Materialism as defined by Merriam-Webster
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/materialism
b) a doctrine that the only or the highest values or objectives lie in material well-being and in the furtherance of material progress
When Madonna sang that she was "living in a material world" and that she was a "material girl". There was no need for a cultural explanation as we live in a world where material well-being, wealth and possessions are how we measure much of our success.
The allure and problem with materialism is that it works in part. Many of the most troublesome difficulties we face are those things that "work in part". The first money and first material possessions that a person obtains have a great positive impact on that person's life. In terms of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs (first published 1943), they are used to meet the survival needs of food and shelter.
As you progress up Maslow's hierarchy to the Need for Love and Self Esteem money matters but increasingly less so. I remember in college being so poor at times, that I avoided dating because I could not afford it. I did not have enough money to take someone out to eat, did not have transportation and was somewhat embarrassed about in the relative wealth of my roommates and friends at Syracuse.
As our spending increases from necessities to comfort items our fulfillment per dollar spending drops off. When our spending moves from comforts to luxuries our fulfillment per dollar of spending not only drops off but can easily go negative. I first came across this concept while taking an audio course, Transforming Your Relationship With Money: Achieving Financial Integrity, Intelligence & Independence by Joe Dominguez. http://www.simpleliving.net/main//item.asp?itemid=930
Joe Dominguez died in 1997, but he formed the not-for-profit educational organization, the New Road Map Foundation with Vicki Robin. They published a book on the course called, Your Money or Your Life. You do not need to be as frugal as Joe or Vicki to enjoy the benefits of the insights and tools offered in the course and book.
http://www.financialintegrity.org/index.php?title=About_the_New_Road_Map_Foundation
My revelation for taking this course was not my experience as a poor student at Syracuse but rather my experience 15 years later when my income moved from $80,000 to $190,000 in a short time frame. This sudden relative affluence was followed by an increase in spending but not an increase in fulfillment.
As your standard of living increases the need to maintain a certain income and the complexity of your life also increases. To maintain my income, I found myself away from home about 15 of the 20 mid-week days of the month. I stayed in nice hotels and ate at nice restaurants with my business partner and clients while my children grew up at home with their mother. I also found myself as time went on doing work that was not fulfilling for people that I would not have spent time with if they were not paying me. (I did do a lot of fulfilling work with a lot of wonderful people but this was not always the case and as the financial pressures of the business grew we took work in a few very difficult environments.)
I began to question the fulfillment that I was gaining from both my spending and my income. In the area of spending, I began to make spending versus saving decisions. If I cut an area of spending then I could capture the savings and then make investments which would provide future income.
I began by measuring and then questioning the amount of fulfillment I was gaining from various categories of spending. Convenience restaurant eating (fast food and similar) was an area that our family had begun to spend a lot of money upon due to the pace of life. The food and experience was not very good but it was convenient. My estimate was that we were spending nearly $5000 per year on this. The fulfillment oriented decision was to only use convenience restaurants once per week and to work out a shopping plan and menu to handle most of the need for convenience.
We were able to implement this, save several thousand dollars per year and gain fulfillment through a healthier diet and saner eating experience around our dinner table. (I am not claiming that our dinner table was sane but it was saner than the same five people eating in a convenience restaurant.)
When you look at costs look at the annual cost of something. Dunkin Donuts coffee on the way to work costs about $2 a cup and 50 weeks times 5 days equals a $500 expense. For any daily business related expense you can use this metric: daily cost times 250 = annual expense. A $4 cup of Starbucks (my favorite) times 250 equals $1000. While I occasionally drink a cup of Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks coffee, I buy good coffee at Costco and make it myself at a cost of about $120 per year. By the way, I invested money in Starbucks in the late 1990's and made a decent profit from other people's coffee spending habits.
If you annualize your spending categories, you can get some insight into how you can transform your spending to create a pool of money for investing. Further blogs will discuss more thoroughly how relatively conservative long-term investments can help you create real financial independence that supports your spiritual path and creative vision.
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