Tolkien Liked Beer More Than Teaching?: Spending & Values

Ah, there’s not much I like more than a great pint of beer in a lovely pub.

And evidently, so did Tolkien.

My understanding is that every day, or at least many days per week, he would leave the Oxford campus and go meet with his writing companions, the Inklings, at a local pub or inn.

I watched a video of him once, and he said something to the effect of, “I like beer.”

I may not remember that exactly right, but that was the gist of his statement.

And he evidently didn’t care much for teaching his classes—or at least he didn’t like grading term papers. This much I have heard him talk about.

He said the idea of The Hobbit came to him when he was grading essays.

He had stacks left to grade but had one in his hands and, fighting off boredom, frustration, and annoyance, suddenly turned the page and encountered a blank sheet of paper.

“Oh glorious,” or something similar, he exclaimed in the video I was watching.

At another point in time, he wrote:

“On a blank leaf I scrawled, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ … I did not and do not know why.”

Yesterday, I started my experiment with radically owning my time.

And this morning, this Tolkien tale came to mind as I was reflecting on how the day went.

I completed all four of my current One Hit Wonders before noon yesterday.

Then I randomly selected the next thing to focus on from the eight items I discussed in Monday’s post.

Decreasing my spend rate was the one that came up.

I went to my spending-tracking worksheet and took a look at the categories. I was looking for low-hanging fruit.

Two opportunities appeared quickly:

• Reduce my internet bill.

• Reduce my mobile phone bill.

Electricity for my PNW house is also an opportunity, but I need to make some upgrades to the home before I can realize meaningful savings, so I left that one alone.

For my internet and mobile phone bills, I spent about an hour and a half bringing my costs down.

The savings?

Over $200 per month.

Over the course of a year, that will be almost $2,500 in savings.

Worth the hour and a half?

Uh, yeah.

Think about it this way.

If you use a 5% withdrawal rate, that $2,500 represents needing $50,000 invested to pay for it.

At 4%, the old safe withdrawal rate, you would need $62,500 invested to support that fluff expense.

I dig it.

As I was searching for low-hanging fruit on my spending tracker, I also highlighted my Beer/Wine spending line.

And I have already been working on bringing that expense down this year.

At the beginning of the year, I committed to not drinking at home alone.

Instead, I would only have an adult beverage at social events, when out to eat, at concerts, or when stopping in at a pub—like Tolkien used to do.

Ironically, this could actually increase the amount I spend on adult beverages this year, but that is okay.

The goal was, and is, as much about moderation and socializing more as it is about reducing spending.

On Sunday, at the first open mic I played this summer, I allowed myself a couple of pints.

I had reached my target weight the Friday before, so I was keeping my integrity by doing so.

Afterward, I was energized, wound up, and had a hard time going to sleep.

I was energized by both the performance and the beer.

But instead of buying a third pint at the pub, or picking something up to take back to my hotel room, I simply stayed up listening to music.

What I noticed was that the buzz from the two pints took about two hours to subside.

And I had a good time dancing around my hotel room with headphones on.

Who needs more than two pints, right?

Occasionally, sure.

But not usually.

It’s interesting because I used to spend next to nothing on drinks.

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I rarely had an adult beverage when I went out to eat.

I rarely had more than a large bottle of wine on the weekend, split with my ex-wife.

Where did all this “I’m out, so I must drink” thinking come from?

Oh…more money.

Mo money, mo problems.

I used to have to watch every penny closely.

Now I could buy the whole pub a round if I chose to do so.

And if I were to radically align my spending with my values, I think I would be happier doing that than having the third pint.

Which brings me back to radically owning my own time.

Yesterday, I was able to get three more big rocks in during the afternoon.

I spent longer on them than I had planned.

This is good data.

If my four One Hit Wonders already take me four to five hours per day to accomplish, how many more can I realistically fit in and maintain my peace of mind?

I don’t know.

And what about the other five big items I want to start at some point (plus these seven)?

Where do I fit them in?

I don’t know. Yet.

What I did notice is that around 5:00 p.m., I was getting tired.

I started cooking dinner and kept working on decluttering tasks, one of the three afternoon activities that had been randomly selected.

Yesterday morning I thought to myself:

“I will keep going until 11:00 p.m. tonight…”

But I gave up.

I decided to keep decluttering photos and videos while my meal was cooking.

And then what did I do at 6:00 p.m.?

I ate and watched YouTube videos.

I did that for the rest of the evening and went to bed around 8:15 p.m.

WTH?

This is not the radically aligned lifestyle I am going for, folks.

Let’s see what happens the rest of this week.

Today, I will draft a second blog article because I have a full day of “not normal” commitments to attend to tomorrow.

I believe I have three or four more follow-up articles to share about events that happened at the IASD annual conference in Ashland, OR, last week.

So more than likely, that’s what you’ll see over the next few days.

Then I will return to this week-long experiment of radically owning my own time.