In money and happiness, our journalist Nicolas Bérubé offers his reflections every Sunday on enrichment. His texts are sent as a newsletter the next day.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
I cooked my famous vegetarian chili the other Sunday by a rainy day when it struck me.
Ten dollars is still a lot of money.
It is that I mentally added the price of the ingredients. And I realized that the cauldron that overflowed with food in front of me cost me about $ 10.
Consult the recipe for vegetarian chili (in English)
It comes up to $ 1.66 per portion. Add rice, and we are around $ 2 per portion.
So my $ 10 give me 5 supports for a person.
Ten dollars, it also gives 10 lunches (40 cents for coffee, 60 cents for bread, peanut butter and bananas).
And, like any graying man who is advancing in his forties, I make my bread. I am the popular recipe for Mark Bittman-five minutes of effort for twenty-four hours of pride. It comes back to 75 cents the miche. Ten dollars therefore give a dozen breads, enough for more than a month in our case.
See the recipe for Mark Bittman (in English)
I know, you think I spend my life calculating this kind of thing. But reality is that once fast and effective behavior, which make us happier and more healthy, are integrated into our daily lives, the financial advantage is above all an achievement that we make afterwards.
This is the excellent file published last week in Business press On the costs of the delivery of Uber Eats and other services of the genre that made me think of all this.
Read the “food delivery: a convenience that can be expensive”
The file shows how Uber Eats fits into our lives as a little too intense friend who is always there to help us. “A little hunger? “,” Don’t miss it “and” take advantage of it! “Say the automated emails of the company. Dozens of dollars a week can pass, sometimes more. All that, without ever having to cut an onion. Just caressing the screen of our phone, and the dishes would appear at the door.
Many people fall into the sign. Because yes, it’s a sign.
It is often believed to be enriched is a mechanism that 1) is controlled by external factors, and 2) is a business of big money.
We say to ourselves: “Ah, if I was going to work with the competitor, with a salary increase of $ 10,000 or $ 15,000 per year, there, I could get rich! “Or:” If only I had a big end -of -year bonus, I could save and invest! »»
No. You would go a little more to the restaurant. Would buy more clothes. Change your vehicle a little faster. And $ 10,000 or $ 15,000 would disappear as quickly as they arrived.
Getting rich is a decision. For most people, it is under our control. And that has nothing to do with big money. The majority of millionaires did not enrich $ 10,000 or $ 15,000. But well with decisions of $ 10.
The problem is that our brain is struggling to make a link between a small and a large amount.
Uber Eats: Small amount. Be rich: large amount. So we tell ourselves that we are in two different galaxies.
Error. We are in a single galaxy.
Spending $ 50 per week for Uber Eats gives $ 37,600 per decade when we follow the 752 rule, which allows us to see what an invested amount would give an annualized compound return of 7 %. For a couple, we are talking about $ 75,000 every ten years.
Read the text “get rich with the 752 rule”
Over an active life that stretches from 20 to 65, it gives $ 795,000 per person, or more than $ 1,500,000 for a couple. Even by calculating a long -term yield of 6 %, it gives nearly $ 600,000 per person, or 1.2 million for a couple.
At the risk of writing an obviousness: very few Quebec households have 1.2 million in their investment accounts at dawn of their retirement decades.
Note that I only calculated here the yield of $ 50, adjusted each year to cover inflation, per person per week. Absolutely nothing else.
The main principles of wealth are little taught at school, rarely transmitted to the house, and are not the subject of advertising campaigns.
But food delivery services are subject to massive advertising campaigns. They are everywhere. All the time. Even our children know them. And so use them is “normal”.
If you are already rich, it is not a restaurant order from time to time on Friday that will change anything to your finances. But if you want to progress financially, it’s a habit that will move you away from your goal faster than you think.
These lessons were written by the financial blogger Peter Adeney, alias Mr. Money Mustache, more than a decade.
Read the text of blogger Peter Adeney (in English)
In his text, Mr. Adney recalls that long-term financial health and freedom often go through simple, but counter-intuitive choices in the short term.
“For example, it is absolutely ridiculous to buy your first bottle of wine or your first meal at the restaurant if you do not yet have a good bike and a trailer for bicycle [pour transporter ses enfants, la commande d’épicerie en ville ou en banlieue, etc.]he writes. It is also insane to buy a luxurious vehicle if your house is not yet fully paid. And if you still have student loans, reimburse them before considering the purchase of an iPhone or vacation abroad. »»
However, we do the opposite. We are aligning our financial decisions in the bad order.
It assures us to pay huge interests throughout our lives. To have to give 100 % of our income to others. To repel the moment when our investments start to work as hard, even stronger, as us.
Ten dollars is a lot of money. Fifty dollars is a little fortune.
Whoever forgets it in paying the price.
