Almost every decision comes with trade-offs — from how to pack for a trip to how to build a budget. And the more I’ve looked, the more I think these two are the same skill wearing different clothes.
Let me tell you about the trunk.
The cramped trunk
We took a road trip recently, a few days on the road with the kids. And because we could, we brought everything just in case: the kids’ bikes, the fishing gear, the stroller, all of it. Maybe we’d find a great trail. Maybe a fishing spot. Why not be ready for anything?
Here’s what actually happened. The trunk was packed so tight that every stop became a project — unload the bikes to reach the bag, repack to leave. So we stopped stopping. We kept the trunk closed and drove past things we might have done, because the friction of all that readiness wasn’t worth it. We brought more, and as a direct result, we did less.
That’s the whole lesson, and it’s not really about a trunk.
A pound on the feet
The same thing happens backpacking, and it gets sharper the longer the trip. The more you carry, the slower you hike, the less ground you cover, the more energy you burn. Every extra item is a tax on every step.
But here’s the elegant part — it compounds downward too. Cut enough weight and you can switch to a lighter pack that’s still perfectly comfortable, because there’s less load to support. Lighter load means you can drop the heavy boots for trail runners. Hikers have a saying: a pound on your feet equals five pounds on your back. So shedding weight at the bottom of the system ripples all the way up. Less begets less begets more — more distance, more ease, more trip.
A loaded budget works exactly the same way. Every subscription, every payment, every “just in case” purchase is weight. Not just the dollar cost — the attention cost. The mental tax of managing it, maintaining it, insuring it, deciding about it. And like the trunk, it quietly reduces what you can actually do. People imagine that more money and more stuff means more options. Often it’s the reverse: the more you carry, the fewer moves you have. A heavy life is a slow life. Sometimes a less safe one — the climber overloaded “just in case” is the one who gets into trouble.
Why I think of backpacking as free
I love backpacking because of what it strips away. You can follow any path. You’re in nature, outside the pressure and performance of society, carrying only what you actually need. There’s a clarity in it that’s hard to find anywhere else — and the thing that breaks the clarity, every time, is too much weight. Carrying more than you need turns freedom into a chore. The pack stops being a way to be in the wild and becomes a thing you’re managing.
That’s the feeling I want to bring to money. Conscious living, conscious spending. Not deprivation — I’m not telling you to own three things and call it enlightenment. I’m telling you that every dollar and every object is weight, and weight should earn its place. The question for each item isn’t “can I afford it?” It’s “is this worth carrying?”
What’s worth carrying
The packing list and the budget answer the same question. A few things are unmistakably worth their weight:
- The necessities — light, essential, no debate.
- The things that bring genuine joy or experience — the reason you packed at all. Cut these and you’ve optimized your way into a pointless trip.
- The things that save you from misery — on the trail, good socks; in life, paying to skip the chores that drain you.
Everything else is the bikes in the trunk. Things you could use, that mostly just keep the lid shut. The art of traveling lite — through the physical world and the financial one — is the steady, slightly uncomfortable discipline of leaving the bikes at home, so you can actually stop and fish.
Pack for the trip you're taking. Not the one you're afraid you might be unprepared for.
Reply and tell me: what’s the one thing in your life — a subscription, an obligation, an object — that’s been keeping the trunk shut?
— Ashleigh