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Living Well - Beneath Your Means

We live in a world where young adults, who are still in school without any income of their own, are bombarded with weekly credit card offers, where people buy new homes that make them “house poor,” and where success is measured by the cars we drive and the clothes we wear. The result: more and more people drowning in debt, simply because they don’t know how to live beneath their means.

How can you learn to live beneath your means? Consider the following:

You do not own things, they own you

You know all those “things” you own? They break and need to be replaced. They run out of batteries. They need to be repaired. You have to store them and sometimes you have so many to store…well, you just need a bigger house. And talk about keeping up with the neighbors? Gets expensive, doesn’t it? How can this possibly make you happy?

Consider what you need vs. what you want and purchase only what you need (i.e., essentials, not nice-to-haves).

Small expenses add up

Keep track of what you spend your money on. Do you need to go out to lunch everyday or can you “brown bag” it and save? Do you really need a television in every room with all the cable channels, or would regular programming channels work out just as well? How about the 10 magazine subscriptions you have and re-order every year, even though you throw them out month after month, without reading them?

You’d be surprised at what you could save each month, and over the course of a year, if you track these expenses and then just cut them out.

Big expenses add up faster

Do you really need that expensive house in the ritzy part of town or will the more modest one in the “regular” neighborhood do just fine? How about that car? Mercedes (looks impressive) or Ford (gets you around just as well)?

No one is asking you to go on a “survival” diet – just to take a look at the “things” that are consuming all of your disposable income and weighing your wallet down. Do you want to be in constant debt or do you want to life freely, enjoying more of the simple life, with fewer money worries?

Sounds like a no-brainer, huh?