04 Sep 2025 The Math Is Always There
The legendary New York fashion photographer Bill Cunningham once said “Money is the cheapest thing. Liberty is the most expensive.” A man of tremendous simplicity and fierce independence, this was not just a mantra for him, but something of a lifelong philosophy borne out by the way he lived, worked, and even moved around the streets of New York City.
The math is always there to be done. Whether new research comes out about “safe withdrawal rates,” or new tax laws change the way you think about saving, or you got a raise and don’t know what to do with it, or your compensation is lumpy and complex, or your portfolio needs to be cleaned up–the math is always there. The numerical realities of our financial situations are both ubiquitous and unfudgeable. But this is in part, I think, what Bill meant when he said that money is the cheapest thing: Solving all those math problems may be wise, assuming they can even be “solved” in the first place, but having done so, the solutions don’t make you free.
Liberty, if we are to achieve any semblance of it, is bound up in the ways we deal with a whole host of things that have little to do with math: Expectations of what a good life is, what is owed to us, and what our duty demands. The vantage point from which we view the world around us, and how often we manage to see beyond the mirror. An appreciation for truth and beauty even in its simplest forms. An awareness of our dependence on others and vice versa.
At Beacon, there’s only so much we can do to help with such a heavy idea as liberty. We can help solve the math problems to keep them from crowding out life’s bigger questions. We can write blogs like this, that hopefully encourage you to think about your money in a different way. And we can serve as wise counsel, listening ears as you consider steps toward freedom. But ultimately they are steps for you to take. Will you take them?
After all, Bill also had this to say: “He who seeks beauty will find it.”
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