It might appear as easy (“If I have money I’d know how to spend it!”) but in reality spending money is all but. In fact it is also a skill that needs to be learned, if one was not lucky enough to live in a surrounding where money spending skills were taught.
I have learned the first step the tough way and I’d like to pass my experience on.
Greatest challenge with spending money is understanding what money really is. It is not the ticket to your dreams, but a tool for changing the world.
When I earned my first big bucks, I did what I thought was right at the time – chased my passion, more accurately I spent it all on a sports car. I bought a really powerful one and I was living my dream.
For about two months.
A friend of mine spent his first big money on a new BMW. He then proceeded to buy Hi-Fi equipment for 25,000 EUR.
And then he was happy. For about two months.
And it seems that we both needed a lesson before we could figure out an important thing that unfortunately nobody told us before. Using money to purchase materialistic goods is throwing it in the air (even worse than that, because money thrown in the air can at least be found by somebody who really needs it).
The Luxury Rule
As you can imagine, at first I had problems comprehending this newly found wisdom and putting it to practice. I worked so hard so I could ‘enjoy’ life, and then all of the sudden I became all ‘wise’ and didn’t think that was such a good idea any more. Truth was I did not want to be enlightened in this way, I wanted to spend money on the luxuries that I longed for and I did not have the inner strength of a Tibetan monk to resist the temptation. To combat this I have devised what I simply call the luxury rule:
Whenever you desire to spend money on a luxurious item (item you can normally live without), first spend equal amount of money on charity.
And by charity I mean spending money doing a good deed. It can be a charity organization, or total stranger in need, or helping your friend, or a family member.
What it does is it stops you right there in the track as suddenly every luxury becomes twice as expensive.
And if you really want it so bad, you first have to make sure you have sane amounts of funds left while forcing you to do something good you might not normally be inclined to do. And by doing all this, you will discover you are actually helping yourself.
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