Bizonkulous

I am not afraid to admit that I’m a huge tightwad.  I really dislike spending money, and saving is really important to me.  There are a few reasons for this, but I can boil it down to two.

1.  I want to be financially secure and comfortable.  Save as much as you can while you have the opportunity – later on you may not be so fortunate.  And if you are, then you’ll have even less to worry about in the money department.

2.  I strongly believe that a lower consumption rate is important on many levels – environmental (buying less stuff means creating less waste), aesthetic (I prefer a minimalist style), and practical (buying less stuff means less clutter in my home) to name a few.  Basically I prefer owning a few things, but things that have a strong positive impact on my quality of life, over a ton of useless gadgets.

So my overall approach boils down to:  Buy less stuff.

I have two main strategies that I use for this approach, and one of them is the waiting list.  If there’s anything that I want to buy that isn’t strictly a necessity (food) then it goes on a waiting list.  Usually it’s 30 days.  When the waiting period is up, if I still want it, I buy it.  Sometimes there are exceptions – for example, my snowboard was stolen a couple weeks ago and I don’t need to wait 30 days to know that I want another snowboard.  For some other things like a new bike, the waiting period might be longer since I can’t save up enough for a new bike in 30 days.

I’m not perfect, last month I did go clothes shopping on a whim, but overall, this keeps impulse buys way down and saves me a lot of money.  Part of it’s that half the time I decide not to buy whatever it is, and part of it is that I have to wait till I have enough money, so I don’t accumulate credit card debt.  It’s a pretty good system for me.