To start off, I have been a guy that has followed the masses for most of my life. I mean, I've been consuming, buying everything they sell on TV (TV as a synonym for all the marketing around us). I'm not saying it's a bad thing, what I'm saying is it should be your own choice to do that, not something that has been brainwashed into your head either through the TV or perhaps even your own parents. I'm 30 now, and I was doing all that till I was 26, last 4 years I've been doing things differently, and here's my story.
"For the love of money is the root of all evil." - 1 Timothy 6:10 King James Version (KJV) Bible
I'm a software engineer and I get paid decently, I was 24 when I started getting paid good. I bought a fancy lease car (loan), I bought expensive computer, I bought fancy clothes. In short - I bought stuff. I became the ideal member for our society - consumer. This way of living was the way my parents had taught me. Having a nice car, nice place to live and a lot of stuff - all this will make you a made man. So I was happy, cause I had pleased my parents.
As I progressed in the engineering field and switched jobs, salary got bigger, I made my way into a startup in financial industry. I met a lot of interesting people with different looks on life. I had a team mate (engineer) who drove an old car, I asked him why won't he buy a new car with his salary, and he said - "I don't want to work when I'm 50". I never thought about it, but it suddenly made all the sense in the world to me. I'm buying these things for my hard earned money, so I can go back to work and earn more money to buy more things - a vicious circle that keeps you working forever. It's so simple, yet almost like a blindfold has been wrapped on all our eyes, we do stupid things, we don't think why, and I think that's why a lot of us are miserable.
I like engineering, sure, but I don't like a job that doesn't have a light at the end of the tunnel. For me, personally, I don't like working at a job, with all the free food in the office, console games, flexible vacation times, employee bonuses, events - it still feels like slavery. Fortunately there is a little hope for me at my current job, they gave us company options that might be worth something some day when the company sells or IPO's. Personally, this is the only type of company I would be willing to work for, cause I see light at the end..
So the obvious solution is to become a non-consumer, don't buy things. Save up money, right? But what good is saving up money if there's inflation, if you put it under a pillow and take it out 2 years later, the central banks will have printed out so much money in the meantime your money is worth less, I mean check out this graph on EUR circulation from years 2009 - 2016 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/442970/currency-in-circulation-euro-area/). It's unbelievable how we're being robbed of our money every day. Every time new money is brought into circulation, the privileged ones (bankers, politicians) get the first right to buy fancy stuff with current market prices and release it into the wild, and everything becomes more expensive after that. It's so unfair, yet it's happening every day right under our noses.
Total value of currency in circulation in the Euro area from 2009 to 2016 (in million euros)
So you need to invest your money to earn interest, just to cover the inflation loss, but you take on risk by doing that, you might lose it all. But what other options do we have? Us, slaves. Spend it immediately? If you don't save up money and become unemployed when you're 50, you're screwed. Even today's companies rather hire younger people, old get kicked on the side. So the young people need to really start thinking hard early on about their savings, if they don't, they'll regret it in the old age.
So you see, the problem really is money. Whoever controls it, benefits. The rest lose. So I'm really putting all my hope on cryptocurrencies. I hope they remain decentralized, with fixed volume, no control from a bank or government, no one can print more. It is essential. It's unbelievable how long this has been going on in an unfair way, generations of people have died of being screwed over by their governments and banks. Don't get me started on taxes...
So I have made a conscious decision in my life to not buy pointless stuff. I follow a movement called minimalism (https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/). It's not about being crazy, it's about analyzing your current situation and optimizing. First, I got rid of all possible loans, thank god we don't have a credit card culture in Europe, I'd kill myself right now. I sold my lease car, since I thought about it hard - do I really need a car? I live in the city, I can walk to work, buses, trams all go to work - no I don't need it. But I need to take a trip once in a while to the countryside to visit my parents.. OK, I bought an old car, which I don't pay interest on, I fixed it up, it does what I need it to do on few weekends, fine. Secondly, I had a look at all my services that I pay monthly for, I discovered they all had cheaper alternatives on the market, for example my internet connection. Also my phone service provider was charging me more than some other company, switching between those is so easy today, you can even bargain the price. Thirdly, I was living in a rental flat. That's a bit tricky though, cause I won't scoop up that much money to just buy my own place, so I had to take a mortgage with really low interest. I chose a cheap flat, fixed it up myself, so I pay less. I hate it, but the monthly payment is cheaper than the current market rent price.
I'm saving up around 60% of my salary and i'm investing it into p2p loans at the moment. It's not ideal, cause risk is high, but what else can I do? Buying stocks is hard in Europe cause all your profits get taken away by the banks who are the only ones offering trader services at the moment. We really need a Robinhood (https://robinhood.com/) in Europe! I need to diversify my risk portfolio. I would love to invest into cryptocurrency loans, cause there I wouldn't be fighting the inflation, but actually making a profit!
Everyday I think about optimizing my life, the only places I make an exception for is my diet, health and traveling. I want to eat good food. I ride a bicycle to work and after work, walk a lot. Hike in the mountains. All the services, products currently offered out there are ultimately making our lives worse, cause you'll be giving away your hard earned money for comfort, while it could be making interest for you somewhere else. I can say I've become more happier, cause I don't really need to have a high paying job to survive in life, but I want to pursue higher salary still, so I can invest more. In the end I would like my money to be working for me, not me working for the money. I know I sound like a first-class banker a-hole right here. But should we talk about citizen salaries then? It's too early for that, we need more automation in the world before we can just chill and drink margaritas on the beach, personally I think that time will never come, we just don't have enough beaches for everyone. You could argue that earning interest from other people's misery is evil and I agree, I fail to see a good way, so that everyone benefits. I have high hopes for SpaceX, cause I think space travel might be good thing for equality, but there will never be true equality. Rich will keep getting richer, poor will keep getting poorer, it's basically a law of nature (which name I don't remember now, they did research on it).
I know this topic can be expanded even more considering the cryptocurrency possibilities and solutions, governments, societal structures, taxes, ethics. But it's already a long read, hope you enjoyed it.