Learning how to save money is the first pillar of my personal philosophy. You cannot build wealth without saving money and consciously avoiding the traps of consumerism.
Society wants you to be poor. Poverty forces you to engage in activities you don’t want to do in order to meet your basic needs. This stifles your creativity and prevents you from living a life you love.
Saving is the most important financial trait at the beginning of your journey. Knowing how to discern value and avoid overspending gives you the freedom to save for the future. These savings improve your resistance to catastrophe and resolve problems in your life in the short term.
Once a reasonable level of saving is achieved, you unlock the ability to use your money for investment. I discuss this in detail in my Investing Series.
Whether you invest in your skills or into financial assets, your money begins to change form. Saving allows your money to change from a resource to be hoarded, into an asset you can invest and grow.
To those pursuing Financial Independence Retire Early, saving is the easiest lever to pull to get started on the journey. A keen focus on intentionally reducing spending gives you the resources to pay down debt, reduce your outflows, and create a pathway to financial investments. Saving starts the snowball of wealth accumulation that allows you to create the life you desire, and Choose Work You Love.
Below is every article in my Saving Series:
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Modern Day Slavery
Modern society affords us benefits that our ancestors could only dream of. Yet it seems that as a society, we are more unhappy than ever. Why is this?
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The Twofold Effect Of Saving
Saving money is essential to grow and survive in the world. But do you know about the two key benefits of saving money?
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Reduce Your Consumption (of Money & Time)
Modern society makes it easy for us to spend our money. But in order to save our money and time, we need to reduce our consumption.
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Increase Your Self-Reliance
We rely on many things in our lives. But I believe that this comes at a cost of our self-reliance – a skill that has suffered greatly in the modern age.
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The Hedonic Treadmill & The Pursuit of More
Earning money and spending money go hand in hand. Money comes in, money goes out. For some people, spending money becomes such a huge part of their lives that they become trapped on the Hedonic Treadmill.
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Run Your Life Like a Business
It’s easy to live life on auto-pilot, going with the flow with a “whatever happens, happens” approach. But it’s possible to take matters into your own hands by running your life like a business.
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How Society Destroys Your Wealth
Spending is the primary method of solving problems in modern society. But many of the methods corporations use to get you to spend your money are the same ways in which society destroys your wealth.
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Mastering Compound Interest
Interest is everywhere in our society – from savings account deposits to credit card loans. And almost all of them are affected by compound interest. But what exactly is compound interest?
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Minimise Future Financial Catastrophe
Throughout our lives, we all encounter difficulty and hardship. That hardship can be made easier or more difficult based on how thoroughly we prepare for it. By proactively saving money, we can minimise future financial catastrophe.
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Create a Path to Financial Investing
You’ve paid off debt, built a healthy relationship with spending, and run your life like a business. You’ve created a path to financial investing. And it’s time to put the money to work.
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The Psychology of “Enough”
Excessive spending makes it difficult to build wealth. You can combat this by carefully limiting your spending and understanding the psychology of “enough”.
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Bad Luck & Playing Life on “Hard Mode”
Everyone is on their own journey through life. Some have it easy. Others suffer from bad luck. But what can we do about bad luck?
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Reconciling With Past Mistakes
We all make mistakes. But reconciling with past mistakes allows you to learn from them, overcome them, and do better in the future.
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