Smart Spending 101

Spending is always a struggle for most.

Everywhere you turn, something attracts you to spend.

I have made money, and I have spent money.

But for a while, I struggled with growing financially.

Even though I was making money, I still felt like I was starting from scratch.

However, spending on investments took a huge chunk out of my savings. 

The illusion of investment.

The hidden lie behind investment from a musician's perspective. 

As a musician and course creator, I spent the money I got from teaching some courses online and used it to improve my professional image. 

What that means is that I got some clothes and took some official photos to make myself look like a legit artist—a long-time dream of mine. 

I spent a huge chunk of my money doing this. 

I didn't mind that I wasn't making money from music because I thought I would still do so in the future. 

I anticipated that I would make much more money with music than I did with my online course.

Eventually, I read a post on Reddit that showed me I was on the wrong path. 

I realized that I was heading down a path that lacked fulfillment and was aligned with poverty. 

Looking at the statistics of successful musicians on some websites, I deduced that I was more likely to be a starving artist than a success. 

I also checked around to see how many of the musicians around me had never made it. 

It correlated with the information I got online. 

A particular Reddit post also showed me that many famous musicians did not like their lives. 

I realized that I needed money more than I needed fame, and the condition of creating art for money and fame would affect my love for it. 

I didn't like that some people's comments affected my recording sessions. 

I would be thinking about a negative comment and would want to consciously change my sound to win the audience's favor. 

I stopped doing this and chose to focus on the art of making music. 

I focused less on marketing and refining my image. 

I stopped the strategy of faking it till you make it. 

This was when I sang the song FMH.

Once you start taking money and time away from one successful thing and putting it into something that's not successful now but might be in the future, you're most likely playing the dangerous game of gambling.

It's better to stick to either spending money or time.

Stick to keeping enough resources for and from what is already working to guarantee an improvement in your life. 

At one point, I realized that I wasn't making enough from my other hustles to afford to spend it on my music. 

Also, I realized that making huge money from music is about doing everything you can to be famous. 

This sounded too desperate and unhealthy. 

Consequently, I decided to look for other ways to make money from music and still enjoy it. 

The monkish phase.

My epiphany led me to review music for a living and live on very little. 

I sometimes did not have enough food to eat in a day. 

This phase was also a sort of spiritual phase for me. 

I was exploring the reality of being a minimalist and doing away with complexities, egoistic ideals, and futuristic goals. 

I just wanted to live like a monk because I realized that monks are the happiest people, according to a study I read online. 

I can't find the particular article, but here's a similar post, which is about the world's happiest man, and this one is about the brains of Buddhist monks scanned during meditation. 

After realizing that happiness is more about the mind than focusing on a physical goal, I decided to do less and live like a "bum" who made very little from music. 

The path of racing for money and looking for more customers to buy my course was no longer appealing. 

You could call it a midlife crisis before the midlife crisis because I was about 25 then. 

Many people get to about 40 and above before experiencing this. 

I guess I was lucky to understand this early—the meaningless race after empty promises that capitalism encourages. 

This is why I believe many people should pause and reflect on what they want in life before taking on more responsibilities. 

I believe the danger of rushing through school and hoping to get a job immediately after school is that you never have time to really question where you are going or unlearn the fabricated stories you've been told about how life should be. 

You don't really have time to read, learn, meditate, and arrive at your own philosophy. 

This is why it's also important to choose a job that allows you some freedom to develop your mind. 

No, I'm not disputing the fact that making money is important. 

A woke, hungry, and sick monk might soon be a dead one if he can't afford to be healthy. 

I am not suicidal, and I'm still interested in surviving and living a life I would love to look back on and smile at. 

So yes, money is a necessity, especially because society is built around money. 

However, there's a danger of adjusting to an expensive lifestyle and becoming a slave to it because you can't manage anything less. 

Consequently, it makes sense to rise with caution in the money world. 

Making money doesn't have to take up all your time. 

You don't have to acquire so many responsibilities that you get choked up and can't follow your passion or develop a mind of your own. 

Too many people have fallen into this trap. This is a herd mentality problem. 

However, I eventually got bored of my monk phase. 

Also, I almost died from malaria because I wasn't eating, and my immune system was weak. 

I had to run back home and leave my cheap house to improve my health. 

I realized that if I continued on my path of not earning and eating well, I would be putting myself in danger. 

I decided to choose another route—a path of survival and thriving. 

This means I worked on making more money. 

So I went from writing music reviews for pennies to writing book reviews. 

Now I'm working on other ways to make money because I know making money with only one source is very risky. 

I am working on my newsletter business and promoting my music. 

