In this episode, learn how that stuff that you own can own you.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, where my goal is to give you 10-minute lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones.
In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how a luxury once tasted becomes a necessity. From my experience as a financial planner, once people get the taste of the good life, they pretty much want it over and over again. This is why if some drive a luxury car, they are pretty much not going to downgrade to a regular sedan without all the bells and whistles. And this can be harmful especially is your job doesn’t pay you enough money. Then you get into a situation where you’re car rich, but cash poor because every dollar that you make basically, has to go towards the premium gas, the car washes, the insurance, the maintenance, and the car payment. But hey at least you got a nice car. I’m not saying that you should never get nice things, but just be self-aware of what you’re getting yourself into.
We all buy things based on emotion and riding around in a luxury car can be a pretty great experiences. The leather seats feel good, the sound system in crystal clear, the AC feels good on the hot summer day, you enjoy the speed of the acceleration, and the smell of the car just smells luxurious. The key thing is that we just need to make sure that if we lose that car, it is not going to devestate us or put in a position where we are fragile like not investing in our future or putting away any money in an emergency fund.
One of the downfalls for the Spartans was that they got too comfortable with luxury items. See the Spartans used to train extremely hard, it was easier for them to go out to battle than to deal with the training regiment and they were just a very disciplined warrior out on the battlefield. Eventually, the Spartans were able to conquer Athens. Athens back then was metropolitan where fancy dinners where hosted and there was a lot of art or social things going on, so when it was conquered by the Spartans, they started to get exposed to these luxuries. Then the Spartans just got more and more complacent and eventually were not the same fighting force anymore and they lost their position of power.
A luxury once tasted becomes a necessity can be applied to a lot of different parts of our lives and it can be our downfall. If we had a job, that paid $60,000, we don’t want our next job that we take to be $50,000 a year even though that might be a better fit ourselves and our family situation but we got used to the luxury items in our lives and we would have to sacrifice them if we took a pay cut. Sometimes we have to take a step back so we can take two steps forward in a different direction. Running this business caused me to live back with my parents at the age of 33. I have to tell people that I moved back with my parents to run my own business and it makes dating kind of awkward but since it’s keeping my expenses so low, I don’t have to worry about getting another job to help cover my expenses. And I am able to produce this podcast, write chapters in my upcoming books every day, work on my online courses, and save some money while I plan for my two-year excursion to Latin America for two years. I am getting a lot done because I didn’t let my ego get hurt from taking a step back.
I know if I work hard on this Grow With Joe business, it will give me the opportunity to make the change in the world that I desire and give me more time to work on the things that I think are important. The key thing is that I can’t let my ego harm me from focusing on what’s important. I’m guessing what we are afraid of is what other people will think if we start to downgrade our lifestyle. They might think I am having financial difficulties or things are not going well within my family. I think we care too much what other people think. We should just focus on what gives us joy and try to find our core group of friends that will accept us for who we are. I think weddings are ridiculously overpriced. Why spend $20-$30k on a party that has a 50% chance of ending in divorce. Those odds don’t seem that great to me but we go to other weddings that had all the luxury items and we had a great time and not we feel like we have to do the same. If you want to have the big fancy wedding that’s fine, just realize that it could be a $600k mistake if it ends up divorce and you remained the same as a person. We all do stuff on emotion at first and then use logic to justify our actions. We just have to aware of the trade offs that we are making with our actions.
When I do financial planning and go over cash management with a client, I ask people if they can adopt the right behaviors that will allow them to save and invest more. Sometimes they say no because they have too much stuff in their life that they don’t want to give up like their car, their subscriptions, their homes, or their happy hours but the trade off they are making is that they’re not saving for their future and it can come to a point where their standard of living goes down too much because they will have is social security and social security can be anywhere from $500 to $3000 a month depending on how long your for and how much money you made, but it’s most likely going to much a much lower number than you’re used and that’s the number you’re going to be stuck with. So just have the self-awareness of your actions and how those actions will affect your future self. Life is about choices and we are the sum of those choices, so choose wisely.
To summarize today’s episode, remember that a luxury once tasted becomes a necessity and don’t let the things that you own, own you.
Thanks for listening today’s episode.
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