Marginal gains: How I made tiny changes to get richer and remove stress
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.
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
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.
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?
The only depressing thing is, once you have done your “marginal gain” search through your bills, you have nowhere to go with it and have to put up with much bombardment of articles/TV/blogs promising huge savings every month when in fact you have already been there and done that….
Regarding the small stresses in life, I do wonder sometimes why people put up with them, when usually there is a solution, free or cheap. It just takes that little bit of friction out of your life and makes things….well less stressful I guess.
Anyway, you don’t give a clue as to who your old pay TV supplier was but….if it was Sky you will be able to use the Sky dish with FreeSat without modification, which apart from the cost of a FreeSat box, is subscription free. This is what we did a good few years ago when we realised we barely watched the Sky channels we were paying for. If you had all in one with Virgin, I don’t know of an equally handy solution!
Yup the advertising can definitely be a pain! I’m being chased by Sky adverts all the time. My basic view on it is that these are almost one offs as for the most part once I’ve fixed them they should stay fixed for always (or at least a number of years).
For me the reason I put up with the small stresses was, well, because they were small. I only realised that they were bothering me when they went. I also underestimated the cumulative effect of lots of those small things.
Yes it was Sky. I looked into Freesat and the only reason for going for Freeview was that All4 has been dropped by Freesat and almost everything I watch is recorded or on catch up!
I try to automate as much as possible. The less decisions I have to make the less stress I experience. Most of my bills are autopay, so that helps.
Of ocurse there’s a lot of improvements I can think of. My pension from my previous company is one of them. Still in the back of my mind, I will probably do something about that this year…
1% better every time compounds to enormous differences later in life. The “getting marginally better” phrase from the ChooseFI podcast comes to mind.
Thanks for the article, it was a good insight!
Oh I definitely automate as much as I can. This is basically what happened to me when I let that automation run on too long. Minor inefficiencies just added up.
Yup 1% each time is all it takes to make a real difference over time. That’s something that I’m starting to come round to.
I tent to postpone cancelling and switching contracts from one provider to another for the hustle of it and always keep overpaying money too. I am terrible with that! As I hate doing it I keep procrastinating. And it’s very true, it accumulates more stress on top of your stress level, the more it takes me to take action the more stress it adds. Need to be more councious with this from now on, as I wasn’t fully aware that it actually affects that much.
Currently, we rent a studio flat with bills included, and God! It feels so good not having to bother about bills and council tax!
That’s where I was at. The hassle factor was precisely what held me back. I’m hoping that each time I do something like this and it doesn’t go wrong I’ll be more confident about the next one. I’m weighing up energy bills and possibly my current account next…
Great examples. My pension is horrible for fees too, but I’ve just decided to keep chucking money at it because I’m procrastinating on finding something better. That will cost me a pretty penny down the line so I better get researching sooner rather than later.
I’m now also thinking about all the fantastic bags I’ve thrown away because of broken zips. Now you’ve said it’s actually possible to fix them I wish I’d googled that earlier!
Excess charges on pensions is a bit of a theme. It’s the tyranny of knowledge! Sadly I can’t pretend that I don’t know any more…
Oh totally. I’ve chucked so mush stuff in the past. I’ve decided that YouTube is basically your grandad showing you how do DIY stuff that you didn’t know was possible!
Love this Caveman! You should definitely cancel your TV license too (I wrote a post on this). Your TV licence costs you about £12 per month and you only need it if you watch live TV or iPlayer! iPlayer alone isn’t worth £12 per month 😛
I’m a little bit obsessive, I tend to turn the stress and working (earning side) up to the maximum to the point where I have zero free time. On the flip side I also turn the frugality up to a maximum (spend less side) to the point where I won’t buy a sandwich from the supermarket because it’s more expensive than making it yourself.
I’m hoping that by the time I’m ‘burnt out’ and have kids, I’ll have enough accumulated to just quit. But will I be able to quit? We’ll see!
Oh I’ll check out your post on the licence fee. I do watch a lot of catch up though so it sadly may not work for me.
I think it may not be about quitting when you have kids. It’s probably more about putting energy into the kids. What I’ve realised is that I spend time and energy completely differently now compared either to before kids or when the kids were toddlers. I suspect it will change again when they’re at secondary school. My big lesson has been to make sure that I keep time and energy for myself, not just put it into the children.
Hi Caveman
I too am a fan of marginal gains. I think by just making small (and what I consider insignificant) changes, I still have a quality of life I enjoy, so I don’t feel like I’m making any sacrifices.
Interesting that you mention David Brailsford in your article – he who did wonders for British Cycling. I’m not really one for self-help books (having only stomached a few in my lifetime) but one which I surprisingly found useful was ‘The Chimp Paradox’ by Steve Peters – funnily enough, he too worked with British Cycling! I found that the book helped me cope with stress, both at work and outside and I was (and still am) happier for it. Some of his ideas stuck with me anyway. Some readers think it’s a bit basic but I’m unlikely to read any other self-help books for comparison so can’t comment on that.
Anyway, unlike the Ninja, I continue to pay my TV licence as I watch iplayer a lot, catch up tv, box sets, films and the like. Also listen to their radio stations (Radio 1 and Five Live) which although are free, are still paid for by the licence.
You’re right about marginal gains being effective as you don’t feel like you’re making any sacrifices. I had’t properly thought about that aspect but it makes perfect sense!
My boss recommended the Chimp Paradox to me and I never got round to reading it. Now that you’ve talked about it I’m going to have to see if I can find it in the library. Finding tools to help cope with stress can only be a good thing. I’m all about making myself happier so I’m looking forward to reading it now!
Plus, I couldn’t do without Match of the Day or their NFL Show!
If you like the NFL Show I can highly recommend the Osi and Jason podcast. It’s just them and while it’s mostly football they also talk about other things and are less constrained than on TV. One of my favourite listens!
Ooh, I didn’t know about that! I could listen to Osi’s voice for hours……
Thanks!
More4 is free with their app. We use an old sky box for Freesat (no signal for anything else at our house) and then use a Chromecast for streaming More4 and Netflix etc. Chromecast was far cheaper than a smart tv. My old style 42 inch tv cost 50 quid second hand. 😉