Go Ahead: Spend Money On What You Love

It’s currently Tuesday morning and I’m sitting in a tiny apartment in Paris writing this blog post just hours before it needs to go out. The time zone change is definitely working in my favor. For the past week, I’ve been on a dream trip come true. I brought my daughters with me (ages 13 and 10) and we saw EVERYTHING – from the top of the Eiffel Tower on a lovely evening right down to the eerie hallways filled with bones of the French Catacombs. We also came to see Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

Getting to see that show with my kids was hands down one of the best nights of my life and I almost didn’t go. After the TicketMaster debacle in the United States last year, when resale tickets soared to thousands of dollars, I did what most sane parents did and said, “No thanks”. We went to see the Eras Tour movie instead….and the next day I bought Eras tickets in Paris. Why? Because I realized that this was an experience I really wanted to have, one that I would cherish for the rest of my life. The tickets still cost me an obscene amount of money (less than I would have paid in the US, I will say), but it was the very best way I could have spent that money.

Being able to strike a balance between saving money and spending it where it counts is an important skill. Here’s my take on aligning your spending with your values. I needed to hear this and maybe you do too:

It’s OK to spend money (even if it’s a lot of money) on the things you love.

Start by Saving Money

I’m definitely not saying you should go into debt to spend money on what you love. Many of you are making decent money and you still feel like you can’t do the things you love with it. Why? Well, you might be saving too much, or you might be saving too little.

If you’re saving a lot already, then you’re fairly frugal (like me) and frugal people have a hard time actually spending their money. I subscribe to the financial independence community’s idea that you should save at least 50% of what you make (and put it into low-cost index funds). That seems like a lot of savings, but if you’d one day like to say good-bye to your full-time job and spend more time doing the things you love, this is an excellent way to get there. It’s also an excellent way to ensure you have money to spend when something you value highly comes along. If you’re not already saving enough, then you may not have the freedom to spend money on the things you value. Check out that link above for some essential resources on how to set yourself up for success financially, first.

Whether you’re saving a lot (less than 50% is fine – I fully realize how insane that sounds to most of us), or a little, it’s important to take a look at what you are spending and optimize it.

How Do You Know What Is “Valuable”?

I think a lot of us go through life on auto-pilot. We get up, eat the same breakfast, buy the same coffee, go to work, go out with friends at lunch, and so on. Every day looking a lot like the last until we can’t remember what we ate for lunch the day before. We never stop to evaluate what we’re doing.

In order to align our spending with what’s valuable to us, we need to know what’s valuable. I’ve found that an easy way to evaluate my spending is to look through my past expenses for the last month or two and ask myself if I felt I got value out of the expense that is equivalent to or better than the amount I spent on it.

Try it right now for a couple of your purchases this week.

Then, take note of the things that you thought weren’t worth as much as you spent. Are there some recurring expenses like that? Can you change something up to eliminate or reduce that expense? Be intentional about removing expenses like these from your life, so you can free up money for the things you love.

Equally as important, take note of the things you thought you got way more value out of than what you spent. Maybe you bought a nice cup of tea and sat in the park reading for two hours on a lovely day. The tea (and the book if you bought it) were worth it! Take note, and consider spending on similar things and experiences.

Experiences Over Things

When I think about what gives me the most value, I’d say 95% of the time it’s experiences versus material things. That explains why I’m getting so much out of this trip to Paris. We’re constantly doing, eating, and seeing things that are amazing. Things we’ll remember for quite some time.

I wouldn’t say that’s always the case with spending. For instance, I bought myself a nice, electric car two years ago and it has been one of the greatest purchases I’ve ever made. It made me wonder what else I wasn’t optimizing just because I was being too frugal. But that’s been the exception to the rule. I know that I get a lot more value from experiences than things and so I’ve tried to align my spending accordingly. I spend less money on Amazon so I can spend more money on plane tickets, shows, or dining out.

Save Money By Spending On What You Love

If you get really good at spending on what’s valuable to you, you may actually save money. Instead of spending mindlessly on things that bring you marginal value, you’ll be able to cut those out of your life, freeing up more money for that things you really care about.

Tell Your Friends

If you feel pressured to spend money with friends, see if you can get creative. Invite them over to your house instead of out to a bar. Tell them what you’re doing and find one of them (or your partner) to hold you accountable. After all, valuable experiences are better with friends, but they don’t always have to cost you a ton of money!

The girls are now waking up and it’s almost time to head out for a delicious brunch in an outdoor cafe. I’m looking forward to it because I know it’s going to bring me far more value than the price I’ll pay.