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Greetings from sunny Las Vegas, Nevada! This guest post, “Want to Treat Yourself? Use This Guilt-Free Financial Method,” was contributed by Dave at FinancialJiuJitsu. At FJJ, trainers Dave and Don are constantly learning new things about finance and want to share their stories with you to help you out! They realize that a lot of people interested in getting ahead do not have a huge amount of money just sitting around, nor would they need a huge amount of money to be happy.
Want to Treat Yourself? Use This Guilt-Free Financial Method
So a few months ago I’m browsing Craigslist looking at classic cars. Or junk cars if you prefer. In California we have a smog system which only allows cars of pre-1975 vintage to be exempt. Reading between the lines here that means that if you like hot-rodding engines or working on anything that you ever want to be fast, it has to be pre-1975. Hence my search criterion. The 200$ minimum eliminates the dealers and people who list their 12,000$ cars for 12$. There should be a law against that type of abusive false advertising but I digress. . .
Long story short I find some killer deals, like I always do. And again like I always do I ask myself the question:
“Do I really need another hot rod project?”
Of course I do! But last time I checked, remember this was from a few months ago, I still had a 1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV with a 460 in the driveway. Having another vehicle whose function is even slightly similar to the weekend cruiser/ engine build project in my driveway would be unnecessary end even cumbersome. The amount of time and effort it takes to keep a classic vehicle ready to enjoy and drive is not trivial. So doubling that even if one of them is “complete” at the moment is absurd. And then there is this quote from Jonny Depp which is relevant:
Of course we car guys know that we are capable of so much love when it comes to cars. We could leave one in the woods to turn into a rust bucket after 20 years and if someone asked us if we loved that car, we would say yes. We will also say we love cars that we see passing in the street or cars that we only just met. Ah the heart is a fickle thing but I digress…
The solution to this dilemma is, of course, coming to terms with your inner desires and understanding yourself in a deeper fashion and blah blah blah whatever leave this site and try to find some more click bait
Here I will stop and say that at Financial Jiu Jitsu (FJJ) we have promised to give you insightful ways on how to actually handle your affairs, and we will not always spout trite garbage in your direction. This isn’t Facebook or Twitter where everybody has advice, but it is rarely unique or even slightly insightful. So let me mansplain this for you in a conclusive fashion:
You want something cool
You already have something cool
What do you do? Go to our site and do some soul searching.
We say: If you want to avoid guilt, get on with your life, and buy something totally savage all at the same time, just sell something first.
In this instance I Immediately posted the following:
And within a month it was sold. The article is here and it was not a very profitable flip but it was a very educational build for me.
Now – you know what the kicker is? I still haven’t bought another car and that sale happened about a month ago. In my 20’s I would have not had the patience to even wait until this car was sold to buy another and get started all over again. And in the interim my driveway would have been clogged, I would have been fixing 2 cars at the same time (inevitably with the classics,) and I would, of course, have been tempted to lower the price of the car I had for sale to attract more buyers. In this case I avoided all of those problems and more by following some simple advice:
If you want something, sell something first.
Readers, how do you treat yourself within reason? Do you sell something before buying something new? Save and pay cash or leverage credit? What’s your method?
Jon @ Be Net Worthy says
October 7, 2016 at 7:30 AMI haven’t really thought about it before, but it’s a good strategy and it helps to keep you from accumulating too much “stuff”.
Lately, I’ve been trying to get my wife to clean out her closet of clothes she hasn’t worn in years and then replace with a couple of new items. In this case the ratio would have to be 20:1 , not 1:1!
Thanks for the guest post!
DDave says
October 7, 2016 at 10:43 AMJust imagine a world where people would sell the things they didn’t need BEFORE they bought something else. What a strange and improbable thing to consider.
DDave says
December 2, 2016 at 10:52 AMAny time bud 😉
Josh says
October 7, 2016 at 11:08 AMThis is a great, simple strategy!
I unconsciously use this method when I’m updating my family’s work/casual wardrobe by bringing my older, but still in excellent condition clothing to a consignment-type of store and getting some cash for it. We get some cash to go towards newer clothes and keep our closets up to date.
In your case you are making money or at least breaking even with your sales, but this will not always be the case for something like clothing!
This strategy would work best with items that hold their value well like cars, equipment, or some types of electronics.
DDave says
December 2, 2016 at 10:55 AMThere are many people in the world who enjoy working on cars in their spare time. I know this is a strange concept. When you think about it it’s no different than working out because sometimes it hurts a lot but you always reap the benefits after. So really it is a way to make money in your spare time with more focus on having fun than actually going for profit based flips (which i have done as well)