A Little Asceticism To Avoid Lifestyle Creep

I was reading about Siddhartha Guatama, the ‘Buddha’, last week. Wanting to escape his sheltered lifestyle, he snuck out of his castle in search of a life of religious introspection and enlightenment.

 

Many of his contemporaries and teachers ascribed to the ascetic lifestyle as a means to reach enlightenment. They had no wealth, lived in rags, starved themselves, and sometimes undertook painful physical trials, like perpetually raising one’s hands above the shoulders or sleeping on a bed of nails, all in order to gain higher mental clarity and understanding.

 

“The simple is sufficient, the bliss is within, the frugal is plenty.”

 

While I don’t want to become an ascetic, and I don’t think you should either, I couldn’t help but realize that a little healthy asceticism may be incredibly helpful for the millions of people perpetually dealing with the negative consequences of lifestyle creep.

 

What Is Lifestyle Creep?

 

Lifestyle creep is the term for our tendency to spend as much money on our lifestyle as our income allows, and more if we can take on credit card debt. If we earn $50,000 per year, we find a way to live comfortably on that. If we are promoted and begin earning $100,000 per year, we are soon living on this amount and feeling a similar level of comfort. In the end, there is very little money left over in either case for saving, investing and building wealth.

 

The argument for a little modern-day asceticism is simple. Just like extreme acts of self-denial, such as self-starvation or celibacy, avoiding lifestyle creep requires willpower and self-control.

 

Less self-control than fasting for multiple days on end, but still more self-control than most people are able to muster.

 

While the ascetic practices extreme self-denial with the goal of reaching beyond-this-world understanding, you can practice a lighter form of self-control in order to enjoy more tangible benefits here on earth.

 

The most obvious material benefit you will find is that you are finally not worried about money all the time. Rather than just making it each month, you build up a surplus, reaching a kind of ‘Financial Enlightenment’ that you can only dream of if you have no savings, investments, or passive income.

 

The Middle Way

 

As you earn more you can spend more, but you must make sure it is of your own volition, and not automatic.

 

 

Siddhartha tried extreme asceticism for a few years, but it was only after turning back slightly, accepting a gift of milk and pudding, that he reached his Nirvana. In the same vein, I don’t think it’s necessary to take modern-day asceticism too far. We all need to spend some money on housing, transportation and cell phones to lead a productive life. You also need to take showers. Personally, I like to buy things, not beg for them.

 

You just want to practice enough asceticism to break the cycle of lifestyle creep. There is a Middle Way that, while requiring willpower and self-control, doesn’t need to be painful or involve buying a bed of nails. For those of us not looking for religious enlightenment, Micro-Asceticism will do.

 

Examples of Micro-Asceticism To Avoid Lifestyle Creep

 

1. Buy a big bag of rice and steam some vegetables for a week. Enjoy the unsalted simplicity.

2. Spend a Friday night talking with your friends without drinking any alcohol, or stay home and read philosophy texts by yourself.

3. Moving? Begin by looking at the cheapest housing in your new location instead of looking at the nicest places first. Think ‘ascetically’ pleasing, not ‘aesthetically’ pleasing.

4. Don’t stop at Starbucks on the way to work today. Breath deeply as you drive past.

5. Need a new car? Buy a small used car rather than leasing a big new car.

6. Can you sell any of the possessions you own, or even give them away to free up mental space?

7. Can you swap out a sugary soda for a cup of pure water?

8. Buy cheaper, non-name brands of pasta, peanut butter, and other consumer goods.

9. When you want to buy something, make yourself wait an hour, or a week, to make sure you really should buy it.

10. When a small annoyance appears, attempt to adapt yourself to it’s presence before looking for a solution to buy.

11. Look through your bank statements and ask, “Should I make this type of purchase again?” (Useless monthly subscription boxes? Netflix account? Garcinia Cambogia supplements?)

 

These acts of Micro-Asceticism, which anyone can practice with a small amount of focus and willpower, break the cycle of ever-expanding lifestyle creep.

 

Try a few of them this week and see if you can’t bring your spending back to a more moderate ‘Financial Middle Way’. Once you begin this process, you will have begun walking the path of saving, investing, and generating passive income with those investments. This will immediately grant you peace of mind and it may eventually bring you to Financial Nirvana.