89. Lifestyle inflation

I love pizza.

If I didn’t put regulations for myself I would be ordering the cheesy goodness every night.

And this did happen- as soon as I started earning money.

Lifestyle inflation is something that occurs when your salary increases and you, therefore, believe you ‘deserve’ to be spending more.

Me, and my obsessive nature, believed I deserved quite a lot of rewards in the form of stuffed crust dominos.

Don’t get me wrong, celebrating is required every so often, but the key here is moderation.

Additionally, you need to work out if you are happy where you are.

The celebration comes towards the end of a project, goal, or achievement- if you are taking it before you aren’t promoting further development in yourself.

Every order I made, I was telling myself, ‘Well done Noah- you’ve made it’.

The trouble was I hadn’t- my lifestyle had inflated before I was ready to stop.

Upon understanding this I knew I had to sort my priorities out.

Whether you like it or not, money can be a vehicle to progress in learning, lifestyle, and habits.

I knew I couldn’t cash in all my chips already when I was not at the destination I wanted to be at- so I created a budget.

Automatic money to go out into investments, a set amount for books and learnings, then a certain amount for healthy hobbies- this replaced what I thought I deserved in rewards so I actually was spending less but feeling better.

Now doing this for a couple of months my money now works for me, I feel I grow in knowledge each day, and I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been.

What seems like restriction is actually freedom.

When you stop yourself ‘enjoying’ the money you’ve earned and you enable yourself to increase the ceiling by which you can be content- wealth is not the dictator to enjoyment but rather a tool to be used.

Look at your spending; has it been inflated, if so why, if not can you change your spending habits to work and develop yourself? Happy spending (but maybe not dominos every night;).