back to something we've talked about in these previous episodes of this fulfillment suite of episodes, that gets difficult. It requires you to be really centered on what you want and really in touch with who you are and what matters to you because the clothes thing is a perfect example. We're gay men living in the world.
Caanan (19:03)
We're expected to look a certain way and perform a certain way. Right. And and we decided to not do that. And we had to take to a certain degree the social hit that comes with that and l you know, sort of stand in our truth and say, That thing doesn't matter to me. And so I'm not going to perform in that way.
Kent (19:26)
You're gonna be seeing a lot of this banana republic polo shirt. Exactly.
Caanan (19:32)
You know, at some
Caanan (19:33)
point I'm probably gonna look like I'm in a cult because I'm wearing the same thing over and over and over. And you know what? I don't care because I'm freedom rich and I'm going hiking today on a Thursday and you're going to the office.
Kent (19:52)
Mailbag. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. this week, full disclosure, it's not really a mailbag because it's something that happened face to face. some friends of ours getting married. This sounds so corny because it didn't come out quite so corny, but we're kind of asking like, what really matters? and it struck me because I think about this all the time.
Kent (20:18)
We're often talking about our grand adventures. Awe, for instance, is so important to us. Thus, the seeing the world, the giving back, the being in nature, all of that stuff. And I always think, boy, I don't want people to get confused because what really matters is truly the tiny
Kent (20:45)
moments. Yeah. We call them the tiny connected moments. and I always want people to know because especially as it relates to money, which which this episode is about, I wouldn't trade being mindful, present regulated for the tiny little moments for
Kent (21:12)
anything so truly
Kent (21:17)
In our experience, and in the experience of so many people we've worked with, the biggest joy comes from things that don't cost much money or possibly no money at all. They're just calm, regulated, connected moments when you're connected with yourself, with somebody special, with
Kent (21:46)
a place. So think about that as you ponder the money part of fulfillment.