Though I have more money now than I did in my monk phase, I'm still very far from being financially free. 

However, I am working towards that goal daily. 

Thankfully, many of the things I learned in my monk phase stayed with me till today. 

I know how to live with little and value focusing on the moment instead of living for a futuristic material goal. 

Come with me as I explore the various strategies I use to reduce my spending, which are influenced by my monkish mindset and phase. 

How I spend consciously.

1. Minimal subscriptions. 

Several online tools promise to help you make money. 

Many services promise you a cheaper deal when you subscribe to them. 

However, many of these subscriptions make way for spending money on what you will not consume in the future. 

Many times, we subscribe because we need something presently and keep subscribing even when the need reduces. 

Also, the accumulated costs of these subscriptions are often overlooked. 

Here's how I look at recurring costs like subscriptions; I calculate them in years. 

So if I pay $12 monthly, that means I'm paying $144 in a year and $1,440 in 10 years. 

If I choose to forgo my monthly payment, in 10 years, I would be glad I have an extra $1,440 to buy anything I wish to buy, like a used car. 

So before you start paying recurring costs, make sure you absolutely need or want the service. 

I stopped paying for a Netflix subscription but still paid for Spotify. 

Now that I've stopped listening to Spotify as much as I used to, I have decided that I won't be renewing my yearly subscription. 

I barely open Spotify in a week, which is very different from when I used to play music for hours daily. 

Furthermore, there's usually a free version of most of these paid subscriptions. 

Sometimes you have to be willing to do a thorough search. 

A lot of useful information is offered freely on YouTube, for example. 

For tools that help you make money, some of them have free versions with limited functions. 

I approach these services with the mindset that if I've not started making money with the free version or if I have not built my business to a clearly lucrative point, then paying money for premium services is most likely a gamble. 

For example, if I'm hoping to make money from X's payment program, I wouldn't pay for X's premium and expect to make money from it if I'm not getting hundreds of thousands of views in a month. 

I did it once, but I wouldn't do that again because, from experience, the added services in the premium package don't justify the extra spending. 

I was expecting to start making money within a month of my X subscription, but I wasn't. 

I was still paying for my X subscription.

Eventually, I got suspended, and my investment was mostly lost. 

I said mostly because I got some email subscriptions from my X account. 

About 30 from my Twitter account of 1.2k followers. 

So many of these services are like fools gold for most. 

Only a small percentage of those who wish to earn from these platforms are actually earning from them. 

You have to be strategic and realistic about expectations when dealing with platforms that promise you more gains from premium subscriptions. 

I am doing it differently now and would only pay for a premium on X when I know my audience is substantial and converting enough. 

I could fast-track this process by paying the subscription cost, but as I said before, it's better to choose between paying financially and with your effort on a side hustle than dedicating the two. 

So I choose to dedicate my time and not my money. 

I am building on my X by consistently showing up, which is probably making up for the services I could be gaining from a premium account. 

2. Spending with a budget.

I think there's a universal law that states, that if you don't have a strict money budget, you will always spend all you earn, or even more than you earn. 

Creating a budget for spending and sticking to it is how you beat this law. 

To succeed in life, you have to be an expert at spending money and being frugal. 

This correlates with Mark Cuban's advice to get rich: "Skip coffee, drink water, eat mac and cheese, save pennies.". 

I try to make sure I spend within my budget as much as possible, no matter how great the need to buy something is. 

Needs and wants always arise. 

And if you continue to satisfy them without caution, you will never be rich. 

It's not about how much you make, but about how much you keep. 

It's a mindset thing. 

For me, I make sure I only spend on food and transportation. 

I cook as much as possible. 

If you can save time by buying food and using the time to make a lot more money than the cost of the food, then you might find this idea unproductive. 

I do this because I like to eat healthy, and I find cooking therapeutic. 

Also, cooking doesn't take too much time for me because I usually cook basic stuff, like beans, potatoes, eggs, beef, etc.

I also eat a lot of fruits, which has always been my dream growing up. 

With other expenses, I try to stick to a special budget. 

Here's how it works. 

I created three segments for my needs. 

Home appliances, fun gadgets, and music gear. 

I plan to spend on one of these at intervals every time I get to a savings checkpoint. 

For example, for every $1000 I make, I could spend between $100 and $500 on one of these. 

I could buy a couch or a TV for $200 from the extra money I make after saving $1000. 

When I've saved $2000, I could buy a $400 Android tablet from the money I make after the $2000. 

When I've saved $3000, I could buy a recording mic or guitar for $100. 

You can use this example to make a similar financial plan and base it on your savings goals or capacity, as well as your most important needs. 

