Month: March 2017

Minimalism

One peculiar aspect of being in college is that I essentially have two homes. While I spend the vast majority of every year living at school in Dallas, I always have my room at my parents’ house in Minnesota to go back to every winter break.

Fulfilling the American stereotype, I have plenty of stuff in each home. A dresser and a closet full of clothes both here and there. Two beds. Two book collections. Multiple guitars at each location.

While this two-room setup is convenient, it’s also ridiculously inefficient. There is no reason for me to own a room full of material possessions that sit and do nothing for 11 out of 12 months. Especially considering that there are people in Minnesota, and probably in my own community who would benefit greatly from owning my spare clothes/bed/blankets, etc.

It also occurred to me that I did not miss a single thing in my old room at my parents’ house. My life was great without those items, and if I had come back and my room had been empty, I couldn’t have named any of the things that were in it.

This made me take a step back and look at the things that I owned, both at school and at my parents’ house. What did I actually use? What added value to my life? Even in my closet at school, I had worn maybe half of the clothes in the past year. Why did I own things I didn’t use?

So I started learning about minimalism. I stumbled upon two guys called The Minimalists, and started listening to their podcast. Their message made a lot of sense to me. They outline many ways that owning and consuming less can add value to your life, but here are the biggest ones that I have experienced:

No. 1: Money. You can save a ton of money by living a minimalist lifestyle. Living in a smaller apartment or house, driving a smaller car or no car at all, not buying that 12th pair of shoes. Being more conscious of what you consume can lead to lots of extra cash. You can use that cash to purchase more of your life, since money is time, or purchase experiences (which have been proven to make you happier than material things).

No. 2: Flexibility. Since I don’t own very many things, it will be easier for me to move from place to place. Being in college, I will most likely do a lot of moving over the next few years. I want to live and work all over the country and the world, which is easier with less stuff. I also love traveling, and it’s much easier (and cheaper) to travel with less stuff.

No. 3: Health. A year ago I started eating a plant-based diet, and have never felt healthier or looked better. Eating plants instead of meat considerably reduces the amount of the earth’s resources you need to feed yourself, as well as reduces your risk for lots of not-so-fun stuff like cancer and heart disease. If you are not ready to go vegetarian just yet, simply reducing the amount of red meat you consume can make a difference. (It’s also less expensive to eat a plant-based diet, blog post on that coming soon!)

No. 4: Stress. We only have so much mental power to make decisions in a day. Opening your closet and being confronted with picking which of your 80 shirts you are going to wear is stressful. I have a few go-to outfits, and cycle through those for work. It also takes less time, and lets me sleep in more 🙂

No. 5: Happiness. When you’re not looking forward to that new shiny thing, it makes you stop and appreciate what you do have. Being able to look at a fancy car and think “My life is great without that” is much more satisfying than thinking “I need that, but I can’t buy it. Life sucks.” I also find a lot of joy in donating my things, knowing that it might help someone out. That makes me a lot happier than anything would just sitting in my closet not being used.

And really, that’s all anyone wants, is to be happy. Stuff does not make people happy. So being able to pay less attention to stuff will allow you to pay more attention to what does make you happy. #MoneyGoals

 

If any of this sounds interesting to you, I would highly recommend checking out The Minimalists’ documentary on Netflix. Here’s the trailer:

 

 

Money is Time

“Time is money.” We’ve all heard this phrase, and as a cliché it’s all but lost its meaning. But it’s true!

Just think, how did most of the money that you have ever had in your life get to you? Yes, you probably received some gifts, maybe a scholarship, or an inheritance even. But the vast majority of the money that comes to you is probably coming from your job. No matter who you are or what kind of job you have, a job is simply a tool that converts your time into a good or service, that you are then given money for. Therefore, money is just a measure of the amount of time you have put in.

Say I make $10 per hour, and I want to buy a new bike that costs $300. That bike costs 30 hours of my time. Easy enough right?

I was thinking about this concept while standing on a sidewalk in downtown Dallas yesterday at 5 pm, waiting for the bus to take me home. I watched an unusual amount of new fancy cars thunder past me. Mercedes, Range Rovers, Jaguars, and a Maserati. Each contained exactly one person, a business man or woman speeding home.

