The art and science of spending money

Wait till you experience one with a heated steering wheel. That might change your mind, especially if you live in a colder climate.

That's extremely lazy. If your children follow the same pattern then no one will ever benefit. It was all for nothing.

So your kids will spend the savings but when will they spend those savings? After your death when they are in their 40s and 50s and long past the point where they need your help or while they are still young and you spend time with them?

But when I was younger, someone once said 'money is not the thing; money is the thing you use to get to the thing.'

So now I can switch between being thrifty or being 'careless', depending what I really desire- and this requires constant self-reflection, a constant self-question of would spending this money do anything for my goals (which should include helping others.)

In other word, like that Japanese cleaner lady, I ask myself would spending this bring me joy?

1. Money and debt are amoral financial tools. It's important to be smart about how we use these tools, but neither money nor debt is evil or all that valuable in the moral sense. This is especially important for us, because our conservative background has pretty much taught us from childhood that money == good and debt == bad.

2. Treat money like it belongs to someone else (in our case, as Christians, we acknowledge it, like everything, belongs to God, and we try to spend in a way that honors the responsibility he's given us).

3. Always pay off the credit card at the end of the month. When we got married, I got my first credit card and set the automatic payment to 100%. I only made $40k/year back then, but we have the same rule today, even though our spending power is 5x what it was.

4. Retirement savings. This one's obvious, but most couples can save a combined $13k per year in Roth accounts that can grow tax free for your lifetime. Maximizing this as early as possible in life is extremely important. As your income grows, your next goal is to maximize other vehicles like a 401k. Don't make your kids take care of you financially later in life.

5. Your kids won't be around forever. This doesn't sound like a financial principle until you start thinking about all the trade-offs having kids presents you with. For instance, we're more likely at this point (with 4 kids 6-13 years old) to put in a pool than we are to redo our kitchen. And we're more likely to take on some manageable debt in order to make improvements to our home or give our kids experiences that normally we would take the time to save up for.

Edit: forgot an important one

6. Spend more to buy things that last. Especially if you live in a wet climate. I live in Florida, where everything rusts and rots. 4-5 years ago, instead of buying another gas grill that'll just rust in a year, I bought a Kamado-style grill. It's still in perfect shape, and I use it more often as a result. When we bought patio furniture in 2020, we spent extra to avoid natural wood, which takes regular upkeep and, again, eventually rots anyway. It's still in perfect shape. When we replaced our rotting exterior doors/doorframes, we went with an industrial PVC material. I'll never have to worry about any of those things again.