Standard of Living or Quality of Life: What do we really want?

When people picture retirement, they often focus on maintaining their standard of living, traveling, pursuing new hobbies, spending time with family, or perhaps buying a vacation home. But is maintaining your current lifestyle the same as creating the quality of life you want?

In this short video, Shane Tenny, CFP®, Managing Partner at Spaugh Dameron Tenny, explores the difference between standard of living and quality of life, and why planning for your time may be just as important as planning for your money.

In This Video

• Why standard of living and quality of life are not necessarily the same
• How busyness and financial commitments can reduce the margin in our lives
• What money can—and cannot—contribute to quality of life
• Why retirement and other major transitions call for planning how you want to use both your time and money

Transcript:

[00:00:03.180] Hi there. I'm Shane Tenny, Managing Partner at Spaugh Dameron Tenny. I was meeting recently with a client couple of ours to discuss their financial goals around retirement. We talked all around their expectations and desires for the future, maybe a vacation home, traveling more, new hobbies, time with family.

[00:00:26.420] I tried to listen really clearly and summed up what I heard from them by just clarifying if they were really wanting to maintain their standard of living.

Yeah, they both agreed. When we stopped working, we really just want to maintain our standard of living.

[00:00:41.060] And this phrase, "a better standard of living," is one that we all say to ourselves and think about when we're scrolling on our phones or envying the apparent ease of other people's lives.

However, then the next day, I was listening to a report on NPR, and I was reflecting on the stress in our society contrasted with how the standard of living in our country has improved exponentially over the last 100 years. And yet none of us feels like we have enough free time.

I've never met anyone who complained of being too relaxed. Now, lots of us and our friends are taking medicine to help sleep or deal with anxiety or cope with depression from broken relationships.

[00:01:27.140] Can you even imagine telling a friend that you had plenty of margin in your budget or just too few commitments in your life?

Where I live, it seems we practically find our identity through busyness, always being on the go to kids' events or work or committees or church or working out or traveling. And this, how we use our time, is what really defines our standard of living. Way more than the car we drive or the neighborhood we live in.

When you think about it this way, it made me wonder if, in fact, we really want to maintain this standard of living, or do we really want some things to be different in our fast-paced, affluent society?

[00:02:16.520] It's easy to use the word "standard of living" and "quality of life" to mean the same thing, but I think they're really different.

We chase vacations or cars or new homes or private school to improve our standard of living. I think what we're hoping for is a deeper sense of happiness, deeper friendships, more time to think, margin in our budget, space to breathe.

Instead, what we usually get is more stress, less sleep, more bills, snippy responses, fewer genuine relationships.

[00:02:52.220] Money can help make life more comfortable and avoid certain unpleasantries, but it's the margin we create in our time our finances, and our relationship, that leads to quality of life.

In my opinion, money may be able to help you grow your standard of living, but it is time that leads to quality of life.

So, as you seek ways to reach your goals of retirement or college for the kids or a change in practice, I think you'll be more likely to find the quality of life you want by making plans not just for your money, but for your time.

Something to think about.