As I mentioned in a previous post, my wife and I started a #roadtominimalism last year. It's been really interesting to rewire my thought processes related to possessions, time and the really important things in life.
One of the biggest things I've had to work out is not spending little bits of money on extraneous things. I've gotten myself over the desire to spend larger amounts of money as soon as it was available, but the nickel-and-dime purchases have been harder to do away with. A recent example (from this morning actually) is my old phone. I've had an Otterbox case on it since I got the phone, and the size of it has always driven me just a bit crazy. I was always concerned with getting a thinner case because I had wrecked my previous phone due to a lack of any protection and I didn't want to repeat past mistakes which lead to a ruined device. However, I recently switched to a new phone and got a thin case for that with a tempered glass screen protector. Since I'm going to be keeping the old phone, I decided it was finally time to get a case I was more comfortable using. Considering how much I like the case and protector I have on the new phone, I went looking them up for the old one.
After a few minutes of searching I found a case and screen protector I wanted at Amazon. Since I'm getting pretty serious about wanting to use Bitcoin as often as possible, I decided to bring the URLs for both items over to Purse.io and got ready to order them. While the items were sitting in the checkout, just waiting for me to submit the order... I stopped. You see, I don't have a lot of Bitcoin and the idea of paying out .024 made me pause. While in that paused state, considering whether or not to "give up" that much coin, I started to think about how this purchase would play into my goal of a more minimalist lifestyle. Do I really need this thing? Does it serve a purpose that something isn't already fulfilling? Is the benefit gained from it worth the amount of money I'm spending on it? Is there a better way I could use this money? Do I really want to create more waste by discarding the old case that has nothing wrong with it?
When I started getting into Bitcoin, I told my wife it was changing the way I viewed my spending. Watching the way every purchase could affect my future savings was made very obvious to me as I studied the fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin. I decided to stop making my daily runs to the convenience store down the street on my lunch break and use that money to buy Bitcoin. Not only am I avoiding junky snack foods which help keep my pants tight, I'm also keeping the money I would have spent and it's working as an investment to help our family as time progresses.
This might be a silly, small example of the benefits of digital/crypto-currencies, but it's a real world example of the way these kinds of things can help make a better financial future. So here's to empowering people to save money and think about the really important things in life and not just the short-term, feel good things.