Tag: Your Money or Your Life

My money or my life, Part 2

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

In last week’s post, I wrote that I’d discuss my end-of-the-month evaluation of my spending.   I was to review my spending and answer the following 3 questions:

  • Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to life energy spent?
  • Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose?
  • How might this expenditure change if I didn’t have to work for a living?

Life energy is yet another YMOYL concept. Life energy is the unit of time you trade for earning money. YMOYL recommends deducting all work-related expenses (commuting, clothing) from your pay to compute your real pay; at the same time, it recommends adding hours for activities such as getting ready, commuting, decompressing after work to your actual work hours.  The results are pretty depressing, aren’t they?

I evaluated my spending by answering the three questions, and here are my findings:

  • There’s not a lot of wiggle room with respect to housing and utilities.
  • My spending on what I call “adornment – beauty” is about where I want it: to account for my monthly visits to the salon
  • My spending on eating out is out of proportion to the amount I trade my life energy for.  I’ll work to reduce eating out expenses this month.

My husband and I went on a Labor Day weekend road trip to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.  We had also made reservations to see Kentuck Knob, another Wright home.  However, we discovered that Shanksville was nearby, and skipped the trip to Kentuck Knob to go to the Flight 93 National Memorial.

It is said that people get more happiness and satisfaction from experiences than from things: although my husband might disagree, as he loves to spend money on decorating the home!   I derive happiness and satisfaction and memories from travel and shared experiences.

My money or my life, Part 1

Cold Cream 'n' Roses1 Comment

Can you believe it? I have gone 4 weekends without buying makeup to add to my stash, or better put, my closet.

I kept buying makeup, with the intention that I’d review them for The Style Page blog. Didn’t happen.

I decided to track my spending by embarking on the Your Money or Your Life program. One of the YMOYL concepts is the “gazingus pin.” Gazingus pins are items that we obsessively spend money on: for me, they are food out, Starbucks CD compilations, and makeup.

Here are some gazingus pins that I would have spent money on:

  • Pati Dubroff Aquatint lip gloss set from Costco
  • Vincent Longo Pearl-to-Matte eye shadow trio in Untitled (Soft Rose, Sable, Cherry Brown)
  • Revlon nail polish in French Roast
  • DHC eye shadow palette

That’s nearly $90 that I didn’t spend! I decided to reallocate that $90 to enroll in an online course on Understanding Hindu Identity from the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies, something that would give me more satisfaction (see the Bahu of Bengal tab).

The YMOYL calls for tracking every penny spent and developing your own spending categories. At the end of the month, you tally your spending and evaluate each expenditure category by answering the following 3 questions:

  • Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to life energy spent?
  • Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose?
  • How might this expenditure change if I didn’t have to work for a living?

It’s nearly month’s end and I’ll share with you my answers to the three questions early in September.