A Traverse Of Your Financial Life

It was the summer of 2019 and I was finally getting around to attempting a long time bucket list item.  I was setting out on a single day traverse of the Presidential Range in the majestic White Mountains of New Hampshire.  The Presidential Traverse as described by Wikipedia is:

….a strenuous and sometimes dangerous trek over the Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Contained almost entirely in the 750,000-acre (3,000 km2) White Mountain National Forest, the Presidential Range is a string of summits in excess of 4,000 feet (1,200 m). To complete the traverse, one must begin at either the northern or southern terminus of the Presidential Range and finish at the opposing end.

A standard Presidential Traverse journey entails about 22 miles of hiking and scrambling with about 8,500 feet of vertical climbing.  The vast majority of people who do the traverse do it in two days.  My goal was a single day effort which adds to the challenge. 

I had done other traverses before in the Rockies and they require a certain mindset.  Unlike climbing a single peak, when doing a traverse you have to mentally dig in and prepare for continuous challenge. 

When you summit a peak on a traverse, you face a descent but then another climb.  You just fought hard for all of that altitude and made a summit, and now you have to lose that altitude only to go right back up and climb it again on a different peak. 

And again.  And again. 

In the case of the Presidential Traverse that’s a minimum of 7 mountains over 4000 feet, 5 of which are over 5000 ft, and one (the infamous Mt. Washington) over 6,000ft. 

Doing mountain traverses teaches you to not settle or rest on your laurels.  It gets you in a mindset of “okay I did that hard thing but I can’t stop now, let’s do the next hard thing because that’s the recipe for success”.

Mt. Adams in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire

You Need To Do A Traverse of Your Financial Life

Imagine you just discovered the concept of financial independence. Prior to this amazing discovery you had not been contributing anything to your 401k.  “Retirement?”, you thought, “that’s a long way away”. 

But after discovering FI and understanding the magic of compound interest you bite the bullet and start maxing out your 401k.  That means you take a pay cut.

Technically that’s not true as the money put in your 401k is still yours and you are ‘paying yourself first’.  But your take home pay goes down.  That hurts.  No one wants to see their pay go down.  Consider this the first mountain climbed.  Congrats, you made a summit. 

But you have a mountain range to traverse.  There are more mountains.  Maxing out your 401k alone is probably not enough to reach FI.  Don’t stop now, if you stop you’ll never complete the traverse.

The other mountains of a financial traverse could be getting rid of your consumer debt or ditching your ridiculous vehicle with the $700 monthly payment at 5% interest and buying a sensible car.  How about downsizing your home from the unnecessary 3700 sq ft. you have now to something that doesn’t have empty rooms and unused toilets?    

Any one of those big financial changes could be hard to accomplish and might necessitate a big lifestyle change.  That’s what it takes to get to financial independence however, especially of you’re starting with the messy financial life of most Americans. 

Traverses Require Endurance & Teach Resilience

Life is a series of hard things interspersed with easy and good things.  It’s the same for traverses of mountain ranges.  I’m proud to say I completed my Presidential Traverse in about 8 hours and 45 minutes, a respectable time.  In that period I summited 7 mountains (the hard things) and enjoyed many miles of easier but still challenging hiking in amazing alpine scenery (the easier things).

Oh and I had a massive piece of pumpkin bread with icing at one of the hikers lodges that might have weighed two pounds 🙂 

If you’re starting out with consumer debt, no savings, and a messy financial life, making the changes necessary to get on the path to FI will be a series of hard things.  Big changes.  Each time you accomplish one you have to expect another. 

Until you get to FI.  At that point you’ve completed the traverse. 

Then you can get yourself a big ass piece of pumpkin bread.