Buddhism and Saving Money
Reading how others are saving for travel I’ve noticed that many adopt a Buddhist philosophy towards saving, some knowingly and others not so. Of course the philosophy isn’t exclusively Buddhist, any philosophy is just that, but this one has long been associated with Buddhism.
A few months ago Brave New Traveler had an excellent article called 5 Steps To Save Money Like Buddha now I don’t know that Buddha was really into finance but I doubt he would frown upon people practising things like non-attachment and seeing things for what they are worth. I find myself looking around the house not for things I don’t have but for things I can sell. Playstation games have gone and DVDs are on the way out, I’m a bit of a miser so there isn’t much left to sell anyway but it actually feels good to get rid of these things, I can now see how pointless it is keeping them and in some cases, buying them in the first place. A while ago I also gave up buying magazines like FHM which I bought religiously for some reason I still can’t figure out, I haven’t saved any money there though because I started buying others like National Geographic and Outdoor magazines but the difference here is that these inspire me and teach me new things, FHM just burned a hole in my pocket and probably one in my brain as well.
Dave at GoBackpacking is a Buddhist and it’s reflected in his posts about saving and his approach to money. It might seem that moving your priorities from material things to accumulating money isn’t exactly admirable but ultimately the move isn’t from one material thing to another but to what the money will eventually bring, it’s the difference between looking for happiness in having money and using money to help open the door to more meaningful happiness.
Now I’m not advocating that anyone who wants to save money should become a Buddhist, obviously you don’t have to as reassessing your values and placing a higher value on non-material things is a philosophical change not a spiritual one, although you could take it to that level. This philosophy can help you learn to live below your means it may even make you happier knowing that you are not giving into shallow materialistic wants. One of the biggest money making, life enhancing methods of increasing personal ‘wealth’ on the internet also follows this philosophy, people are trading in 60-80 hour work weeks and directing their energies into earning money through more efficient methods often maintaining their previous income but now also being “time rich”, one example is the NuNomads another and Number 7 on Amazon’s best selling books is The 4-Hour Work Week. It’s seems Post-Consumerism is coming into reality but not coming from quite the same path they thought it would.
Popularity: 37% [?]
I used to buy Maxim magazine when I was 18 or 19. I see those things on the rack now and I ask myself, what in the hell was I thinking? Magazines like those (and 99% of the rest of them) deal with illusion: airbrushed models, fashion, male antics, whatever. Most of our society is yelling at us to keep buying stuff. To save money, as you point out, all you have to do is stop buying for the sake of buying.
I seriously think you lose IQ points reading magazines like that, I’m so glad I stopped buying them.
Helpful article…what I was able to read, anyway. I had to stop because of all the run-on sentences. (Commas are not the way to separate sentences…) If you want your online publication to be taken seriously, you’ve got to brush up on your punctuation.
I too embrace the knowledge that we constantly buy and consume for the sake of it. I used to spend a good £5-10 on my train journey home, the mags & junk food .. now at 28 I am learning to just chill and be happy with a newspaper lol :).
James