Spending Less Will Always Make You More

Mindset is key.

Everyone wants more money. Piles of cash, pools of dirty bills, riches beyond our wildest dreams, all these things sound appealing, right? (Maybe not the pools…ew.) The fact is, more is desirable, but how do we get more? 

There are lots of ways to make a little extra cash - side hustles, part-time jobs, passive income - however, there’s an easier, less known way... 

No matter your income, you will always make more money when you spend less.

No, Stacy, I’m not high. Allow me to explain.

We are interesting creatures, us humans, and our world has evolved over time to be structured around a key central tenet that drives much of our behaviour. That central tenet is: spending money. 

I hate to break it to you, but welcome to capitalism. 

Image from this YES! magazine article.

And yes, of course, there are many things that inspire and influence us beyond this central tenet. Art, music, religion, community, family, friendship - all these things have an overwhelming impact on our lives. And, sure, at one point our societies were more structured around these things, but nothing has captured our attention or influenced our behaviour quite like the requirement to spend money.

That’s How It’s Designed, Babe

Living isn’t free (unfortunately). The way our world works is that we need money to live. For many of us, that means we work jobs that we enjoy, enjoy less so, and/or despise altogether in order to exist.

There are definite downsides to our capital driven world. (It’s been kinda warm outside recently, yeah know?) But for our purposes, the point is that the world is structured in such a way that requires us to accumulate resources and then spend them to live. 

And here’s the kicker, everything around us is designed to part us with our money (I work in marketing, I should know). It's baked into everything we do. Sometimes we can tell we're being sold a product, and sometimes the “sell” is so seamless that we practically want to bend over backwards to give a person, company or organization our money. And because the system is designed this way, we’re trained to fork over wads of cash for things we don’t really need without a thought.

Ahhh not thinking. If I had a dollar for every mindlessly purchased item, I would be retired, living on an island, feeding my cows macadamia nuts and beer.

However, a clever little loophole is that we get to decide what we do with our money. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a plea to get everyone to stop spending money. There are tools, assets, and items that bring us immense joy and facilitate the kind of lives that we ultimately want to live. The trick is being aware enough to understand our needs, what tradeoffs we’re willing to make for our wants, and suss out when we’re being suckered into purchasing things that are of low value to us.

In a world designed to part us with our cash, developing awareness of our relationship with money is key. Recently, I started to reflect on my own awareness and how my mindset influences my goals.

A Spending VS Wealthy Mentality

Currently, I’m not a wealthy human, far from it in fact. I am, however, slowly moving towards my goal of becoming financially independent, albeit in a less conventional way. What’s been a game changer for me is how I’ve come to understand what being wealthy really means.

Through my wanderings and ponderings, I’ve read a good amount of resources that deal with money, and my favourite view on financial independence is by Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money. To Morgan, “[t]he ability to do what we want, when we want, with who we want, for as long as we want, is the ultimate freedom that money can offer.” 

The idea of becoming truly financially independent is tricky in a world that all but requires us to spend money at every opportunity. From this starting position, financial independence seems like a dreamy mirage.

Arguably, keeping individuals in a state of financial dependence - having a job that supports the purchasing of larger and larger assets - is the goal. And along with this dependence comes a “spending mentality,” where we are urged to buy, collect and have more things.

A “wealthy mentality,” on the other hand, is really all about spending less than you make, saving and investing a good portion of the surplus, and being aware of your behaviour so you don’t end up losing your savings on risky investments, purchases, schemes, or whatever.

These are two very different approaches and mindsets. And transitioning from one to the other is incredibly challenging for us to wrap our heads around (lord knows it was for me).

Spending Less = Getting A Raise

The reason why I dove into talking about jimbo-jambo stuff like one’s mentality before diving into the meat and potatoes of making more money by spending less is because our mentality drives our behaviour. You can’t give yourself a raise by spending less unless you understand and believe that it’s in your best interest to do so. 

As mentioned, we all want more money. Oftentimes to make more money, we need to invest heavily in whatever we’re doing - whether that’s in our jobs or businesses to demonstrate promotion potential or acquire new customers. It often takes a lot of energy and effort without the promise that the thing we hope happens actually happens. You could be slaving away for years to try to make your income expand without the guarantee that it actually will.

But here’s the thing, the easiest and most guaranteed way to make more money is to actually spend less. It’s that simple. 

When I say “make more money” what I actually mean is having access to more available cash. You’re *technically* not getting a raise, but when you spend less, you have more available money to do with what you please.

For me, by spending less I *make* way more than I would otherwise. And to make it personal, I’ve started to look at the money I’m not spending as a tool for my future. 

By adjusting my mindset, and understanding that the money I save is to support my future self, the sacrifices are made a little bit easier. Personally, I’d rather struggle a little now than retire poorer than I’d like. 

And yes, everyone has their own financial considerations. But I’m here to tell you that you can shift your mindset and give yourself a raise. The future that you want is possible. 

Let’s make those dreamy mirages come true.

As always, we’ve got this!