The Consumption Economy

I listened to a podcast that my friend Jones’ made. It’s called every day Saturday. Sam is out of Cincinnati, Ohio. He talked about how recently he watched a documentary called “Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things”. Sam had a large house, 3,000 square feet, four bedrooms, and four baths. He has four daughters so he does have a large enough family to justify that square footage, but he is putting his house on the market in order to downsize so that he can be more financially stable.

Keeping Up With The Jones’: Not Being Satisfied

I recently watched this documentary (Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things) with my wife and she thought I was absolutely crazy, which is true. The opposite of the minimalist idea is keeping up with the Jones’s. The majority of our culture revolves around keeping up with the Joneses and not being satisfied with what you have.

I liked the documentary because it explored how these guys were able to live on less money, be able to travel and be able to spend more time with family/friends, and not be a slave to their jobs, or for that matter, money.

I fantasize about the idea of moving into a tiny house and paying cash and not having a mortgage payment, starting a couple of new companies which I’m working on (more soon) and I’ll have to start writing about the new ventures, quitting my job and being able to have more time with the family to where I’m only working 30 hours a week instead of 80 hours a week.

The Most Important Thing: Spending Time With Family

I currently work for a large corporation where I’m on the road all the time in an industry that is very macho, egotistical and loves to show off materialistic items. It’s in the finance industry. It is all about keeping up with the Joneses and being better than the Joneses. It sometimes makes me sick. N o wait, all the time.

After watching that documentary I spend evenings after the kids and my wife goes to bed thinking. I think about that tiny house and being able to move it all over the United States. I’d show the kids different cultures and raise the kids in different cities. They would learn how to start different businesses. My kids would understand how to look for certain opportunities and how to gauge the market. I’d teach them how to run and read a balance sheet. They’d even learn how to read a profit and loss statement. Those are the things that I think about.

Keeping Up With The Jones’ Will Get You Nowhere

As of right now in the spring of 2017 I am realizing and conscious of the fact that keeping up with the Jones’ will get you absolutely nowhere, in fact probably broke, and I’m refocused now on dialing it down and being more of a minimalist. How about you? Does anybody else struggle with this?