no spend rule

no spend rule

Avoiding the acquisition of more shit.

In the last 3 weeks I have steered myself away from investing in the following:

  • a cheap wood lathe at £240 which I convinced myself I needed to renovate an old mangle I bought at an auction for £10.
  • a 3 horse power air compressor for £300 which I needed to be able to use my new sand blasting attachment on an old metal standard lamp I bought at an auction for £10
  • an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite at £109 that I was convinced I needed to catch up with the reading I’m not doing as I find it hard to concentrate on reading on my Macbook’s kindle app.

I managed to get myself around these obstacles by using the no spend rule. The no spend rule insists that I find a free way to do the things I’ve convinced myself I need to do.

The purchases of old junk at auctions have been disguised by my apparent desire to launch a website that sells over-priced old junk that has been restored or just re-listed as architectural or design classic finds! That idea is unlikely to work in the long run as it is actually completely at odds with my underlying personality, so I’m dumping the idea in favour of de-cluttering my life.

My reading problem was solved by simply borrowing my Daughter’s Kindle that she no longer uses, although this particular problem could have been solved in many other free ways if she hadn’t been so kind.

The purchase of new stuff is usually underpinned by latent desires to do things you think will make you feel better or to appear to do things that make you appear more interesting, vanity projects in other words.

If the potential purchase is inspired by a project or activity you really want to do for the right reasons i.e. to make you more fulfilled, then it’s highly likely that you can find another way to do it without the purchase. Using the Kitchen Table thought process is one way to think your way through this. If there is no other way and you can categorically say that you are doing it for the all the right reasons, then you can get your cash out and buy the item with gay abandon, comfortable in the knowledge that you won’t regret it immediately afterwards.

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