Live Within Your Means

Ah yes. The sage old advice, to Live Within Your Means. Do you know what that means though? Let’s talk.

I have a suspicion that some people are, for whatever reason, pre-disposed to the language of money, and what money means, and how to deploy most wisely. Put simply, some people “just get it” and others “just don’t”. I’m in the former camp. I don’t budget in the traditional sense. I know every penny that comes in and goes out. I make decisions in the moment and retrospectively on a consistent and ongoing basis, every Monday. I don’t sit and look at a budget and quibble about how I overspent my bucket allowance for auto gas. Instead, I spend what needs to be spent, I do so mindfully and aware of the cost, and then I adapt and keep on rolling.

Fundamentally, to live within your means to bring in more money that is going out the door. It’s simple as that. 1, 2, 3, Just Do It!.

So, for the people who grok this, there’s not much more to learn or glean here. You keep on rocking what comes naturally to you. For others who struggle, I think you need to find a way to become more comfortable with the concept of living within your means. It’s not enough to “know” that you should not have bought that Maserati because deep down it’s something you think you deserve. No. Living within your means is knowing that to spend money on X thing is not good, and NOT spend that money.

A suggestion, before every splurge and purchase, take 10 seconds to pause and think about how much this thing is going to cost you in the sense of time. Time is your most valuable asset and the only thing you can’t negotiate. You get the same amount of time in the day as everyone else around you.

Plug in your annual salary and tax rate. Plug in the cost of the thing you want to buy and see how much that thing will cost you in sense of times. Take just those few seconds to consider that, and then ask yourself, do you really think it’s worth buying that thing knowing it will effectively sap your life by that amount of time?