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Mastering the art of living within your means is a crucial skill for achieving financial stability and peace of mind.
To live within your means simply means balancing your budgets. It means knowing the difference between what you need and what you want.
Life is not a competition. This is the one thing that gets people to spend and live beyond what they can afford.
Comparison they say is the death of joy. When you start living to impress friends and neighbors, you forget yourself and leave yourself in debt and frustration.
It should only be about living within your reach. Be mindful of what you spend and ensure you do it right so you don’t deprive yourself of the things that make you happy.
Other people’s thought towards you is in their head, it shouldn’t ever be a priority for you.
There are a few easy steps that can help us in living within our means.
1. Know your income
Estimating what you earn matters a lot. It’s pretty easy, to begin with, your monthly earnings, for instance, your salary or profit from your business every month.
When you know what you earn, it’ll be a lot easier to know how to spend, how to set your budget for the month, drawing your list of essential things.
These other things can be planned out perfectly when you understand the rate at which you can spend.
2. Spend less than your income
To live within your means also means to spend less than your income.
How can you be earning $20 a month and you want to spend $50, that is far from balancing your budget.
Stop the habit of trying to live large, just list out your needs, the things that are important to your everyday life, you discover you’ll be able to balance your budget for the month.
Adding your wants to that list might make you spend way over yourself, which is bad.
One might ask what if my need worth more than my earnings? Sometimes our needs can supersede what we earn a month, which doesn’t warrant you to put yourself in debt.
That’s why you have should have that list of essential things, starting with the ones most important to you, and never spend beyond what you can afford.
3. Plan to increase your income
Like I mentioned before, your needs might sometimes exceed your income. That’s okay, I mean who doesn’t need things.
As long as you are human, and the economy of the world keeps changing you’ll always need more. Yet you’ve got to keep balancing your budget.
This is were you make plans to increase your earnings. If you were earning $20, and your needs exceed $50, then get something to help you earn over $70.
You can get a better job or improve your business idea, just look around your society and look for something you can do to meet up with your plans.
Don’t get too comfortable in the position you are in now, it doesn’t mean you are not contented, it’s the one thing that drives you to take a leap and grow your financial affairs, cause truth is, you will always need more.
You just have to keep moving to make sure no economy is too poor for you to deal with.
4. Don’t believe in borrowing
Many a time we tend to want to borrow to balance our budget or maybe to increase our income.
Borrowing is never always an answer. Sometimes it might make your expenses increase for the month, the year even.
When you borrow, it seems like you are working for someone else to eat.
You might say “I’ll pay later, if I can just get this it becomes mine forever or if I can do that, it reduces my expenses”. That’s false.
One mystery about this world is that you can never have enough to spend, don’t feel borrowing will make you have more.
Your needs will increase from time to time especially if you have more mouths to feed.
Borrowing is an increase in expenses for a tomorrow you are working so hard to save up for.
Live within your means, if it’s not enough step things up for yourself.
5. Save up for some purchases
Our needs will always increase, that’s a fact for sure. Here’s a way you can meet some demands, save up for it.
Yes, you need that stuff so bad, save up for it. That’s why spending less than your earnings helps you save for another day, the more savings, the more money to meet your demands.
“I’ve got to get that shoe” or “I need to buy that building”, whatever it is you want, just save up for it.
If you can improve your standard of living, work with a goal, you will find it easier to meet your demands.
There are some things you can’t just buy or get as soon as they cross your mind, you have to work towards it.
Draw your list and set a target for yourself. Then save until you get what you need.
Conclusion
Everyone loves to spend money, we want to live big, buy the trending.
I want us to know that those things don’t always matter. If you want to spend more, work more. That’s how life works.
Don’t ever live to be like someone. It’s okay to aspire to be like others, it should motivate you to increase your income to get as far.
Remember how you spend matters just as much as what you spend on. In all of it no matter what, don’t deprive yourself of your happiness.
Be contented with what you can afford, not too comfortable, but contented.
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