I DON’T believe in living below your means. 

I DON’T believe in living below your means. 

I DON’T believe in budgetting.

What I DO believe in is living with what’s available to me right now. 

If what I want to enjoy right now in the Moment is WITHIN my means not necessarily below it, I am going for it and getting it. 

LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO LIVE BELOW ANYTHING. 

Life is too short to postpone joy, pleasure and enjoyment. 

Why deprive ourselves from joy and feel good moments?

Don’t get me wrong….Balance is good! YES. Invest and save money. I pay myself first with investment. Everything else is enjoyed without restrictions. I refuse to live a life of restrictions, I refuse to dwell on small decisions like getting a cup of coffee. 

I refuse to live with a tight fist. 

I also think we need to be vigilant about investment culture. I might sound hypocritical because I invest money in mutual funds. I invest in Vanguard’s index fund. But hear me out…

Something is off about withholding enjoying your life in the name of retirement.

Something is off about denying yourself a pair of shoes you really want because you are putting all your money in vanguard, Fidelity and all its cousins while leaving your present self, who you are right now nothing to enjoy.  

Something is off about working your butt off until you are 65 and depriving yourself of enjoying your money. Waiting to finally get to enjoy life. That is if you have the energy to do that by then. I heard stories of people who did this and never even lived to see the retirement.

Something is off about being too frugal and starving yourself in the present. I heard a story about a millionaire who was homeless. He didn’t believe the money he had was his to enjoy. You teach yourself how to treat you. Wealth and abundance is a FEELING. Teach yourself to feel it with the little you have or the many you have.

Something is off about having fat figures invested but deliberating on a the price of a cup of coffee. Energy flows where your attention goes. Can you imagine the mental energy leakage of deliberating a $4 coffee?…Time is money, and energy is currency. I don’t have 10mins to go back and forth on small change. I’d rather use that energy on bigger decisions.

Something is off about over-saving for a future and romanticizing the numbers while depriving yourself of a much needed trip or vacation. It looks nice to see the figures go up or stay the same but it becomes problematic when withdrawing money induces anxiety within you. I think this is something that should be brought up in therapy because that money you are piling up and not spending any on enjoying yourself for what? just why?. Don’t you want to see the world? It’s time to go to therapy and uncover that feeling. Our upbringing about money shows up in these behaviours.

Something is off about investing from a place of fear or scarcity. From a place of not feeling enough or worthy of enjoying all that you’ve worked hard for and so you defer your joy in the disguise of investing. I don’t know what brought you down to this place of fear. Perhaps you’ve lost it all before and you are doing everything you can to avoid going back to that hole. The truth is that, if the fear still exists within you, it will never set you free. It will bring you back to where you were until you face the fear and challenge it. Here is the mindset I am offering; “I am not afraid of losing money because there will always be money available for me to enjoy”.. 

YES invest for your future self, I’m all for it and I support it. But life is about balance. Don’t forget to live for your present self too. Life is now. When the future you are over-saving and over investing comes, it will also happen in the NOW. If you don’t know what it feels like to enjoy your money now, you won’t allow yourself enjoy it then. 

Don’t forget that you deserve to treat yourself to something nice. 

Don’t forget that you deserve to enjoy what you’ve worked hard for while you still have life flowing through this meat suit keeping you alive in this dimension. 

I value enjoying life in the moment more than counting coins. I value feeling abundant like money flows to me all the time . Even when I find myself broke in the bank account; I notice that money is always available to me to enjoy somehow. One time I had $15 in my acct. I spent it on enjoyment. I wanted subway sandwich and a cookie. I went ahead to spend my last dime on it. And I enjoyed my meal with the conviction that tomorrow will take care of itself. The next day a friend zelled me $50 without me asking. She felt led to give. The money was quickly replaced.

The following year financial abundance found me. I was in the 6 figures. I did not stop enjoying what I had when it was little; now I have bigger figures to continue the enjoyment.  The only thing I didn’t do then was investing money to maintain the enjoyment which is why I do that now. And if anything happens to the investment; I’d still enjoy life with what I got. Life always has a way of providing. It’s important to me that I remember that  I ENJOYED MY LIFE on day I take that last breath.

All of this with the exception of being in debt of course. I understand that if you find yourself in debt, you’d feel the need to cut back on enjoyment to get out of it. Debt is the one reason why people feel financially stuck. I personally don’t play with debt. I avoid it like a plague to begin with. What is within my means is what I have. 

My Nigerian culture instilled in me to enjoy what I have not what does not belong to me.

Here’s what I’m offering; gradually pay it off but still put money aside for enjoyment. Teach yourself that you deserve joy and enjoyment even with debt. Teach yourself that you are not only capable of getting out of it, you are also capable of creating a life that is abundant. An abundant life that is not defined by temporary circumstances. You got this 🙂