Living Within Your Means
May 21, 2008 · Print This Article
When we purchased our first house we put down a large down payment. Our realtor was surprised to find out we didn’t have any other debt. Getting the loan was no problem as we bought quite a bit less house than what the banks said we could afford.
Several years later the realtor stopped by to say hi. He said, “You and your wife were really an inspiration to me. We’ve started paying off our debt and trying to get our living expenses under control.” Evidently his normal customers weren’t people who lived beneath their means.
When you spend less than you make, you are buying flexibility and freedom. You gain the ability to change jobs or move to another area of the country. You are buying the ability to say yes to the things that matter because you save on the areas that aren’t as important to you.
This isn’t something most people do. If all your friends spend every penny they make it is easy to feel like you are doing well by just not going broke. There are people who are quite wealthy even if you’d never know it. They have chosen financial freedom over financial exhibitionism.
Do you have any examples you’d care to share of people living beyond their limit financially?
Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need. On Wednesdays we are discussing the financial aspect of productivity. Watch for more Wednesday financial posts in the future.
“They have chosen financial freedom over financial voyeurism.” Don’t you mean financial exhibitionism? I’ve noticed a lot of “broke” people heading to Tim Hortons or Starbucks every morning, then following the crowd to the restaurant of the day for lunch. These small, daily purchases might not be financially exhibitional, but they do add up to quite a lot of money at the end of the month. Often these are the purchases that could be cut from our lives that tighten our budgets without us really realizing it.
@Phil - Good point. I made the change you suggested. I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking when I wrote it.
People who are broke are often that way because they don’t see “small” expenses as being meaningful.
I know many people who use brand name handbags (Gucci, Prada..) but living in government housing. Which means that their bags can easily cost several months of their rent. They claim that they NEED them to make them feel confident. The truth is, other people think they are knock-offs.
Shouldn’t worry about how other people think. Most of the time we only care about our own self. It’s called “Spot Light Effect” in psychology.
@adora - It is interesting how often I see brand new cars parked in the low income housing areas. I think if you have to have the government pay for you to survive you should be put on a very strict spending diet. You shouldn’t be able to buy cable television if you can’t pay your rent.
I have friends who about a year ago, refinanced their five year old mortgage from 24yrs back out to 25yrs so they could release some cash for home improvements. A year down the track, and they’ve bought a large boat with the money and made one $800 improvement to the house, and taken a few holidays. One of the ‘keep up with the Joneses’ types. Lovely people, but not wise with the expenditure.
I also have another friend whose husband keeps a tight rein on the budget, but then insists on buying brand new cars every three or four years. I guess everyone’s different with what they want to spend their money on. To me it seems like pinching the pennies and letting the big bucks just roll out of your hands, especially with new cars - the minute it’s driven off the showroom floor, the car loses several thousand dollars in value, even if it was immediately resold. Mind you, I’m not the best at hanging onto my money either!
Thanks for the timely reminder Mark.
I fall into the small expenses category. My wife and I have cut out all TV except for antenna, have turned off our text messaging and web from our phones, and have cut our home phone to just allow for internet (no broadband available). We have two vehicles both bought for cash for 2000 and 1000 respectively.
You would think we would be doing good. Like phil and mark said I usually have lunch out most days a week considering a work 40 miles from home. At gas stations and grocery stores I will usually pick up a bottle drink or a iced coffee or something to snack on. I recorded my small everyday purchases over a weeks time and it was well over $150 which shocked me. People just don’t realize how 5 bucks here 15 there adds up over a week or months time.
We do have some friends who are in our same financial bracket and they have went through 4 or 5 vehicles in the same amount of time we have had our 2. The difference is that theirs have been repossessed 3 or 4 times and they have at least 500/mo car payments where we have no payment.
Go to http://www.weliveherenow.net to read our story about financial freedom. By age 33 we own a house free and clear, pay our credit cards off each month, have no long-term debt and have loans receivable (earning us interest) of over Cdn$90,000. Our passive income exceeds our basic expenses by over 50% each month. We are not doing anything illegal.
This is a fantastic article. All throughout my teenage life I had considered this financial freedom something to strive for. At the very basic I was constructing monthly expense reports in order to evaluate what was coming in, what was going out, and how much was saved. The goal, of course, was to optimize my savings in such a way that I was saving money from every pay check to the maximum amount, but also spend in such a way that I had a lifestyle that I was comfortable with but was not over and above the top. Usually if you spend a lot of money daily on food, you run into a diet that is probably more then likely higher on the fatty chain.
Thank you for this prose, I think I am going to write about it @t my blog @ http://www.thecrazystudent.com. I will be linking to both of your sites so that people can get a better idea of what I am talking about.
Great article.
@J. B. Rainsberger, I will be taking a look at your blog later today so that I can acquire the magic that you possess.
Thanks!