Marginal gains: How I made tiny changes to get richer and remove stress

January 23, 2019 16 By Caveman

Is it controversial to say that I’d like my life to be better? Today I’m going to share with you how I used the idea of marginal gains to do just that. What I’m going to share is how doing that had the double benefit of saving me money and time. It’s also about how doing this had the huge unexpected side benefit of removing stress from my life.

Do you want your life to be better? Well Duh!

Talking about wanting your life to be better is almost embarrassingly trite. I mean the counterfactual is to say that I would like my life to be worse and that’s just weird. To be clear my life is pretty good, but things can always be improved can’t they? I also believe in the idea that unless you actively try to improve your life you run the risk that things will drift backwards.

So something like that’s easy to say but harder to do. How can you make your life better? The reason that I started this blog was to look at how I could get happier or more content. But I’ve particularly been thinking about it over the last few weeks. I reckon it was started by taking time to nestle in an armchair in front of the fire with a glass of Adnams Bitter. Having the opportunity to just think for a while is under rated. To be honest Adnams is also underrated but that’s for another time.

What I came up with a pint or so to the good was the idea of applying a David Brailsford-like concept of marginal gains to my finances and my life. It’s what was behind my vague resolution to do a full scrub of my direct debits. Just to check in on some of the little things.

Coming up with the idea of applying marginal gains to my life while drinking beer

I do some of my best thinking while putting myself on the outside of one of these

How I applied the marginal gains to my own life

I’ve written about prioritisation in the past in the context of work and I realise that I apply the same principles to my personal life. Focus on the big things and don’t stress about the rest. Follow some simple rules. What that means in terms of my finances is that I make (or made) sure that I didn’t allow my mortgage to slip onto my bank’s standard rate, I only change my car every decade. The sorts of things that you read about on a dozen personal finance blogs.

In terms of making money I make sure that I put myself into positions where I can get promoted at work. I’m now at the point where upwards means joining my company’s board. While that’s possible I’m actually looking to optimise my work-life balance rather than seeking to earn more. Dialing down the effort rather than dialing up the pay.

All of that prioritisation means that I’m not leaving money on the table when it comes to the big things. The problem with that approach is that it has a natural ceiling as there are only a few big ticket items. Now I was fine with that but I decided when sitting in that armchair that I was going to see if I could spend a little bit of time every few weeks looking at some of those areas that I hadn’t touched in a while. I wasn’t necessarily looking to make any changes, but instead I would just to delve into them for a few minutes to see if there were any marginal gains.

What I’ve specifically done. Three mini case studies of marginal gains.

So let’s get to some nuts and bolts. Let me give you three quick specific examples.

Marginal gain 1: Cutting the cord

Let me kick off with my pay TV subscription. In fact, even though I think of it as my TV subscription, it’s actually my TV, phone and broadband subscription. A month or two ago it had jumped out on my credit card bill as it had gone to around £70 as I had dropped out of my fixed term discount. With one thing or another I hadn’t got round to doing anything about it yet but I knew the game plan: Pick up the phone and ask for a discount, get it and move on.

So far, pretty much business as usual.

Most of the time I check for better deals but when I started with may pay TV provider there was no alternative in my area so I thought that was my only choice. This time though I did a little research. The easiest bit was my phone and broadband. I had stupidly allowed that to roll forward and what was a great deal a few years ago was terrible now. A quick search on a price comparison site and I could almost halve my cost with all calls included.

The TV bit was even easier. I realised that my family doesn’t actually watch that much TV and even when we do it’s mostly recorded or on demand. Given that I realised that I could cancel my subscription and happily sign up to Netflix or whatever and use the free catch up services like iplayer. Net result I just called up and cancelled.

Overall that’s meant that my cost has gone down from £70 to £18 a month or £26 if I decide to add in Netflix or Amazon Prime. That’s a saving worth having.

Marginal gain 2: Pernicious Pension Payments

Like many people I have a number of pension pots from different jobs. I’ve not lost track of any but I haven’t actively managed them. The one that bothers me the most is the one from my first job. It’s 20 odd years old and from a different time. I’ve always suspected that I’ve been paying too much in fees on that. It was probably good at the time but it’ll be rubbish now.

So, with a heavy heart I dug out the paperwork and looked up the charges. It appears that I’m paying over 1% per year. Compared to a modern SIPP that’s 2x to 4x what I should be paying. Over twenty years that’s a HUGE hit. I have an eye on a SIPP that’s about to launch so I’m going to move it to that. But I’m on the case and I’m going to get it done. I’ll keep you posted.

Marginal gain 3: Can we fix it? Yes we can!

My final example is a little bit different. A few days ago one of the zips on the bag I take to work broke. I know that it’s not the world’s biggest problem. I mean it’s a normal computer rucksack not something I love so I’m not crying. My first action was to jump online to buy another. But to get something that won’t just fall apart after a few months of daily use is really rather expensive. Also I would have to try to work something out for a few days before it arrived.

Before I clicked buy though I paused. With my new philosophy what if I could fix it myself? Ten minutes and a Google search later, I was set. With the help of pair of pliers and a screwdriver the zip was fixed in five minutes. Boom.

I save money and time and it’s better for the environment. On top of that I had the satisfaction of doing a job with my hands. I see that as a win all round

Applying the theory of marginal gains by fixing my zip

It wuz broke, and den I fixed it. Yus I did!

Getting rid of stress

The whole area of why we get stressed is something that I want to know more about. I know stress is weird in that a little stress makes me super productive. What I also know is that I don’t like the feeling of being very stressed, and I don’t even like being a little stressed for long periods of time.

Where I need a better understanding is in what things make me stressed. This is where I got the unexpected benefit from what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks. Marginal gains helps me beat small stresses.

In the advertising saturated world we live in I must have absorbed that my TV/phone/broadband deal wasn’t competitive. Not in a way that was strong enough for me to do anything about it, but I must have been aware. Now that I’ve sorted it out I realised that the fact I was throwing money away was causing me stress. Not enough that it affected me day to day but just enough that there was a little niggle every time I turned on the TV or picked up the phone.

The pension is an even bigger one. It’s been hanging over me for five years. Every year the statement would plop onto my doorstep and I would look at it. I knew I needed to get a grip on it but I didn’t want the hassle. Whenever I thought about it though my heart sank a little. Just starting the process to fix it is making me feel better.

The zip was a straightforward mini-stress. Who doesn’t get mildly irritated when their zip breaks? Fixing the zip immediately took out the friction of living with a broken bag for a few days and, the cost and hassle of getting a new bag.

Marginal gains removed stress from my life

I know how she feels…

What the ideas of marginal gains mean for me and for you

This whole marginal gains process has left me feeling empowered. I realise that when I don’t deal with those little things it leaves me feeling less capable. Not in a big way but just enough to emasculate me a little.

Now that I’ve tackled them I’m feeling just that little bit better about myself. I’ve removed some of the small stresses from my life. I’m actively looking for the little things that I can tackle next.

This is where there may be things for you to think about. Are there any little things that you’re avoiding dealing with? The point of my three examples isn’t to suggest that these are necessarily the specific things that niggle at you.  Even if it is these are my solutions to my problems, they may well not be yours.  No.   These examples are to inspire you to think of the things that are bothering you that you can fix.

My FI journey is all about getting happier. Dealing with tiny things and getting marginal gains takes me a few steps further down that road. It may just be that it does that for you too.

Thoughts?

Do you actively try to remove small stresses in your life?

What, if anything, do you do to add marginal gains to you life?

Do you think it’s worth sweating the small stuff or is it not just worth it?