Lifestyle inflation is when we spend more money when our income increases. This can feel natural because the more we earn the more we can afford to spend. But this can make it very difficult to save for retirement or meet other financial goals. Lifestyle inflation is what causes many folks to get stuck in the rat race instead of being able to retire sooner. Here are some ideas to help curb lifestyle inflation when we get that big raise next time. 🙂
- Visualize the net amount of a raise after paying payroll and income tax.
- We don’t necessarily deserve nice things. But we deserve to be happy – which can be jeopardized if we overspend on nice things by sacrificing financial security.
- Hang out with friends who have similar spending habits to ourselves.
- Pay ourselves first. Set up an automatic transfer for a fixed amount of money from our bank account to an investment account every month.
- Define our goals and only spend new money if it will get us closer to those goals.
- Have inexpensive hobbies such as reading, blogging, hiking, playing music, and cooking.
- Realize that success doesn’t equate to material possessions. Better indicators of success are health, love, friends, family, and experiences. We should be happy with our quality of life without feeling the need to prove it to others.
Reaching a good balance of spending and saving is a personal journey for everyone. There are some people who save too much without enjoying life as it comes. There are others who impetuously spend too much without thinking of their future. Finding the sweet spot between the two extremes will bring us financial happiness. 🙂 Happiness is like peeing our pants. People around us can see it, but only we can truly feel the warmth of it. 😀 Live for today but don’t forget to plan for tomorrow.
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Random Useless Fact:
QiZai is the only giant brown panda in the world left. He is literally one of a kind.
Love this post! These are principles our family have always lived on. Thanks for sharing and refreshing them in our minds. 🙂 AFFJ
It’s good to have principles to follow. 🙂
What I prefer is to be extremely frugal about most things that I don’t really care about (e.g. ride generic car), but spend lavishly on a few select items which yield the most subjective pleasure (Mill’s Utility) compared to the money.
Maximize all the utils. 🙂 I’m usually frugal on most things, but the lavish spending I tend to do is on tissue paper lol.
Being frugal is a skill that not many have mastered. I just live vicariously through other’s wonderful food/activity/travel posts on social media. Of course, I’ll spend the money when I really want something… what’s the point of having a big account balance when you can’t enjoy the fruits of your savings!
Good thing we live in a country with a high degree of economic freedom. 🙂 I enjoy looking at my friend’s online posts too. Sometimes I feel like it’s not an accurate version of who they really are though. I’d be curious to see someone post all their experiences on social media – not only the wonderful and exciting stuff, but also the mundane things like putting socks on, washing dishes, etc. #nofilter
I’ll take exception to the “deserve to happy” line. We deserve nothing and the default state of life is certainly not happiness. Survival is of primary importance, and if happiness can be had along the way, then that’s certainly a lucky equilibrium.
If not happiness, is there anything else that people should deserve?
Taken to its logical conclusion, ‘deserve’ simply means being entitled to the resources of others…an inherently evil and destructive philosophy.