Buy less stuff. Save more. Not a complicated plan, along the lines of: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Paul Graham posts excellent essays online. His latest is another good one – Stuff:
Companies that sell stuff have spent huge sums training us to think stuff is still valuable. But it would be closer to the truth to treat stuff as worthless. In fact, worse than worthless, because once you’ve accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way around.
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In industrialized countries the same thing happened with food in the middle of the twentieth century. As food got cheaper (or we got richer; they’re indistinguishable), eating too much started to be a bigger danger than eating too little. We’ve now reached that point with stuff. For most people, rich or poor, stuff has become a burden.
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In industrialized countries the same thing happened with food in the middle of the twentieth century. As food got cheaper (or we got richer; they’re indistinguishable), eating too much started to be a bigger danger than eating too little. We’ve now reached that point with stuff. For most people, rich or poor, stuff has become a burden.
Related: Saving for Retirement – Frugality Versus Better Returns – Real Free Credit Report – Our Policy is to Stick Our Heads in the Sand
Comments
5 Comments so far
I would say why Americans are going broke is pretty simple: they buy loads of stuff they can’t afford and don’t need…
Even if you do have the cash you should be building up a cash reserve before buying luxuries. The typical advice is to build up 6 months of expenses in cash…
nstead of allowing yourself to submit to this impulse you will put yourself in a better position if you refrain from trying to buy a sense of power…
“If I have the money and want to spend it, I can afford it. If I don’t have the money, I can’t afford it. I can just save until I can…”
Poor spending habits have been a problem for quite some time, the poor economy just is now focusing more people on those bad habits…