The big idea I’ve been working on is trying to take all of the financial advice I have and organizing it into some sort of framework that will benefit others. I’ve been calling what I’ve come up with Finding Margin. There’s four parts to Finding Margin: Building a life you want, controlling expenses, saving for the future, and extinguishing the cycle of debt.
I want to spend a little more time going over that first piece, Building a Life You Want. I think this concept is so important and I think it’s the key factor for using money in a way that helps you cultivate happiness, instead of chasing things that will never fulfill you.
The goal of our money is ultimately to support a life well lived. To do that, we need to control the way we use our money so that it supports us in responsible ways, but ultimately we have to be building the type of life we want to be living in the first place.
So what sort of things fit inside a life well lived?
Thankfully, it’s all of the things that are least affected by our paycheck.
A life well lived is filled with days where we enjoy what work we do day in and day out. A life well lived is having healthy relationships and enjoying the company of others. It’s maintaining a healthy body and moving to get those endorphins working for you. It’s having fulfilling hobbies and ways to enjoy spending your time in quality ways. It’s having a deeper purpose, or cultivating a deeper spiritual life. It’s in the balance you create in your day, where you ensure you have enough time to recharge in ways that make you feel better. It’s the rest you allow yourself to have and the way you work to take care of yourself.
Ultimately, these are the types of things that will create real happiness and a sense of purpose and fulfillment. And thankfully, assuming that you’ve established a baseline for your basic needs, money doesn’t factor into it.
But that doesn’t mean that finances aren’t important to get right, or that there is no room for your finances to create enjoyment, memories, and dare I say, happiness. But finances if played right, support this life that you’re crafting to be truly fulfilling. Having your finances in place helps you achieve these things.
I’ve identified three ways that money supports a life well lived.
The first way is using money as utility. Your money keeps your life running. Without it, the power doesn’t stay on, you don’t have a place to live, you don’t have money for food, and you can’t drive to work. Although some people might be perfectly content to live off the grid and go where the wind takes them, most of us want a dependable place to call home where we can feel safe and secure.
Money as a tool allows us to live out that life well lived. It’s why managing it is so important. Money might not make us happy if we have it, but it’s likely that we certainly won’t be happy if we have none of it.
The second way money supports our life well lived is by providing security through our savings. This is the financial peace element and it’s vital to feeling contentment. While having a gold vault like Scrooge McDuck might lose its luster after a while, having margin away from the financial edge and a retirement account provides peace in your financial situation.
Lastly, money supports the life well lived by providing novelty. Ultimately, your fulfillment will depend on how you feel about your day-to-day life. That’s where you live it. It’s on your regular Tuesday going to work and taking your kids to activities. However, our brain loves novelty, and experiencing it makes for a richer life.
That’s why traveling and experiencing new things, taking a vacation where you can get away, and eating good food feels so good. My favorite thing to do with my wife is still to enjoy great food at a new cool restaurant. Some people could care less, or may never feel like it’s worth the money, but we love it. We’ve always loved connecting over great food with a cool experience.
Eating out all the time won’t make you happy. It won’t make you forget that you’re unhappy at work. Going on a vacation won’t be enough time to relax to stop the feeling that you’re completely overextended with your commitments at home.
But if you’re building a life you want to live, using money to inject novelty in the way of experiences can certainly create happiness.
So focus first on building a life that you want to live. Then use your money to support that life in ways that make you happy.
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