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Last week, during one of my daily constitutionals, I had some great thoughts. First, I came up with a pithy way of describing the connection between wallet management and financial independence. Here it is.
Feed your desires, starve your savings. Starve your savings, kill any hopes of achieving financial independence.
Then I needed some pithy strategies to help one discipline one’s wallet and become less spendy. Here were great thoughts two and three.
In order to subdue your desire for stuff, you have to become expert at strategic ignorance. You see things you don’t have, you covet. You don’t see things you don’t have, you don’t covet.
Another way to subdue your desire for stuff is to become expert at strategic aloofness. In other words, you know your stuff is lame, but you don’t give a rat’s ass. You’re perfectly happy with shopworn or obsolete stuff.
Finally, I needed some ways to hone one’s strategic ignorance and strategic aloofness. Here’s what I came up with.
Strategic Ignorance
- Don’t watch television. Watch television and you’ll not only become familiar with the latest advances in consumer staples, you’ll also become familiar with the latest trends in fashion, entertainment, health, transportation, housing, and technology. Not good. Such knowledge will only make your life appear pathetic and you’ll invariably resort to retail therapy for a cure.
- Stay away from social media. You can’t compete with a crowd-sourced highlight reel. No matter how wonderful your life is, your highlights will look few in number and trivial in scope. Consume a lot of social media and two unfortunate things will happen. You’ll want things you never wanted, and you’ll want to do things you never wanted to do.
- Boycott the news. Walter Cronkite is surely rolling over in his grave. Sadly, “news” today—whether it’s the television, radio, print, or online variety—has devolved into a part-time public relations outlet for America’s celebrities. Again, not good. Nothing fuels our desire for stuff like a never-shuttered window to the fabulous lives of our fabulous celebrities. “Oh, look, J-Lo uses an Hermès Kelly bag to carry her workout gear. I gotta get one of those bags.”
Strategic Aloofness
- Find grounded friends. If your friends equate respectability with upscale clothes, restaurants, vacations, cars, schools, and zip codes, you’ll find it very difficult to be frugal. The pressure to be respectable—to have what your friends have and do what your friends are doing—will be unrelenting. If on the other hand, you have friends who are less showy and less inclined to think poorly of the materially challenged, you’ll have a better shot of respecting your wallet. Junior colleges, forlorn cars, and laminate countertops are far more acceptable to NASCAR fans than NPR fans. Choose your friends wisely.
- Move to a town or city where more grounded people reside. But what if your friends aren’t the problem? What if it’s your family, co-workers, and neighbors who are constantly making you question the adequacy of your stuff? Move. Toxic people (in the sense they pressure you to spend) are far less toxic when they’re hundreds of miles away.
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. It’s amazing what the brain can whip up during an hour’s walk in the great bucolic greenways of North Carolina. But what say you? Admittedly, I didn’t come up any novel ideas. But I did come up with a lot of pithiness, right? And how would you coach someone to increase his or her strategic ignorance and strategic aloofness? Did I miss anything? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.
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