Cheetos Now; Cheetos Forever

Years ago I was at a comedy show in Inverness, Scotland, and remember one joke which was very funny but still cuts me to my core.

“I’m on a seafood diet,” the comedian said.  “I see food, I eat it.”

I have always been on the plus side of the scale.  When I was ten or eleven my father tried to help me lose a few pounds.  We had a running “bet” – lose weight, he paid me, gain weight, I paid him.  That arrangement ended when he realized I was manipulating the scale so that I could instantly “lose” between three and five pounds.

My problem, then and now, is that with food, especially salty junk food like potato chips or Cheetos, my brain short circuits.  I see it, I eat it.

The issue is delayed gratification.

With money I am great about this.  I always feel safe and secure when I save money.

When I was twenty three a friend suggested I buy my wife a new dress.  I said, “It’s not the $20.00 for the dress.  It’s the $3.00 a year in lost income for the rest of my life.  That’s a pretty expensive dress.”  At the time I assumed I could earn 15% a year on invested money.  My experience tells me this target is unrealistic, but an 8% annual return is reasonable.  In part I wooed my wife Daveen by exciting her with the idea of compound interest.  (Yes, I sometimes take my calculator to bed.)

I offer two examples.  At age seven one of my daughters earned $13,000 from one word in a television commercial for Brawny paper towels.  If I could invest that money for her at 8% until she is 65, she will have $1,325,508.04.  That is not a typo.  By age 65 she will have more than 100 times the money that she started with.

Want to be a billionaire?  Easy.  Invest one dollar at 6% for 347 years.  If you earn 8% it will take only 260 years.  But you will need to start when you are very young.

More realistically, if you are thirty and invest $100/month at 6% you will accumulate $142,471.03 by age 65.  Earn 8% and you will have $229,388.25.  Start at age 20 and you will own $527,453.99.

At this point you may have grabbed your HP 17 to check out my numbers.  More likely, your brain has gone numb.  But my point is that delayed gratification works with money.  Save now and you can spend more, often a lot more, later.  But you have to convince yourself that you enjoy the process.  No amount of money is worth it if you feel deprived for 35 or 45 years.

Back to Cheetos.  For me, delayed gratification with food isn’t easy.  Ask the owner of any buffet restaurant I’ve raided for the past sixty years.  My joy in scarfing down the garlic toast trumps the saying, “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.”  Half my body must now consist of potato chips and Cheetos.  But it sure seemed like fun at the time.

During the past two years I’ve convinced myself, at least in part, that when I’m hungry my body is burning up those used Cheetos.  This is a happy thought.  I’ve consumed more protein, less garlic toast, and lost 55 pounds.  I have much more energy, and have accumulated a lot of compliments from my friends.  Perhaps too many compliments.  I’m losing motivation.

Just between the two of us, do you have any Cheetos?

Alan