JUST SHARING - Fixing Sucky Spenders, Part 1, We help you to set realistic goals and accompany you through the journey to your destination. We have a lot of different topic, I hope this article about Fixing Sucky Spenders, Part 1 will be helpful.

How to Dial Down Spending on "Stuff"

During my life, I’ve lived overseas a couple of times. The first time was in Russia, where I lived two years, a country that I’ve found most people in the U.S. consider completely “bass-ackwards.” I agreed with the assessment for a while… until I saw the truth.

The second place was Belgium, where I lived for just three months. It’s a country few I’ve met know much of anything about, but nobody I’ve met sees it as necessarily “backwards.” After all, it is the capitol of Europe.

In both places, I visited lots of people’s homes. In doing so, one huge lifestyle differential quickly dawned on me which separates the average person in the U.S. from those in other places in the world.

That differential was “stuff.” I define “stuff” as, “the amount of crap that a person tends to accumulate in their home before they go crazy and thereby realize the stupidity of their ways.” For a better understanding, click to enlarge the photo at the right.

In the average living accommodations of both places abroad, you’d be stupid to accumulate stuff. In Russia, for example, most people have just a small apartment. I’m talking 500 square feet or less of space. And in many cases, it’s just a one-room rental deal. If it’s a house, it’s the same size, slightly variable up or down, and would have a small fenced area we in the U.S. would know as a yard, but in Russia this tends to be just plain dirt, or something useful like a garden.

Once when I hadn’t been in Russia long, I was asked to help someone move. I expected them to have a U-haul-like vehicle. Heck no. One box each for five people, and a small couch, crammed into a small car. It was, in a word, ideal.

Belgium was actually very similar with one exception. The apartments and houses tended to be only slightly larger (with the exception of my own, which I swear must have been around 200 sq ft), and they were in better condition, probably because they had been built sometime within the last fifty years, unlike in Russia.

Here’s my point: when you’ve got only a small space, you don’t have much room for nonsense. Regardless of what we think here in the U.S. of A., this is a good thing. Those Russians have the necessities of life, kept orderly in their homes, with some miscellaneous stuff stored in some closets, and that’s it. They’re awesome at maximizing the space, and their meager belongings keep them company nicely.

So I have to ask: Why, in my own country, do we have so much “Stuff” in our homes? Is it just because we have space? Or is there some other reason beyond this?

I submit that space is part of the problem—for some reason, our psyche tells us that an empty space must be filled, so we proceed to buy some junk to put in it. But I think the problem runs even deeper.

In this country, we buy and accumulate things we simply don’t need. That’s a waste on many levels. We also buy things that wear out, need to be replaced, or turn obsolete quickly. And it seems like even if this older crap is worn out, now replaced, or obsolete and no longer used, we still hold onto it. Now that’s “bass-ackwards.” Forget the Russians.

I’ve moved about nine times in my adult life. With each move, I noticed the steady accumulation of crap I didn’t need. It came to a point where I and the woman of the house learned to start downsizing in order to save ourselves some misery. There’s this useful thing called a “yard sale” which we have once a year. It does wonders for both our storage closets, as well as our wallets, and we have the added benefit at the end of giving away anything we don’t sell to friends or charity. Win-win-win. Boom.

But what’s so bad about having tons of stuff? Hmmm…

Here are a few ideas: Wasted Time, Headaches, Misery, Frustration, and finally, forgone or wasted MONEY (of course!)

I guess there’s nothing wrong with keeping stuff you aren’t using if it isn’t causing you money, misery, and headaches. But most of the time it is costing you at least one of the above. Need to find something in your garage, but can’t it because you have too much junk? Going through it all just cost you time, and caused you misery, headaches, and frustration.

Storage units don't exist

So maybe you’ve run out of space at your house, and you “smartly” think to alleviate some headaches by renting a storage unit. Great idea!

Well, those handy little storage units cost anywhere from $30-$100 per month! Just to store a bunch of crap that you use so rarely, you have to put it somewhere other than your own property! Brilliant? Or bass-ackwards?

What bigger waste of time and money is there than buying, accumulating, keeping, and paying to store “stuff?” I haven’t even mentioned the added complexity and time waste of having to drive to the storage to get your less-used crap when you do use it once a year.

Let’s talk about opportunity cost, which only makes owning tons of crap even more ridiculous.

Everything you own came with a price tag. You spent money on this stuff, money that could be sitting in an investment vehicle somewhere earning even more money. Instead, you are getting poorer by choosing to store it all. By buying and keeping stuff you don’t need or use, you’ve forgone not only the money you spent, but the money you could have made on that money.

I hope this is a new perspective for you on having “things.”

Here’s my logic: If it hasn’t been used for six months, it’s not going to be used in the next six. Sell it, or give it away. Make some money by selling it on the classifieds, or give it away to someone who needs it, blessing their life and simplifying yours. It actually feels awesome to get rid of this stuff.

Even if you aren’t paying to store stuff, all of it is still costing you opportunity costs in utility. Let me illustrate.

I did my own exercise on this a few months back. I needed some cash to do some work on the house, and didn’t want to spend the money out of pocket for it. So I went through stuff we were keeping in our garage and storage, sold two old tables and some chairs, an area rug, some old electronics and computer crap that was useless to me, but treasure to someone else, an obsolete iPod Touch, and some clothes I’ve never worn and don’t like.

Grand total: $245. Booya. That’s a free home improvement project.

The bottom line is: How much stuff you accumulate and keep in your house is your business. But some businesses are run extremely poorly, and if yours is overloaded with junk, you’re sacrificing time, money, various opportunity costs, and a simplified and peaceful life by keeping it around. Pull the trigger, and sell it off. Your bank account will thank you. So will your future self who will soon wake up to find more money in the bank than they would if you did nothing.

It’s the crap, or your freedom. The choice seems obvious to me.

For more rant fun on free money, read on friends!

Fixing Sucky Spenders, Part 2

Thanks for visiting my blog in title Fixing Sucky Spenders, Part 1, Please Like And Share With Your Friends