Do It Yourself Not Just to Save Money, Do It to Increase Your Utility
Lifestyle inflation encourages people to spend money on solving their problems. You can afford to throw holes in your pants, so why fix them? First, you are missing out on an opportunity to learn useful skills.
As the personal finance blog Pretend to Be Poor explains, when you’re broke, you need to find creative solutions to problems that often require new skills to be acquired. When your clothes are torn, it’s cheaper to fix them than buying new ones. When your apartment is tiny, you find new ways to save space . Learn to fold your clothes more efficiently rather than buying larger luggage. Many problems can be solved by buying something that fixes it for you, but these things will not teach you new skills:
Some people get excited when they find the next new product that will make their life easier. Don’t get me wrong, I love my microwave and dishwasher. But others tend to spend less, and this often leads to them becoming more useful. For example, I love Indian food, but I don’t like spending money in restaurants. So I am learning how to cook Indian food. Neil loves to ride a bike because it is free exercise and saves on travel costs. For both of us, these money-saving measures are enjoyable in part because we feel fulfilled after the hardships.
Finding your own solution isn’t always about finding the most economical way to do something. Indeed, some things are never worth the effort . However, in many cases, the skills you can learn from trying to do something cheaply can be far more useful in the long run, not only for your budget, but for making you a more useful and capable person in general.
Inflate Your Utility, Not Your Way of Life | Pretend Poor Through Rockstar Finance