Cutting What Doesn't Add Value

In last night’s workshop in Los Angeles, one of the topics I discussed was the idea of leaning into OUR values when making financial decisions. So often, we absorb the culture’s values and do things (i.e. spend) in accordance with what everyone else is doing. For every dollar we spend on something we don’t care about, it’s one less dollar we have to spend on something we do. One of the questions I asked is this, “What do you spend money on that DOESN’T add value to your life?” A handful of people publicly answered, but one, in particular, caught my attention. A woman jumped in and said, “Netflix.”

I think this is the perfect example of how values are personal and unique. For this woman, a $15 monthly subscription to a massive streaming service doesn’t add much value for the $15 price tag. For me, on the other hand, I think it may be one of the best cost vs. value propositions in the entire world. But that’s where this money stuff gets personal. She probably needs to cut this expense from her budget, whereas I need to make sure it remains a priority. But there’s a high likelihood that there’s something in her life that adds a ton of value that would be absolutely ridiculous for me to spend money on. She has her things and I have mine. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

This idea is a big driver of whether we have a healthy relationship with money or not. If we’re being healthy, our spending aligns with our values. When our spending doesn’t align, we often create an unhealthy relationship with money. We’re not always going to get it right (like that one time I spent a ton of money for sweet rims on my Acura Integra), but we can continue to get better each day. When we do, life will be richer, we’ll be more content, and we’ll feel far less guilt in our spending.