Article: Save Without Sacrifice

Posted By Paul

There was an article on Yahoo Finance today:

Save Without Sacrifice

I liked the fact that it opens with an emphasis on looking carefully at the luxuries in your life, and specifically talks about the distinction between need and want.

But my favortie part was where the article talks about the "Vice-A-Day Deal." It is saying that if the cold turkey approach to cutting out the daily frills from your life is too hard, then try limiting yourself to one frill a day.

It reminded me of the idea that while you may not last long on a super strict diet where you eat nothing but healthy stuff, a more moderate diet where you eat healthy but occasionally splurge will still yield benefits and will hopefully be something you can stick with long term.

I liked the idea of trying to find a moderate approach to saving money. So often I see people who do financial "crash diets" where they decide to cut out every frill from their life (movies, Starbucks, meals out, etc.) and they end up being unable to stick to it long, and then they are back to their old patterns. By creating a system where you can only have one frill per day you have a better chance of saving money AND sticking to it.