Date: 4 October 2020 (while I am struggling to not spending Money on useless items)
If I have an infinite amount of money, I don’t need to spend less. But before I reach that level (just kidding for an infinite amount of money. But I can be rich enough to afford most of the things in the world), I need to spend less than I earned.
Delay Your Desire for One Month
I notice that the Desire to spend money is impulsive. If you try to write down the things you want to buy in a notebook, you will discover that after a month, you actually don’t want most of the things inside (if not all) that much. Therefore, I forced myself to delay my desire for one month.
Before, I talk about how difficult and torturing that is. I would like to distinguish desire and need. Desire is what you want but can be delayed. Need is something that cannot be delayed, such as seeing a doctor when you are sick.
Delaying my desire is extremely torturing, especially when you do have the money to purchase the things you want, for example, a new camera, watch, DJI Drones, etc. And we all have the tendency to persuade ourselves why we NEED those items. Actively fighting against your impulsive brain is difficult.
How to Fight Against Yourself
I have two ways to win the battle between my impulsive brain and logical brain.
First, when my mind is clear and logical, I will immediately transfer the money from my bank accounts to my brokerage accounts which make it more difficult for me to withdraw money to buy things. This is only effective if you have a low credit card limit. I set it at HKD 10,000 which is just enough for all my expenses. If I need to buy more stuff, I need to deposit money from my bank accounts. But my bank accounts do not have too much money now. Therefore, I cannot spend.
Second, I will tell my mum (you can replace with your girlfriends, wife, etc) that I decided to delay my impulsive buying for one month. By speaking it out loud and committing, the social pressure may outweigh your desire.
Results
For the long list of items I want to buy, I never bought one after a month. That’s understandable since my desire is just some chemical reactions in my brain. After a period of time, those reactions are weaker.
I hope one day I will become extremely rich LOL.
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