Live beneath your means

"Well, what you're supposed to do is the thing we talk about all the time, which is live beneath your means."

That's a quote from Allan Sloan, senior editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, in an interview on Marketplace on NPR this past Monday. He was talking about all the changes that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is proposing in overhauling the regulatory structure of the Federal Reserve. All in reaction to the country's recent economic woes, brought on primarily by the subprime mortgage debacle. Sloan refers to it as the "New Great Depression" - whoa, that'll get your attention pretty fast! He also says, "There are certain eerie similarities between what's happening now and what happened in 1929."

It's interesting, if you talk with people who are old enought to remember the Great Depression. In general, they're mainly pretty good about organizing & using their finances & stuff in a responsible way. All shaped by their memories of what actually happened.

Wouldn't it be cool if we all tried to live beneath our means & be content with what we have? Besides, none of this stuff is ours anyways. And, all our financial decisions are really spiritual decisions anyway. Plus, as we live beneath our means and share first (10%), then save (10%) & then spend the remainder (80%), that usually puts us in a financial situation where we have no consumer debt & have considerably less anxiety about money than most people in this country.

Go ahead, I dare you. Try spending less than you make on a regular basis. It can feel pretty weird at first but pays off in the long-term. Trust me, it does work!