Live Within Your Means

Live Within Your Means

At first glance, the phrase live within your means is obvious. But there’s a lot more stuffed into that small phrase than you may realize. Let’s look carefully at those four little words.

LIVE.  First and foremost, we want to remember to not just survive, but to truly live. The point in acquiring wealth and managing your money is because you want to actually enjoy life. Money is the tool to help make that happen.

WITHIN.  This is an important preposition. Within..not beyond or beneath, but within. As stated earlier, you want to enjoy your life and truly live it well. But you don’t want to borrow money to make it happen (that is living beyond your means). On the opposite side of the spectrum, you don’t want to save your wealth out of fear, storing away all your money and never ever putting it to use for your life (that is living beneath your means).

YOUR.  The key here is to decide what wealth means for you. Don’t base your financial goals on your parents’ advice, or on how celebrities spend their money, or on what other people are doing. These are your means, so you set goals for your life.

MEANS.  This is a reminder that money is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Getting money is not a goal. It is a means to an end. Unfortunately, too many men work toward that imaginary goal of getting rich. Making money for money’s sake will actually lead nowhere. Imagine if your goal was to make a million dollars by age 35. On your 35th birthday, you’re sitting on a million dollars...now what? Remember: money is the means for much grander purposes.