Live Like No One Else
Welcome to Young and Frugal! If you like what you see please consider joining the 300+ other subscribers by subscribing via RSS feed or E-mail. Thanks for visiting!
In school my favorite professor would always preach “live like no one else now, so that you can live like no one else later,” this phrase seemed to always get lost amongst a crowd of in the now college students, but he kept saying it with the true heartfelt emphasis of a teacher who really loved his students. In a moment of self reflection today I looked back and remembered this and it was as if the dots all connected.
While this phrase can be applied to almost any aspect of life, it really hits home on the financial front. Think about what it would mean to live like no one else (mainly your peers) now, foregoing the huge flat panel TV with hundreds of HD channels, foregoing the new car, or the big house, and just being content with what you have. Living like no one else now inevitably means spending less money, and saving a lot more money. Saving now by building a solid base for retirement and an emergency fund, means that later on in life your savings will be exponentially larger thanks to the power of compounding interest.
In a nutshell, by foregoing your wants now, you will have more for your wants later; but on a more interesting front, I’ve found that if you forgo your wants now, your desire to have that product will continue to decrease until you are glad that you didn’t purchase it. This happened to me last year around Christmas when I really wanted a BMW, and was even in negotiations with a dealership to purchase one. The time came to pull the trigger and I got cold feet. For the next few months I looked back wishing I would have done it, but now, I’m glad I didn’t. Because of this decision, we don’t have a higher car payment, our insurance isn’t higher, we have better gas mileage and we are saving more money for our future.
Live like no one else now, so that you can live like no one else later.
Popularity: 27% [?]
No related posts.
December 25th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Dave Ramsey 101. I love it!
December 30th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Daniel,
I’ve experienced the same thing in regards to your BMW example. Because of that, I use time as one of the indicators to whether I really need something or not. If after a few months I find myself still thinking about an item then I know it may make sense to look into it more.
January 9th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
[...] this is another case of how the whole herd of sheep follows each other, and does not dare to be different or step out of the comfort [...]
January 11th, 2010 at 3:11 am
I haven’t heard it in those words, but I’ve heard the analogy before in many different ways. It’s pretty tough not buying that BMW huh? As a 23 year old it’s hard to imagine life 10 or even 20 years from now (I was 13 10 years ago… odd), but I know it will eventually come. It’s nice to have the foresight to plan in advance so there will be less worries in the future and the ability to reap what I sow.