Let’s say for easy math, a new Range Rover costs $100,000 (actual price is pretty close, not bad!) and our luxurious businessperson makes $150,000 per year, or $75 per hour (which would almost put them in the top 5% of earners in the US).

This means that their Range Rover costs 1,333 hours of their time just to purchase, not counting gas, maintenance, or insurance.

1,333 hours. 

I wonder if the people who buy these cars would make the same decision if the purchase was presented to them in hours instead of dollars and cents. “Ma’am, this vehicle is the top of the line in luxury products, and you only have to spend 1,333 hours away from your friends, family, and hobbies” No thanks!

What’s more concerning is people who don’t make that much per hour, and then buy a fancy car with a loan. If you’re making $15 an hour and take on debt to buy a $30,000 car, then you’re signing away a future 2,000 hours of your time (most likely more due to interest). You are now chained to that car payment, it owns you.

The next time you make a major purchase, think about the time that it costs, not the amount of money. Is the time that you could spend doing *insert thing you love doing* worth giving up for *insert purchase*?

And if you decide to save the money, be sure to invest it and make that retirement account grow! #MoneyGoals

Why Health > Wealth


Last year, I got to meet and take a picture with one of the richest men in the world. His name is Steve Schwarzman, and he is the CEO and founder of Blackstone Group. According to Forbes, he is worth 11.5 billion dollars. Here’s a picture of us hanging out in our pajamas.

Mr. Schwarzman is wildly successful in the business world, and has more money than I could ever dream of having, yet I do not envy him. He doesn’t appear to be the most healthy dude in the world, sporting a solid gut and moving around pretty slowly. I would have been surprised if someone told me he had exercised once in the last five years. When I met him, I thought that he must have been something like 80 years old. Turns out he was 69 at the time.

Contrast Mr. Schwarzman with my Grandma, who just turned 80. She goes on regular walks around her neighborhood, and has logged over 3,300 workouts at her local gym over the past 11 years.

Grandma is not a billionaire, and not a millionaire. But she’s got enough money to live comfortably. Most importantly, she is healthy and happy. She is a spunky 80-year-old who will zip around her house in excitement whenever she has people over for dinner, and she doesn’t hesitate to dance with her great-grandchildren.

While I do focus on money quite a bit, I strive to be more like my Grandma and less like Mr. Schwarzman. I want to still be riding my bike and eating healthy well into my old age. I want to hike up mountains when I’m 80 years old, still be able to dance when I’m 100. With a lifetime of good habits and advancements in medical technology, there’s no reason I shouldn’t live to be 120 (can you imagine the compounded returns?).

At the end of the day (and at the end of your life), the numbers in your bank account won’t mean anything. Your ability to still move around and enjoy life will definitely be more valuable. The extra years or decades added on to your lifespan that you get to spend with family and friends will outweigh any amount of money, and that’s why health is more important than wealth. #MoneyGoals

#MoneyGoals Ways to Save No. 1: Drink Water

Nearly half of Americans drink a soda (or pop for my Minnesota friends) daily. That blows my mind. As a country, we collectively spend $65 billion every year on artificially-colored sugar water. For the privilege of consuming a substance that rots our teeth, dehydrates us, and increases risk of obesity, diabetes, liver disease, we spend $850 per household annually.

Again, even if we completely ignore the health consequences, it still doesn’t make sense to waste $850 every year on something that unnecessary. Say that household invests that $850 per year for 18 years, building up a college fund for a kid. It would end up being $30,922.12, also known as a large chunk of college expenses.

Contrast this with the extra-low discount price of tap water at $0.004 per gallon, which is about as close to free as it gets, and you can see why it doesn’t make any sense to buy your drinks. This includes bottled water, which can be 300-2000x more expensive than tap water, not to mention creates needless plastic waste.

As a logical person, I have never understood why anyone would pay more for something that was less healthy. Drink water, save money, feel better, look better. #MoneyGoals

 

(Pictured: Some friends and I enjoying some free water. Austin, Texas July 2016)