Tuesday Tip of the Week: June 13, 2017
Being a Minimalist
Happy Tuesday friends and welcome back to my tip of the week! Yesterday I discussed minimalism and great minds who adopted it as a lifestyle. Those great minds usually shunned the thought of wealth and focused on giving much of their wealth away. I will start off by saying: Please don’t give all your wealth away. For most of us, adopting the life of Albert Einstein is unrealistic. What we can do is take the core principles of those minimalistic great minds and apply them to their everyday life. In this post I will go over a few ways where you can cut back and live the minimalistic life, financially speaking of course.
1) De-Clutter Your Life
I try not to keep things for too long. I also try not to acquire useless crap. Despite this, I still find myself with too much stuff from time to time. When I reach that point I have a simple philosophy: “Purge baby, purge.” Get rid of all the extra crap. You wouldn’t believe it but I still find shirts from High School here and there. It might be a good idea to set a scheduled date every month where you can cleanse your life of the clutter. When you get really good at it, you won’t have to do it that often. The people at your local Salvation Army will greatly appreciate it as well.
2) Avoid the “Crap Acquisition Centers”
I honestly despise going into Wal-Mart. Besides the social and economic reasons for hating this place, the main reason is that it is full of useless crap. You walk into that place, with their school buses disguised as shopping carts, for toilet paper and walk out with $300 worth of junk. You get lured in with the promise of deals and leave spending far more than you intended. I can’t even think of anything I have gotten from Wal-Mart that has stood the test of time. That goes for clothes, gadgets, cookware, electronics and much more. What I am getting at is unless you need something that only they sell, avoid these places like the plague.
3) Minimalistic Financials
It should be everyone’s goal to have the most simplistic financial plan out there. What that means is cutting out the clutter and getting to the basics. The first step is eliminating bank fees if possible. Having ridicules “Super Saver” accounts often come at a cost. Chequing accounts should also be free. Talk to your banker about how you can achieve this. I have my bank that I deal with, and my investment company. That’s it! I know who to call if I need assistance and I don’t fall for the tricks. That Air Miles credit card sounds amazing doesn’t it? Well if it has a fee it sounds like a pile of steamy dog shit to me! Long story short, have a system that you follow and make sure it has as little to it as possible. The more stuff going on in your world of money usually means less money for you, believe me.
Being a minimalist isn’t for everyone. Being a hoarder shouldn’t be for anyone either. We all need to strive to get back to basics and get rid of the clutter in our lives. See that pile of clothes in the corner over there; yeah you know what to do. This goes for anything useless in your life including electronics, gadgets, knick-knacks, people, food, cars, pets, furniture, shoes, phones, toiletries, pictures, etc., etc., etc. Here is an exercise for you: Go into your closet right now and count all the items in there. If there are more items in your closet than dollars in your bank account you know what to do. Even the super-wealthy like Warren Buffet try to keep it as simple as possible. Don’t be afraid to declutter your life, it might be the best thing you can do.
Thanks for reading friends and tune in tomorrow for “Wednesday WTF,” my weekly rant on things that waste your time and money.
“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” – Lao Tzu
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Joseph James Francis is a Financial Advisor. You can find him on various social media platforms and at budgetboss.ca.