Are you really working for yourself or are you working to consume? Conscious spending habits encourage you to think critically about spending, seek the best possible value, appreciate money as a workforce, and acknowledge your role in perpetuating consumerism.
In an industrial society, consumers need to keep buying for companies to keep selling and people to keep working. You have to convince people they need to buy your widget. Once everyone has one widget, you need to convince them they need two to keep this cycle going. Clever marketing links products and services to fulfilling fantasies, allaying fears, solving problems, and soothing pain. Until we no longer live life, we consume it. Both businesses and people get locked in this endless cycle, losing track of true purpose and the very real impact of continual consumption. Time and time again we are shown that this is not a sustainable model.
How to Break Consumerism
• Calculate lifetime gross income
• Estimate real acquisition costs
• Know the business’ unique spending patterns with categories
• Check spending against your business values and purpose
• Monitor all spending, create spending criteriaThe purpose of this exercise is to increase your awareness, not to pinch pennies, but seek greatest value, which leads to a more naturalistic and meaningful growth model. Review your lifetime earnings and spending activity. Estimate your real acquisition cost by including variables like time, taxes, environmental impact. Identify projects that have made you compromise your vision or entrepreneurial drive. Once you have a clear sense of where the money is going, its time to cut the superfluous and align spending to your business values and purpose. How might your expenditures change outside a continual growth model?
When is it enough? For you, when your personal investment income can comfortably cover (with a cushion) your living expenses and needs. For the company, there is no retirement. Centennial companies continually reinvent themselves to stay relevant. To achieve resilient business finances you want the company’s investment income to comfortably cover operating expenses, with a cushion, and contribute to natural growth.
Capital Monthly Earnings x Long term Interest Rate = Monthly Investment Income.
Additional Resources
optoutprescreen.com
catalogchoice.org
Thank you for reading, Beyond Business: Musing from a socially conscious international small business.