Resolution: To spend more money

These days, I'm thinking how to spend more money instead of saving them. Why the sudden turn of events? I wanted to jump into a new and higher level of doing things (the "work less earn more" paradigm), hence I would have to change to a new and higher 'me'. If we want to have more fruits from a tree, we don't focus on the fruits. Instead, we focus on the roots of the tree, the hidden, the invisible. So, it goes that in order to jump into a new paradigm, I have to change my thinking and my way of doing things.



For the longest time, I'm concerned with savings i.e how to save more money. Besides saving up for certain milestone goals like wedding, housing and renovation, I was reflecting hard on why I need to save so much money for. I realised that I'm hoarding money to feel secure. Somehow, my financial blueprint is telling me this: If I have more money, I'll feel more secure and therefore happy. More money = more happy. But that is not so! I need to change that kind of thinking and re-wire that financial blueprint, otherwise I'm not going to be happy no matter how much money that I make. It might even bring misery to myself because I'll always want more happiness and more security and more money. I want to be able to spend money without feeling guilty, basically. But with my current financial blueprint, I can't spend money and feel indifferent. There'll always be a tingling sensation that questions whether I am overspending. I recognise that this is a problem, perhaps even worse than overspending because people see this frugality as something positive and something to be proud of. It's not to me and I want to change it.

I like the first line and I'm trying to correct that. I'm learning how to spend money.

Once I decided to re-wire my "more money = more security = more happiness" blueprint, I thought about how to do it in the past few days. I already have an inkling that I need to do something and I think this would be the first time I'm really serious about changing it. I wanted to create an account where I would spend a percentage of my income. Since my income is not fixed and it changes from month to month, I'll allocate 5% of previous month income as a 'play jar' for my current month. So, for example, if I earn 3k in January, I'll allocate $150 as a play jar for February. This money is to be spent on things that I value or on people that I value. If I can't finish spending it this month, it'll roll over to the next month but I would have to finish the account by the end of the year. At least I'll try.



I'm not advocating frivolous spending here for my play jar. This money is used as an outlet to reward myself and to reinforce the idea that spending money on things that I value and/or people that I value will bring me happiness, not hoarding the money. In the past, I want to earn more money so that I can save more and hence feel more secure and happy. I'm trying to change all that. Now, I want to earn more money so that I can spend more (again, I cannot over emphasis this enough - spend on things that I value and on people that I value), so that I will feel more fulfilled. Fundamentally, I want to remove the link between security and happiness to the amount of money that I have.



I doubt I've a lot of things to spend on myself, perhaps the occasional gadgets only. But I do have many people around me whom I value and that I would gladly spend on them. Maybe food, maybe gifts or maybe donation. Maybe a year end bonus for my parents. I don't know but I'll try this out for half a year and see how it goes. If I feel good about it, I'll continue or perhaps tweak the 5%. Let's play by the ear.