Are you living the life you want to right now?

I’m already living the life I want

Sure, I have bumps in the road along the way, with not getting any income for months, and having to watch my expenditures, but I just take that free benched time to get other things done.

Or I’d like to be an American citizen living in Dallas right now and working, but that’ll come eventually — it’s in my life plan.

I just have to be patient.

People have told me to my face that my lifestyle is impossible

When others come over to my small studio apartment, ask me what films I’ve seen in the cinema or what restaurants I’ve been to recently, they find out pretty quickly that I don’t like going to the cinema and I don’t eat out — I cook at home most of the time.

That I’ll never keep up on it, and it’s just a phase.

That when I have kids, I am going to want a huge McMansion, private school tuition and all of the fancy trappings like them.

But I don’t think so.

I may want the best, but if I can’t afford it, I am not going to kill myself to give them something I don’t think is necessarily better.

A huge McMansion? Why? I grew up in a medium-sized home and turned out fine.

BF grew up in a small studio apartment with 2 siblings and turned out fine.

Sure, it was cramped and they occasionally had fights about space, but it just made them learn how to get along with each other, instead of having to intercom each other from their bedrooms.

It’s not even a question of money most of the time

My family thinks I’m such a hippie weirdo for sleeping on a futon on the floor, and I’ll bet it crossed their mind at least ONCE that they think I am too cheap to spring for a bed.

But they don’t understand that even if you gave me a choice between a bed and a futon, both free, no strings attached, I’d take the futon.

It’s my lifestyle.

It’s more of a question of lower expenses

With low expenses, you can live on what you earn and save, for much longer.

It’s just basic rationality.

If you only spend $1000 a month, and earn $4000 a month, then $3000 goes into savings, and is equivalent to 3 months of living.

But if you spend $3500 a month, and only save $500 a month, that’s less than half a month, and would take you 7 months to save for one emergency month.

For me, the biggest impact over a certain salaried threshold, is not so much earning more money, but watching your expenditures.

It isn’t worth it to me, to give up my life like a slave to work for money.

Money ends up controlling you and your life.

With lower expenses, you can also save more, and do more of the things you want with the free time you have.

Like travel (something I love to do).

There’s no need to always spend your money buying things.

Experiences are worth so much more because you can’t just buy a memory.

So, are you living the life you want?

This is how I started thinking about it.

Make a list of everything you think you want or need to make your life perfect.

It looked something like:

• Pay off debt
• Go on vacation
• Change jobs
• Buy that set of cooking pans

Those are all attainable goals.

I set up plans for each, after prioritizing the items, and started working towards the goal.

I just feel like if we made lists more often and analyzed what made us unhappy, and set a plan to go about fixing it, it would be easier to see the forest for the trees.

 

http://www.everydayminimalist.com/?p=990