oo many people think a lifestyle upgrade means buying a bigger house, a posher car, more exotic vacations, more fashionable clothes, more expensive furniture, jewelry, pets, toys, what have you. To me those are the paving stones of the road to a downgrading of your lifestyle by turning yourself into a prisoner of your possessions and possession-based ego needs.
To me an upgrade in lifestyle means having more of the things that really make me happy: leisure, fun, health, energy, intellectual stimulation, emotional fulfillment.
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ASIAN MONEY WORKS
As a matter of fact, upgrading your lifestyle doesn't take more money. What it does take is the imagination and the discipline to pull yourself out of the rut imposed by hand-me-down habits, social conditioning and sheer laziness. If you've got what it takes, the rewards are many, not the least of which is developing a lifestyle that you want, not one imposed by others.
Here are some tips for upgrading your lifestyle while actually saving money.
Combine good food with your favorite activities
Pointless and compulsive dining out, I am convinced, lies at the heart of America's social ills: bankruptcies, bulging waistlines, hysterical levels of social competitiveness, pretension, hypocrisy, alienated kids. I'm not talking about the occasional dinner out for a new ethnic cuisine, exceptional grub or the occasional business lunch, but the need to put on the dog and flock to every restaurant that's been deemed hot. Becoming a restaurant slave does more than destroy your budget and your waistline; it turns you into a bore. Why? Because you end up with nothing to talk about but what so-and-so said. It's like entering a hall of mirrors -- you get lost in reflections of reflections of reflections...
That's boring -- and killing.
To turn that around, remind yourself that food is incidental to fun, not the other way around. Make sure that when you eat out, it's for a very good reason, like doing something fun outside the house. Center your leisure time around an activity, not a meal. A concert under the stars, rowing on a lake, hiking a trail, a sunset walk on the beach, attending a kid's game. For about a quarter the money you'd spend in a nice restaurant, you can pack a sumptuous picnic basket, complete with wine and dessert. When you do sit down to eat, you will have something real to talk about and real use for the calories.
Make Learning Your Number One Hobby
We've all gone through that academic burnout of wanting only to be done with classes and exams. Sadly many people never shake off that mentality. Even as their brains turn into graveyards of obsolete knowledge, they remain firmly convinced that they know all there is to know because they have a diploma or two. Consequently they sink ever lower on the evolutionary scale relative to the rest of the world and wonder why the world seems to be receding in the distance.
If that sounds like you, it's time to renew the zest for learning you had as a kid starting school. Your formal education only touched on a few areas of knowledge. The advances in the natural sciences and technology, not to mention evolution in thinking in the social scienes, during the past decade alone fill libraries.
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oo many people think a lifestyle upgrade means buying a bigger house, a posher car, more exotic vacations, more fashionable clothes, more expensive furniture, jewelry, pets, toys, what have you. To me those are the paving stones of the road to a downgrading of your lifestyle by turning yourself into a prisoner of your possessions and possession-based ego needs.