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This 1-mile walking habit will make me $297,278

Broke people call me crazy.

Wealthy people call me smart.

My wife calls me the Waffle King, but that’s entirely unrelated to this post.

Let me explain.

I live about 1 mile from my local grocery store.

I could drive there and back, but the average car costs 67¢ in gas and maintenance for one mile of driving.

If I walk instead, I save $1.34 per trip.

Too tiny to matter, right?

Oh come on, you read the title! You already know the answer!

My family averages about 4 trips to the grocery store per week (mostly to grab 1 or 2 things we’ve run out of).

If we expand that to the whole month, walking instead of driving saves us $23.22 per month. (Not including the health benefits. Realistically I’ll have lower medical bills over my life due to the added exercise.)

I take those savings and invest them into an index fund.

If I do this my whole adult life, those savings will grow to a whopping $297,534.

And yes, that’s adjusted for inflation.

What can you learn from this?

1. Tiny actions have massive results when you do them for long enough.
   
   Walking to the grocery store once won’t change your finances.
   
   But doing it consistently WILL.
   
   Same goes for packing a lunch to work, hang-drying your clothes, never ordering food delivery, or any of dozens of other “strange” frugal choices you could make.
   
   Taken individually, each action seems dumb.
   
   But over the years, you’ll kick the butt of your DoorDash-loving coworkers, and they’ll be wondering how you retired 10 years ago and they’re still working.
   

2. Success comes to those who question what others think is reasonable.

   
   I live in Chicago. It gets cold here in the winter.
   
   But truthfully? People assume walking in the cold will be worse than it is.
   
   I’d estimate that 90% of the time I have a great time on my walks.
   
   And the other 10% make me appreciate the gift of a warm house even more.
   
   The fear of discomfort is often greater than the discomfort itself.
   
   Let go of that fear.
   
   Dare to get uncomfortable.

Keep growing,

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