Steven here from munny.club, a weekly newsletter where I share a different perspective on personal finance concepts. If this doesn't interest you or you don't find it valuable, you can unsubscribe at the bottom of this email. If you have feedback, just shoot me a reply!
You learn a lot about tradeoffs working as a strategist. Companies and products usually succeed not just because of what they do, but because of every thing they are willing to say no to. Everything they reject enables them to double down on the things that help them be better.
The companies and products that try to do a little bit of everything for everyone fail to become anything.
It's important to be strategic when spending your money (the best part about having any to be honest). While you could spend a lot of money on everything in your life, where you will find the most value is doubling down on the most important things in your life and cutting back on everything else.
Let's walk through an example
I like to spend my money on books and bubble tea. These are inexpensive examples, but I also buy upwards of 100 books a year and drink bubble tea a few times a week. It gets costly. So what am I trading off to allow this?
I don't drink which means I save money on alcohol, where most people spend a lot
I cook most of our meals each night (not the bbt of course)
My hobbies outside of exercise are reading and gaming, both of which are fairly low-cost in the long run, but are also where I'm willing to spend big
I don't shop much. My clothes-buying habits are pretty limited.
We live downtown(ish) so we walk/bike/scoot everywhere and don't own a car.
It's hard to list all of the tradeoffs because most things that are regular expenses, I don't spend much money on.
What do you splurge on?
It's not important what your splurges are. It's important to recognize you can't splurge on them all, and not just for financial reasons. Making tradeoffs allows you to get even better experiences out of things you truly love. Why spend money on something personally unimportant to you? It's not about being cheap. Not everyone can spend a lot on everything in their life, but by making conscious decisions and tradeoffs, you can spend big on the stuff that matters. For me, that just happens to be ordering delivery bubble tea and reading.
Okay, and my new gaming computer.
What’s your splurge and what are you willing to tradeoff to get it?
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Reply to this email or leave a comment. Tell me what money things you have on your mind.
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