Following my Spare Change thoughts it is interesting to note that most of us already know this information– saving money, limiting frivolous spending and not purchasing beyond our means. Yet how many of us use this knowledge? Many of us still fail to practice it in our daily lives. Staying in our familiarized patterns and allowing ourselves to be influenced by what everybody else does is the problem. Our society encourages distraction and evasion as a means to experience happiness. Funny thing is that this takes us far away from ourselves and just postpones dissatisfaction.
The norm we created says we must have new jeans and shoes every month to stay on top of fashion and be recognized by others. The norm is we need the latest ipod, phone, camera and computer at home because they have new features that are a must to make our lives easier. The list goes on of the things we think we need to be happier. Combining our irresistible urge to spend along with clever advertising we succumb to buying things we probably don’t need. Telus tells us “The Future is Friendly”. Smart advertising here and people can feel at ease being less intimidated by technology. Best Buy says “Thousands of possibilities. Get yours”. And my personal least favorite I heard on a Wal-Mart commercial by your average sucker consumer “The more I spend, the more I save.” Wow. Think about this for a moment… The words ‘spend’ and ‘save’ do not go together at all. They are complete opposites but still we must consume to feel better about ourselves.
Story: A friend of mine has been servicing debt for as long as I can remember. It is a continuous struggle that I hear of every time we get together. On paper my friend makes much more money than I do but also has more debt than me with a bank account in the negative. A long hard road lies in front of her because she chooses to buy the latest gear to look good and then go out 2-3 nights of the week to show it off spending even more on cabs and entertainment. On top of it she claims to ‘need’ vacations with friends in warm places that really should not be purchased because it is all on credit. In the end, when we speak I see she is truly un-happy with the situation in life and I can only say over and over that self-discipline needs to be practiced.
My friend knows that they spend too much. But what is lacking is actually making the sacrifice to get herself forward. If you want something bad enough in life and see yourself in the future being somewhere different than where you are now make those sacrifices. Just like starting a business, it takes at least 5years of hard building before getting payoffs, to be a great athlete you disipline yourself to eat well, rest and train hard for at least a few years and if you want to limit some of your debts, have more money for the future sacrifices need to be made.
What sacrifices are you making these days to get yourself to where you want to be?
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