How to Feel Wealthy When you’re Not…
How well off you are is not just a matter of how much you earn. It’s also a matter of how much you spend and how good you are at budgeting and at saving. The point is, that even if you have a million dollars coming in every day, you won’t feel very well-off if you have $999,999 of overheads to pay every day as well. Sure, this might not be particularly likely, but you get the general idea – disposable income is more important than income when it comes to your lifestyle and your mood.
As such then, it should be possible to feel wealthier and to live an essentially ‘wealthy’ lifestyle, even if you don’t have that much of an income to boast about. Here we will look at how you can start living more of a wealthy life, even when you don’t feel particularly well off.
Cut the Boring Expenses
The first trick is to stop spending money on things that don’t really affect your lifestyle. That means your Netflix account might as well go (be honest, most of the videos are available on YouTube anyway), and your Spotify, and that you can spend less on clothes or on food. Food wise you can get a lot of the things you normally spend a lot of money on far more cheaply if you’re willing to buy unbranded items. Tesco’s Own versions of foods for instance generally taste the same, while discount stores such as Cost-Cutters can also provide a lot of your foods cheaply. Take advantage of bargains too, and consider buying in bulk to save more money in the long term. In terms of clothes – you can probably keep what you have a little longer, or get things that are just as nice looking second-hand.
By cutting these less exciting expenses you’ll then find you’re left with much more disposable income that you can in turn spend on things that do excite you. That might mean going on more holidays, it might mean buying an amazing super-computer, or it might mean buying a few amazing shirts for when you want to look smart.
And when it comes to buying these things that make you feel like you’ve got it made, another important tip is that generally ‘less is more’. In other words, if you buy lots of ornaments for your home then the average quality of those ornaments will be much lesser than if you had just one amazing centrepiece that you spent a little more money on.
Prioritise what you think will make you happiest and you’ll find that you live a much more comfortable and enjoyable lifestyle as a result.
Reduce Overheads
Likewise you should also reduce your other overheads wherever possible. These are often what eat up your income, and what make you feel stressed and poor. So perhaps moving to a smaller home or just searching around for a better energy deal could also help you to feel just that little bit better off and make life just that bit easier…
Save More
One of the other things that makes us feel better off is having more money in savings – the big number is always good for our mood, while it’s nice to think that we have a ‘buffer’ in case anything were ever to go wrong.
There are various ways to save more – simply writing and sticking to an effective budget being one the best – but what can also help is to simply make a small transfer every day. Every single day I will make a small transfer of anything between $3-$10 and while this might not seem like much, it certainly adds up over time. Even at the lowest number that’s still around $90 in a month which is a fair amount towards the overall savings.
Author Bio:
Jenny Wadlow, the author of this article, is a freelance blogger. She writes articles for Bentham IMF, a popular capital funding company. In her spare time, Jenny likes to work out at the gym or cook for her family.
Category: Family Finances