3. Spending for practicality and not aesthetics. 

My current house is obviously older than my former house. But I chose it because it saves me more money. 

Since it's at the center of the city, I save money on transportation and time, which could end up being used to make more money. 

I always try to choose products that save me money instead of products that look good. 

I would rather buy an affordable Toyota (because maintenance costs are relatively low) than a fancy, costly car.

Since I know it's all about mindset and many people are tricked into buying more, I try to look at the practical goods with the admiration I would naturally use to look at their expensive alternatives. 

Back when I used to watch a lot of movies, I had a strategy for saving money. 

Instead of watching movies just when they are released and buying tickets at the cinema, I would wait for them to be released to the public months later. 

I just saw it as a form of time travel and kept myself busy, so I didn't really think about the movies I wasn't watching. 

Besides, I was watching older movies that just came out while waiting for the movies to be available. 

All you need to save money using this mindset is a story that saves your mind from the deceitful agenda used to trap people into spending endlessly. 

Most want the best of the best, and they want it now! 

This is an emotional perspective that keeps you broke and pumps you with cheap dopamine. 

Instead of putting you in a better place overall, your discipline and your ability to delay gratification become compromised, and you end up becoming food for the economy instead of feeding off it and using it to improve your overall well-being. 

I'm all for spending, but I believe in not letting anything outside my mind have great control over my actions. 

I have chosen to always remember to have control and not be subjected to trends and the whims of the market. 

No, I wouldn't be among the new slaves.

Instead, I would be the captain of my ship. 

The irony is that people think they're kings or living the best life because they beat others to buy things and accumulate rare products. 

But are you really a king or happy when you have to always run about and accumulate more money to keep an expensive lifestyle and impress others? 

This is far from healthy and could easily lead to feeling empty and mentally depleted. 

4. Lending.

When it comes to lending out money, I try not to lend what I can't give. 

I didn't want to put myself in a situation in which I lent someone money that I would most likely need in the future. 

I also used to have a giving budget.

I would divide a certain percentage of my income between different recipients, like my mother, my girlfriend, close relatives, strangers, and more. 

I stopped this and became more spontaneous because I realized I didn't want to have people dependent on me. 

Also, I don't feel I am where I need to be financially. So now, it's more spontaneous. 

I hope this gives you some ideas that you can apply to giving to others. 

5. Daily accountability.

It's easier to make saving money and not spending recklessly a habit when you make sure you are conscious of your daily decisions. 

For example, I look at what I make every month and what I wish to spend on daily expenses, like food and transportation.

If I plan to spend 30% of my income on these things, which means I should not exceed $10 daily, I stick to the budget and don't spend too much in a day. 

6. Choosing hobbies that don't require spending. 

Instead of choosing expensive hobbies like shopping, drinking, or going out to restaurants, I try to stick to hobbies that mostly require only transportation costs, like basketball, salsa, and karaoke. 

Karaoke eventually became expensive because it later moved to restaurants that required buying something, so I reduced it to once per week, which is a location that doesn't require spending. 

Me and my crew are usually the stars of the event, and sometimes we get rewarded with free drinks. 

Go where you're celebrated and not tolerated, right? 

You can also look at cost in terms of time and energy. 

I don't choose hobbies that would require me to leave work during my working hours. 

I go to these places in the evening. 

Also, I don't go to overnight parties anymore because they mess up my sleeping pattern and my productivity.

I'm not alone in thinking like this. 

On a Joe Rogan podcast, Joe says something like Floyd Mayweather would party at a club while drinking water (not alcohol) and jog home after the party to stay in shape. 

Even when I'm playing basketball, I try not to go too early because it's an outdoor court and the heat of the sun can be strenuous by 5 p.m. 

Also, I find it hard to leave the court and play basketball until I'm so depleted that I feel stressed, which can affect my work the next day. 

Instead, I usually leave my house around 6 and let the darkness act as a natural bell that compels me to stop playing. 

This doesn't come without its cost because the court guys now know me as the latecomer and are always teasing me about it. 

I know I seem to be doing a lot, which would make some of you ask the question, "Are you rich yet?" 

Someone on X said this. 

However, it's not only about riches for me. It's about developing the mindset to attract financial freedom, self-sufficiency, peace of mind, and discipline.

The important thing is that I love my life. 

Even though it seems very programmed,

I have accepted that there's no such thing as a life that's better than mine—a perspective shared by J. Cole in his song titled Love Yourz. 

Spending more or living lavishly does not mean you're living a good life. 

Being mindful of your spending is one of the indicators of a good life. 

Because if you're spending excessively on food, alcohol, clothing, or any other thing, then there's probably something wrong somewhere. 

Good luck on your journey to control your spending.