Simple Living
Money Ideas

The key to simple living with money is to think of your money in categories.

The first category is survival money. This is what you need to survive. You have enough of that otherwise you wouldn't be surviving. You may want to have a lot more so that you can survive better. But at least you are surviving. Simple living takes on the most importance the less survival money you have.

The next category is the extra money I like to call FLEX MONEY. This is the money you have available that is flexible. You will enjoy your simple living if you have some of this flexible money.

It is not for normal monthly bills and normal expenses such as food and gas. It is not for investing for retirement, or your kid’s college or other large future expenditure. It is not even for fun. It is for whatever is needed at the time.

My ex-wife called the other day. She said she needed 2 checks written out for the kids and she was out of money. The first check was for $10 for my daughter’s upcoming field trip.

The second check was for $40 for the kid’s school lunches. I had enough money in my checking account to just write them out and give to her.

She is really supposed to be paying for those types of things with all the child support she is getting from me, but what can you do? The field trip is important to my daughter and the kids need to eat.

My daughter also needed some school supplies. We went to the office supply store nearby and I bought what she needed. It totaled about $20. Again, this should be a child support expense.

My idea of simple living does not involve arguing with my ex-wife about $20. I like to be in a position to just have this extra FLEX MONEY available when it is needed.

I also bought some things that I needed for winter. I bought some ice melt salt and a snow shovel.

Obviously, the biggest thing to have plenty of money is to make plenty of money and not spend it all. Keep a bunch of extra cash in your wallet and keep a few hundred dollars in your check book. Simple living requires that you keep some money flexible.

The last category is what I call LIFE MONEY.

Some people will claim that you don’t need much money to live, that you should be happy with what you have, that others have it worse, that the best things in life are free and on and on.

These people are just kidding themselves. There really isn’t any situation where having extra or excess money is a problem. I would say that everything good in the world is a result of extra money.

I know that I feel really good about myself whenever I have extra money. I feel powerful, energetic, friendlier and more generous.

Where would we be without rich people footing the bill? Who would build the libraries, churches, parks, pools, schools, the grand buildings or the beautiful houses? I think that money is one of the greatest things ever.

Even love can be enhanced with money. People don’t break up over money; they break up because they aren’t compatible.

They don’t treat each other properly. Not because there is too much money. It’s the lack of money that brings out the problems and the worst in people. I saw that in my marriage. The lack of extra money magnified our problems. My wife was never happy with the amount of money I made.

She constantly demanded that I ask for a raise.

She constantly questioned everything I did and blamed me for things beyond my control.

She also didn’t do anything to bring in any money.

I guess we stayed together as long as we did because I did make a decent living. I was able to spend quite a bit of money. I stayed busy trying to make money instead of dealing with the issues we had.

I was too busy at work to leave her. Having more money will make your life much easier. The trick to more money is to not commit to more spending. Making more money only works if your obligations don’t take it all.

I wasn't using my simple living ideas at that time.

If that is the case then you don’t really have extra money you just make more than the next guy but you are not really better off.

What I’m talking about is having excess cash that isn’t spoken for. It just sits in your wallet or your bank account waiting. You have no need for it to live or pay the bills. It is extra. This is the type of money that makes for a great life, for the fun, for the having it for emergencies. To let set in savings accounts to grow into more money.

This is the important money. This is what I call LIFE MONEY. All the money you make and spend to live and pay the bills is called survival money, not LIFE MONEY.

I want LIFE MONEY. Everyone has survival money, otherwise they wouldn’t be surviving. Some people have a lot of bills; hence, they need a lot of survival money. I want more LIFE MONEY. The key to a good life is have plenty of LIFE MONEY.

Some people cut their survival money as low as possible to leave more LIFE MONEY. Some people try to make more money to have more LIFE MONEY. Work on both to try to increase your simple living.

I look for ways to decrease my survival money needs and ways to increase what I make in order to speed up the process.

All the talk of not needing money is just a way of justifying the fact that you don’t have LIFE MONEY.

I can’t think of any example or circumstance where an individual having excess money is a bad thing. Can you imagine how much more simple living you can do if you have more money?

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