What saving money really means: lessons from marathon running

Why do we save money?

It’s likely you’ve got a picture in your head of what it means to you: something tangible like a new car, maybe longer and more exotic holidays, or perhaps a retirement cottage. Quite often though, what we value most is things that aren’t ‘buyable’ – in the traditional sense at least.

Here’s an example.

At Easter, I ran the Paris Marathon (more on that in a moment) and my daughter was coming out to watch. However, with strike action planned, it looked like the train she’d booked wouldn’t get her out in time.

No problem. I switched the train ticket and paid for an extra night in a hotel. Just in case.

In that instance, the extra expense outweighed the additional worry worrying. The real value of having money set aside was peace of mind.

A new meaning to luxury goods

It’s important to remember how the real value of money – that’s what it means to you personally – changes over time.

£100 put aside in your twenties will be worth more later. Not just because you’ve invested it, but also because holding off spending immediately opens up invisible opportunities later.

This is summed up really well in this article from Christine Benz, director of personal finance at Morningstar. Her experience from a number of decades investing wisely has taught her to redefine what constitutes outward success.

Once, a Chanel handbag was her ultimate sign of luxury. But now what she values most is not having to budget, having cash ready to pay for an emergency repair, being debt-free, and being able to help someone out when they need it, without pause for thought.

Much like changes to my daughter’s Paris trip at a moment’s notice.

Money saved buys peace of mind.

Keep it simple

The trick of course is getting there.

Christine Benz talks about the need to keep it simple. She acknowledges that investing often becomes increasingly complex the older you get and more money you accrue. It doesn’t have to be this way though.

She says: “I’m just not sure the extra return potential of having a more complicated financial life can rival the intangible benefits of simplicity and knowing that our investments would be just fine.”

Entire industries are built on convincing us this last point isn’t the case.

There are countless fads and trends associated with keeping fit and dieting. Want to lose weight? you’ve got Atkins diet and intermittent fasting. When I was marathon training, I had several people try to convince me that beetroot shots were the way forward (not for me thanks).

Most of the time, this is just overcomplicating things. It’s actually the boring stuff that’s most successful. If you want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat. If you want to invest money, you need to get a plan and stick to it.

More financial lessons from marathon running

Speaking of having a plan and sticking to, back to that marathon in Paris.

You may remember that since running the London Marathon, I’d hired a running coach. I wrote then about the parallels between training for a big run and planning your finances.

Paris was a very different experience (for one thing, they handed out ginger cake instead of the medicinal sports gels we got in London). But going through it all over again made me think of a few more similarities (when you’re running for more than five hours, there’s a lot of time to think about these things).

Firstly. As the famous ad slogan says: “Just do it.”

Training can be a boring, hard slog, but you need to get yourself from “thinking about it” to “doing it.” A friend of mine was training for their first ever triathlon. They bought a bike, wetsuit, spent hours on YouTube researching the best strategies. After a few weeks, someone at their running club said, “That’s all great, but at some point, you’ve got to get in the water.”

Secondly, as I’m fond of saying, run your own race. There were 50,000 people in front of me in Paris, but I knew the best strategy for me. Five hours 18 minutes, and 59 seconds later, I’d made it.

And third, no matter how well prepared you think you are, you will benefit from not working alone. I had a trainer to keep me focused. You can download a basic programme from the internet but it’s the same one everyone else is using and it doesn’t tell you what to do if you pick up an injury in week five, or how to manage around a holiday.

All these are good lessons to take into planning your finances.

-        It’s never too early to “just do it” and start investing;

-        the only right strategy is the right one for you

-        and, we can all benefit from expert advice to keep us focused on what’s ahead. A trainer – or financial adviser – will give you feedback every week, help you adjust accordingly and keep you motivated to stay on the straight and narrow.

Taking the stress out

Most brains don’t work well under stress. All the way around the Paris route I’d kept up what I thought was a pretty steady pace.

Based on my calculations, I thought I was set to finish bang on five hours. I couldn’t work out why I my finish time was nearly 19 minutes slower than planned. It was only the next day I remembered that a marathon is 42km, not 40 (yet another lesson – don’t manage your finances yourself, you’re too close to them!)

This is what financial planning seeks to achieve, taking the stress out of the situation.

As the article I referenced earlier says, that‘s the biggest luxury of all: a stress-free financial plan means that when something big comes up, whether it’s changing job or an unexpected expense, it doesn’t derail your whole plan.

How do we get to that? By focusing on what makes the biggest differences, buy a low-cost portfolio then, don’t do anything with it, don’t overcomplicate it with beetroot shots. And get someone experienced to help guide you through it. While enjoying your money in the way you see fit.