The $100,000 Hamburger
"A #3 combo meal, 2 candy bars and a triple mocha latte right? That'll be $400,000"
What?!?!?
No, not really. At least not at one time. Now that I have your attention, I want to discuss the importance of curbing your vice(s). Listen, we all have some guilty pleasure that we spend money on without thinking twice. It could be value meals, soda pop, candy, music, Starbucks coffee or the like.
The problem is when we don't specifically keep track of how much is spen on these items, it can significantly slow down your wealth building journey, possibly even derailing you from achieving your "magic number".
As part of a turbo charged expense management plan, your first step is to determine whether your vice, whatever it is, is a necessary or unnecessary expense. (I can actually save you some time here. In 9.5 cases out of 10, it's unnecessary).
So, since it's unnecessary, you might want to think about cutting back. I'm not saying to give it up altogether because a little guilty pleasure is OK every now and then. But if you were to cut back and then take the money that you save and invest it, you'll be much better off. In fact, you'll probably wish you would've quit cold turkey a lot sooner. Let's take a look:
Say you go out for lunch and buy a value meal 4 days per week at an average price of $4.50 per meal. That works out to be a little over $70 per month or $840 per year. Let's say you instead invest that $70 in a conservative investment making a measly 5% each year. Over a 30-year period, you will have saved close to $60,000 (not to mention your waistline). Imagine if you earned a more than likely 8-10% on your investment: somewhere in the range of $100-150 thousand.
For those of you who say you can't just quit cold turkey, even if you cut down to 2 value meals a week and brought your lunch the remaining days, you'll still be, at a minimum, $30,000 richer than you would have been otherwise.
And I don't want to just pick on the "super sizers". Consider the following:
- Getting ride of 2 daily candy bars = $60,000-$130,000
- Eliminating a daily vending machine soda = $37,000-$100,000
- Reducing the weekly mochas from 5 to 2 = $25,000-$60,000
So, if you start identifying more things to cut from daily consumption, you might just be putting a million dollars in your pocket!
What?!?!?
No, not really. At least not at one time. Now that I have your attention, I want to discuss the importance of curbing your vice(s). Listen, we all have some guilty pleasure that we spend money on without thinking twice. It could be value meals, soda pop, candy, music, Starbucks coffee or the like.
The problem is when we don't specifically keep track of how much is spen on these items, it can significantly slow down your wealth building journey, possibly even derailing you from achieving your "magic number".
As part of a turbo charged expense management plan, your first step is to determine whether your vice, whatever it is, is a necessary or unnecessary expense. (I can actually save you some time here. In 9.5 cases out of 10, it's unnecessary).
So, since it's unnecessary, you might want to think about cutting back. I'm not saying to give it up altogether because a little guilty pleasure is OK every now and then. But if you were to cut back and then take the money that you save and invest it, you'll be much better off. In fact, you'll probably wish you would've quit cold turkey a lot sooner. Let's take a look:
Say you go out for lunch and buy a value meal 4 days per week at an average price of $4.50 per meal. That works out to be a little over $70 per month or $840 per year. Let's say you instead invest that $70 in a conservative investment making a measly 5% each year. Over a 30-year period, you will have saved close to $60,000 (not to mention your waistline). Imagine if you earned a more than likely 8-10% on your investment: somewhere in the range of $100-150 thousand.
For those of you who say you can't just quit cold turkey, even if you cut down to 2 value meals a week and brought your lunch the remaining days, you'll still be, at a minimum, $30,000 richer than you would have been otherwise.
And I don't want to just pick on the "super sizers". Consider the following:
- Getting ride of 2 daily candy bars = $60,000-$130,000
- Eliminating a daily vending machine soda = $37,000-$100,000
- Reducing the weekly mochas from 5 to 2 = $25,000-$60,000
So, if you start identifying more things to cut from daily consumption, you might just be putting a million dollars in your pocket!
Source...