Spending vs investing

The self-discipline to build wealth is often equated to thrift. The golden rule being: spend less than you earn. As much as this is the tenet by which I live my life, I have to broaden the scope to include more context.

It is hard to build wealth. Not only do you need to earn money somehow, which is never easy, but you also have to not spend it. Of course, paying yourself first by investing is the name of the game, I feel we sometimes need reminding of the old standby:

Money is hard to get and easy to get rid of.

This not only includes daily, monthly and yearly spending habits, but it also includes money spending opportunities disguised as money "saving" opportunities.

For instance, you may go to the mall and see something "on sale" that you would like. You feel like you made a good decision because it was on sale, yet you probably shouldn't have bought it at all. This also applies to many things. In general, as you move about in the world somebody is always trying to sell you something. You must keep this in mind and remember to only part with your money when it gets you something valuable.

Money is a representation of an exchange in value. If you truly value something, then spending money to acquire it is a sane thing to do. But if you just want something , it does not mean it has value.

It has been said lately that things go down in value over time, but experiences go up in value. We tend to get bored with things we buy but tend to colour experiences positively as we reminisce about them. A good time gets better as it ages, like fine wine and my wife.

So it would make sense for us to really make sure we have our values defined before we embark on our wealth creation journey. A well-thought-out hierarchy of values is a solid foundation to make spending decisions going forward.

For instance - if you want financial freedom you need to figure out why you want it. If it is to have the freedom to do as you please with your time, then that is different than wanting to impress your friends. You can impress your friends by just racking up a pile of debt and having all the latest toys. I don't recommend this but to each his own. Time freedom would require a totally different strategy and habits.

It is far easier to stick to a budget if you have a large goal, backed by values to keep you on track. Giving your family a better life might be valuable enough to you to inspire you to tighten your belt about a few things. It is all a matter of focusing on what is truly most important to you. Like the sand vs. big rocks analogy.

Always seeking short term pleasure is another way to make sure you never align with your values. You may argue that short term pleasure and continuous dopamine hits are something that you value, but I rarely see this behaviour result in long term or lasting happiness. It tends to end up in addiction, poverty and frustration.

As I have talked about before, most things in this life that are truly worthwhile take a long time to create, are not cheap, and require effort. If you believe otherwise you have fallen victim to the myth that life is supposed to be easy and pain free. This is just not the nature of existence.

So not only do we want to manage our money based on math, but also on our very own personal values. We need to make our behaviours stem from our deepest desires, not our whimsical notions that come and go like the latest fashion trends. Our values are our foundation and we will have far more access to self-discipline when we stand upon our core beliefs.

Invest in yourself.

I wrote a book called invest in yourself where I suggest several ways to manage your money to maximize your returns and approach investing in unconventional ways. As helpful as this book was, I believe I forgot to include the very important difference between spending and investing.

For instance, you can spend time or invest time. You can spend time playing video games which leaves you with nothing at the end except less time. If you invest your time, it is time you spend improving yourself so in the end you have more potential value. Working out at the gym is an investment of time. Reading and learning is an investment of time. Watching TV is just spending time because you did not grow, and I believe you are either growing or dying - there is no staying the same.

Investing in yourself means improving your skills, knowledge or status. If you learn to do highly valued things, people will compensate you greatly for those skills. The only difference between you and a billionaire is that they know something you don't. It is that simple. You spending time and effort to learn those unknown things is an investment because you are coming out the other side with more earning potential - or in other words, you are more valuable. You only earn money in direct proportion to the scale of your value to the marketplace.

Investing your money means spending it on something that will create value. Investing it in companies that provide value is adding value by proxy. You often can receive value in return because of this. Investing your money in education for yourself makes you more valuable. This creates value and it should be returned to you in the form of money, status or respect.

So always keep in mind the difference between spending and investing. Are you adding value or not? Are you creating or consuming? Which do you think aligns with your values? Money either grows or dies as well. Spending money is a path to zero, while investing money is a path to infinity. Which will you choose?