Blocking the Spend Limit

I haven't slept since 6am yesterday, which means it is closing in on 29 hours awake. This is not by choice of course, it is that Smallsteps had a high fever over 39C (102F) and I spent the night up with her. It is okay for me to take the time off from work with a sick child, but the timing couldn't be worse, as this is the end of the quarter and I have designated most of the week to finalizing my tasks in order to hit bonuses. If she gets better soonish, I will have a chance to make it - if not, it is going to be a costly illness, at a period where the bonus would be very welcome. But, if it is not in your wallet,

It is not yours.

I can't rely on the bonuses, because once I do, they are no longer bonuses, they are salary. Once reliant upon an income stream, it gets far more painful if it gets reduced or cut off. But, if an income stream is considered "extra", then losing it is painful, but not daily life altering.

It is very hard to practically apply this thinking though, as once that stream is coming in even semi-reliably, it is incredibly easy to start considering it as the norm and adjust behavior accordingly to include it. The way we position our income is important, which is why so many people have problems saving money, myself included.

For example, when salary income comes in a lump sum monthly, if some of it isn't "automatically" put away up front, it is easy to use it with the intention of saving what is left over. But, "what is left over" is more likely to be spent because it is available. Even moving a portion into another accessible account automatically and then spending from there if needs be adds a barrier to daily usage. Better though, would be to have a " consumer cooldown period" for spending, where there is an unlocking period which reduces the chance of impulse buying.

Creating barriers to spending can be very useful in changing spending behavior, like for instance, using cash. There is a mental difference between using a card where the money isn't "real" and using cash, which requires withdrawing the money and physically moving it from a wallet to the vendor. Handing over that money, especially for larger sums, gives a sense of loss and watching the cash dwindle in the wallet, gives a physical reminder of the spend.

As far as proponents and beneficiaries of consumer spending are concerned, the lower the barriers to spend, the better. But for those who are looking to improve their financial position using their disposable income, the more disposable income that remains "undisposed", the better. And since it is hard to make these often emotional decisions multiple times a day, creating the hurdles act as a reminder and can temper the emotional buy responses, as well as set up the conditions where in order to opt-in to the purchase, you have to opt-out of something else specifically set up and desired. This creates a clear delineation- for opportunity-cost to be seen and emphasizes the "loss" in spending, because in order to buy, the savings is lost.

Quite basic mechanisms are in play here, but how many people actively do these kinds of things in order to hack their own behaviors to be less hackable through consumption influence? I suspect not a great percentage of any general population, but likely, a pretty high percentage of general investor-class populations, as it is this kind of behavior that feeds their investor mindset and gives them the positive response feedback as they work toward their investor goals.

The area of the brain used for this positive response from consumption is likely the same, while many people get it from buying the latest gadget, others get it from investing into a generative asset - both are purchasing decisions and both have intentional emotional outcomes, but while one is burning spending value, the other is looking to create more of it.

Every decision we make in the way we use our resources is a consumer behavior, and since we are driven by the emotional feedback we get from the spending outcomes, "all we need do" is swap what we spend on. However, in order for this to work, we have to change what we value also, which is the largest challenge, as we are encouraged and programmed to consume useless, not invest. And, for many who do invest, the core reason is so that they are able to spend more on useless in the future.

A lot of people think they are not influenced by things like advertising, but the truth of the matter is that we all are influenced, because there are so many points target consistently, we can never catch them all. And, because these targets are targeted by people like behavioral psychologists who know how we operate better than we know ourselves, even when we catch some of the manipulations, we can never know how many slip through the defenses to nudge us.

The only way to mitigate the risk of manipulation, is to set up automatic barriers that do not rely on our emotional state at any given time to work. But, to maintain some level of practicality for resource expenditure, there needs to be a balance between "locking it up" and "saving it away", so the barriers are rigid, but porous when required, but "required" comes with an active decision and a strong sense of understanding of what is being undertaken with each spend.

Each spend.

It doesn't matter if it is money, energy or time - it all has an impact on our outcomes. If they way we spend is not conducive to getting to where we want to go, even if it feels good to spend, we would have to adjust, otherwise we can feel good, until we realize that what we want, is now a long way, or impossible to reach. Then how do we feel?

We seem to be more willing to create barriers to get to where we want to be, than build the habits that get us there.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]