The Tim Ferriss Show, #222: Mr. Money Mustache — Living Beautifully on $25-27K Per Year
Pete Adeney (Mr. Money Mustache) on his process of consumption and its relation to happiness (46:33):
Usually I try to start with, “No you weenie, what do you think? What kind of consumer are you?” Just a little bit of a mental beat down to shut off the easiest things. That’s what keeps me from buying a Tesla Model S or something like that. Because even though I think it’s a great car — I support it — I know for sure that wouldn’t make me any happier, because I don’t have anything to do with it. I don’t drive, really. So obvious stuff gets shut off.
Separate novelty from actual desire.
But then when you get in things that you’re pretty sure you want, then you just think about it for longer. Procrastinate a little bit. See if that desire goes away a bit.
Does the desire wear off after a little time?
And then consider how much space that thing will take up in my limited space — my studio for example. And then imagine how I would feel if it broke because a lot of stuff does break, even if you have high quality gear. And it’s really annoying to deal with things that break, and if you have to warranty fix it.
The burden of ownership is real. Things will take from your mental/physical space and time.
And finally I ask myself, “Is this removing a negative in my life?” Because it’s pretty well studied that happiness is not very much affected by adding positives to your life. Especially in a rich world environment like we live, it’s mostly accomplished by removing things that are strong negative to every day. So getting myself a remote control photography drone is unlikely to make me happier because my life doesn’t currently suck due to the absence of photography drone quadcopter thingies. If there is something that every day I’m like “Dammit I just wish I didn’t always trip over this broken dishwasher” then replacing your dishwasher is probably a happiness boosting proposition.
Removing negatives versus adding positives.
The process:
- Filter out novelty — is there an actual desire?
- Wait — after a week, for instance, do you still want it?
- Consider the burden of ownership.
- Does it remove a negative?