We’ve all purchased crap we didn’t need, things we regret spending money on. I think I have five concepts that help me prevent that from happening.
- The goal isn’t to obtain the most stuff…
Most of us are smart and already know this, but do you believe it with your money? Ingrained in our culture via advertising is the notion to have the most, biggest, get to the top, etc etc. Treasures have to be stored somewhere…you might end up spending money and anxiety on inventory and keeping the inventory, and keeping it climate controlled, and so on.
- Don’t ever buy anything to motivate you to do a new activity.
Exercise equipment anyone? “That looks fun, I’d exercise if I had one of those.” FAIL. “I would bike to work if I had a bike.” FAIL. Sometimes, we know in our heart of hearts that we want something really bad so we buy it and we use it and we love it. However, most of the time we lie to ourselves with statements similar to the above. Instead, purchase something because it will improve an activity you regularly do. I bought new running shoes because I was already a runner.
- Spend money to reduce hassle & pain.
This is similar to the above: It hurt my shins to run in old shoes, so to reduce that pain, I bought new shoes. This notion also includes many services. If you hate doing something really bad, spend some money so someone else can do it. We tend to think about money around stuff more than services. Good service is valuable and can make your life happier. There is a balance to this as well because not all pain is beneficial to avoid. That’s a huge can to open, so I won’t go further.
- Buy things that deliver more money into your hands
These are called assets. Assets are property, stocks, time & energy on business, etc. It’s worth my time developing design skills. I might buy some software to help my web design skills move to the next level. OR, maybe I will buy a new domain to host a new site to sell some products or services. Spend money on things that make money.
- Time is currency too.
Calculate how much your time is worth. “Oh crap, it’s a dollar late fee on the video rental”. It will take you 30 minutes to drive there and back to prevent the dollar fee. But you make $20 / hour. So basically, if you spent your time making more money vs. returning the video on time, you could essentially make $9 profit by paying the late fee. Get it?
Very enlightening with clear cut identification. Thank you for taking the time to think this through and penning it.