Enemy Of Your Money #2 - Bad Spending Habits

Paul K. Dunn
Jun 14, 2017
4 min read

Bad Spending Habits - The 'Overconsumption' Mindset

Whether something cost $2 or $2000, it's all relative to the urges of consumption your brain gets when you think about SHOPPING. The difference in price paid for something comes down to justification. Over the last 100 years of brainwashing tactics deployed by capitalists worldwide, we have developed a culture of spending. Capitalism by definition is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. There shows up that SYSTEM word again. This word will always mean that we need to understand another set of rules and therefore play another game. So let's play the MIND GAME called "Capitalism", shall we.

The objective of Capitalism is to create more profit from your consumers than the other capitalists in the game. A consumer by definition is a person who purchases goods and services for personal use. The more consumers created by the Capitalists, the more profit they can realize. Another strategy is to influence consumers to pay far more for an item then it's really worth. This strategy will limit the amount of consumers it requires to make huge profits. With each passing month, a profit/loss statement is produced showing how profit was made and how much was spent to make it. As you can imagine, different tools are used to create INFLUENCE to consume. Marketing messages that aim to connect with consumer emotion, branding gimmicks that make consumers overvalue a product, Addictive behaviours researched to create brain stimulation chemicals for the food which connects consumer desire to their brand, and on and on and on... Sound familiar?

This mind game called Capitalism is real life. The best saying I could think of to sum up this moment is "The ONLY way to win a game, is to realize that you are in one!" Capitalism causes overconsumption. Overconsumption is the foundation of bad spending habits. The only reason they are considered bad spending habits is because the consumption is pointless. Most of what we know about America is an illusion. In the financial world, this is the ultimate truth. Debt is not real - by definition debt is the state of owing money. Keyword to look at here is "STATE". The state of owing simply means the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time. If you are in Debt, you are in a STATE of owing. If you chose to no longer be in that state then what? LOL A debt is a promise to pay later. A debt can be waived by the other party if they no longer desire the financial gain of that particular agreement. Which means there are no tangible components here. Unless the debt is paid, no money is created, just the promise of money. If the debt is waived, there is still no actual money transfer. This is utter confusion! This would mean America's debt is not real until it is paid. If all countries bring their debt due today, America would owe more than they could ever repay in years to come. Do you really think that the outstanding Debt is meant to ever be paid off? Or is this just a currency creation game that America is playing to teach its country to consume? Leading by example and painting a picture of doom and gloom only scares consumers into NEVER letting the system die. The true realization has to be made that Credit, Debt, Capitalism and the American dream are all illusions that assist in the transfer of wealth from the consumer to the capitalist.

In order to KILL bad spending habits you must change WHERE your bad spending habits send your money. Instead of consuming pointless junk, you MUST consume CASH FLOW ASSETS that make YOU more money. The same way the capitalists do. A cash flow asset by definition is anything that puts MONEY in YOUR pocket on a regular basis. Real Estate is the most common and Cash Value Life Insurance is the least common, but they both qualify. Another cash flow asset is a passive income business. A passive income business is designed to bring in money with minimal or one time efforts. It's more of a knowledge thing. Each month, a passive income business will give you a result. The most famous model of this concept is McDonalds. A franchise business that brought Ray Kroc money day in & day out. After he sold a new location, the franchise owner became the manager that ran it according to Ray's rules of operation. Over time this franchising idea became popular and doesn't produce as much cash flow as before but it is still viable in most cases. A smaller more manageable idea is a video rental kiosk which can loan movies from a vending machine for a fee. The owner literally sets it and forgets it. Malfunction and the occasional non return will be more or less the main issues causing real time work for the owner. These are just a couple of examples but there are thousands of opportunities floating around out there and thousands more to be created from scratch in the near future.

If your bad spending habits are aimed at consuming cash flow assets that produce passive income, you will have more money than you can ever spend. Warren Buffett learned this principle from a young age. He had multiple passive income businesses, sparked an interest in buying stock that paid dividends (cash flow assets) and stayed intensely focused on it. Today he is the second richest man in the world with a net-worth over $74 Billion, we he has committed to donating 99% of to charity when he passes on. Success leaves clues and that's the wealthiest clue I've found!