Wednesday, December 02, 2015

To be carefree with money

These days I'm more carefree with money. To others, it might not be a good thing, but for me, I think it's good progression towards the kind of person I want to be.


When I was younger, I'm a lot tighter with money. I guess the circumstances necessarily force one to become like that, so as to survive. Hence, to be able to become financially free, that is, to be free from thinking about money, I need to be able to spend money without worrying so much. It's not as if I'm being irresponsible and start spending more than what I earned. I don't think I will ever become like that. It's just that I started off in one extreme, and now I'm going in baby steps towards the other extreme, and then settling somewhere in between the two. It's about walking the middle path.


I think that's a good direction to be in.


I can imagine there will be other people who are spendthrift. Their direction is therefore not to spend more, but to walk the other path of spending lesser. I wonder which is the easier path to way: thrifty then slowly learn to spend more, or spendthrift then slowly learn to save more? I'm biased, so I think the former is the one which is easier. I might be wrong.


I remembered an incident recently. I bought a moleskine organizer for my work. I'm old school this way and prefer to write down my many appointments on paper. I've tried different sort of organizers, usually those hard cover ones where you can change the insides year after year. These are really more efficient and cost effective. But choosing a moleskine organiser is a want, definitely not a need. Any non-branded organizer will do the same job. I bought one, got addicted to the feeling of such organizers (it makes you want to write on it!), and got another. I remembered my first two purchases I've to check out different foreign websites to save a dollar or two, because they are so pretty but so costly! The second purchase is a limited edition "Little Prince" version, and I also have to think a few days over it, checking and rechecking the item.




The third purchase (above), which is for year 2016, is done very differently though. I looked at it, I liked it, and I bought it. That's it. Not a lot of thinking is involved, not a lot of comparison is done and definitely not a lot of unnecessary waiting. I see that non-hesitancy as a sort of progression for myself, where I stop worrying that I won't have enough money to last me the week or the month. Again, I stress that this isn't good for everyone but it's good for me. I need to learn to spend without worrying and that had always been a little problem for me.


Besides learning to let go of my mind regarding spending, I guess it's also about valuing my time more than money also. All of us had been poor students once and we had periods of our life where we really have more time than we have money. We all have gone to great lengths to save a few dollars or two. I had queued for guitar overnight to save about $600 bucks or so, but these are things I won't do again. Sleep is more important. Time is more important and I've blogged again and again regarding this theme of money and time.


But back to spending in a carefree manner again, I think this is also about growing bigger than your problem. When you grow sufficiently bigger than your problem, there is really no reason not to indulge in your wants responsibly. Maybe a little? If you did not do that, at least that's what I think, you're still bounded by money and hence, by my definition, you're still not financially free. Deep in your psyche, you're still a little poor student thinking that you don't have enough to spend, even though in reality, you have more than enough.


That, I think, only ranks slightly higher than thinking you have a lot when in fact you have very little. Why? Because in both cases, reality and mind are decoupled.

17 comments :

Createwealth8888 said...

Quote : "But back to spending in a carefree manner again, I think this is also about growing bigger than your problem. When you grow sufficiently bigger than your problem, there is really no reason not to indulge in your wants responsibly. Maybe a little? If you did not do that, at least that's what I think, you're still bounded by money and hence, by my definition, you're still not financially free. Deep in your psyche, you're still a little poor student thinking that you don't have enough to spend, even though in reality, you have more than enough."


So true! Wise words!

At the end of our life, we may leave behind too much money for others to spend carefree or careless. Why be so hard on ourselves when we are the one who actually earn these money? LOL!




JW said...

I was also about to point out the same paragraph as CW88!

I'm also getting more carefree... and sometimes careless... with $$ lol

Jon said...

What you have posted is so true!

We should create a term for people like you called "financially enlightened"

My 15HWW said...

Interesting.

Bought it on Groupon? And you use the daily or weekly version?

la papillion said...

Hi bro8888,

I think it's hard for pple to change lah. Imagine you live your live trying to save and save more money, and one day when you retire, you just can flip around and start spending. A lifetime of habits to get to where you are now cannot just be undone like that. Not easy!

la papillion said...

Hi JW,

Carefree is good, careless not so good! But like a bad trade, as long as the careless bit is less than x% of your income, should be fine. Might even be encouraged haha!

la papillion said...

Hi John smith,

Thanks man! Wouldn't be qualified to be financially enlightened. Haven't been there and done that yet lol

la papillion said...

Hi 15hww,

Not, bought it straight from Kinokuniya. I'm using the weekly one. When I meet you up, I can show you my system of recording that had worked very well for me. Maybe you can adopt some of my tried and tested system for yourself too!

JW said...

I think we all old liao hahaha

Let's meet up with 15hww during Christmas week?

Singapore Man of Leisure said...

LP,

It's a healthy phase and change for you and all of us.

Middle path :)

Babe In Total Control of Herself said...

This post resonates so much with me!

I spend every waking hour worrying that I spend too much when in fact I dont...Well...at least when compared to my peers.

So you bloggers do meetup! How about posting how you get to know each other? What common values do u all share...Would be an interesting read. :)

la papillion said...

Hi JW,

Sure! :)

la papillion said...

Hi SMOL,

I think it's a very healthy phase too! I'm pleased with the progression that I've made :)

la papillion said...

Hi B.I.T.C.H,

Glad you liked it! Haha, bloggers do meet up, just not often, and not in huge groups. Some of the best friends I had are from the same blogosphere too, so it's a place for people of the same interest to meet up.

Wah, your post challenge is hard to meet, haha! Cos there are so many of them and some might not want to reveal these kind of private details. Common value is easy though - we are share the same fire to progress in life. Not all is about reaching financial freedom, but I dare to say all is about being better today than yesterday.

Kevin said...

Heya,

From one notebook lover to another, I saw this Kickstarter-born notebook the other day which is much like a notebook on steroids!

Yes, it probably doesn't have as much character as a Moleskine but the practicality aspect is rather sweet as it addressed all of my "hmm-this-could-be-better" moments, just thought I'll share!

http://www.basicsproducts.com/pages/notebook

la papillion said...

Hi Kevin,

I saw this before on kickstarter! So did you back this up? I took a big leap to jump to Moleskine, not sure if I want to leap into this yet haha!

Thanks for sharing it with me :)

Kevin said...

Oh so you saw it! It was already too late when I got to know the project. Perhaps I will get one copy to try it out .. some time ;)