Delaying gratification – how hard can it be?
The key tenet of living within your means is to delay gratification. Spend later if not at all.
What does that mean to your daily living habits?
It means you spend only when you have money. You buy things after you have worn out your existing things. Buy new shoes when your old are worn out or torn. Buy new shirt/dress when your existing one starts getting flayed and holes start appearing. Buy that new handphone long after your old handphone has gone way out of fashion.
In today’s world of instant gratification, fast-food, online, real-time, now-now-I-want-it-now culture, it’s getting increasingly difficult to put into practice in our daily lives.
Is delayed gratification being extremely stingy and having no life?
Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that if you delay gratification indefinitely, then you basically are saying I won’t enjoy life even this one bit while I’m alive but I sure want to bequeath it all to my next of kin. No, in the sense that if you manage to balance between delaying gratification and matching it with new incoming cash flows, then you are able to enjoy a little now but save more for future.
I’d like to use my 10-90% rule for bonuses to show how this works. This rule is simple, I use my bonuses to pay for life’s luxuries. But I cap myself to about 10% of the bonuses. So if I make some investment returns from investing, or get some money from blog monetisation, I set aside 10% for play. It funds my next gadget, a nice meal or an accessory. Of course, 10% is just a gauge, sometimes the amount could be 50% or more if the windfall or bonus is small or it could be less than 10% if the windfall is bigger.
So one way to delay gratification is to tie it to actual cashflows coming in from year-end bonuses, capital gains from investments, dividends or income from investments or interest from deposits and savings. The other way is not to spend ALL of your cashflows from investment gains/ income / dividends but limit to a portion.
How hard is it to delay gratification
It gets easier when you grow older and realise how hard it is to earn money. I continue to learn how hard it is to make money either earned income or passive income. As I grow older, I also find that many of my interests when I was young(er) like computer games are pushed to the side in place of washing milk bottles, changing diapers and playing with my 11 month old daughter after work. Hence, helping my spouse to take care of her makes it easier to delay gratification. You lose your hobbies, you have less time to spend on yourself and less time to dream of ways to spend your money outside of infant formula, vitamins, diapers, wipes and other miscellaneous baby costs.
When you are younger, it’s tough because you are full of life and want to try many new things. Typically, these new things require MONEY as they tend to be material stuff. Age makes me realise that material stuff satisfies up to a point and up to a period of time, then you need to find something new to get the new “high”.
Whether or not you find it difficult to delay gratification would depend a lot on your own personality, family background and peers you hang out with.
If you are serious about wanting to move closer towards financial freedom, you have to get serious about delaying gratification long enough to make your dollar stretch and your savings grow into passive income sources.
What are some ways you delay gratification? Share with Panzer in the comments section. 
Be well and prosper.
Hi Panzer,
I always like to think of it in terms of wants and needs. This can be an intensely personal process so I would disclaim that it’s different for everyone; but this should act as a starting point. Once you have clarified between wants and needs, then you can proceed to delay having the “wants” and instead building up savings to purchase for the “needs” instead. In your case, with a baby, buying the milk powder, diapers and other associated baby-related items would be considered a “need”.
For the last few years, I’ve managed to defer all my “wants” and concentrate on my needs instead, which resulted in quite a bit of savings. Stuff like an iPod, a car, a beanbag for my house and a nice stereo system are all considered “wants”. Instead, I make do with music from my computer, internet radio, public transport and simple foldable chairs instead. It’s important to feel that your quality of life has not been severely compromised through delayed gratification, otherwise it may be wiser to just grab those things instead (there is a tenuous balance between living frugally, and depriving oneself of the nice things in life).
During times of recession, most people find it easy to defer their spending and save more. So I would say the current times make it easier to delay gratification. It becomes very hard during boom times when everyone gets huge bonuses and is flush with cash.
Regards.
Hi Panzer,
I too have gone throught the lesson of buying and ending up collecting stuffs. Now I practise delay gratification as having a ‘cooling down or thinking period’ of a couple of days. I use the period to determine if it is a want or a need, if it’s worth getting used instead of new, if it’s possible to loan or rent etc. For me, the main drive behind it is not incur more debt and to channel as much to clearing debt and working the money we earned.
Have a blessed day!
Hi Musicwhiz
Yes, the point of delaying gratification is that if you practice it consistently, you reap the benefits in times that are good or bad. I find that the older I get, the simpler my needs become.
Ultimately, it is a very personal choice determing the line to draw between needs and wants.
Hi hjteo
I can identify with that. We go through the accumulation of stuff stage in our lives. After a while, it becomes less meaningful to collect stuff and more meaningful to spend quality time with family and close friends.
Be well and prosper.
Never to try to save on your footwears. Once you have a feeling of slipping; quickly change them. A bad fall due to poor footwears may rollback your saving more than you expected.
Hi createwealth8888
That’s true. It’s easy to fall into the trap of being penny wise but pound foolish. I realise that with health, it’s important to spend money on eating real food and vegetables instead of the processed stuff that gets passed around as “food” in food courts, fast-food outlets and other eateries.
Thanks for the timely reminder that safety and health should not be sacrificed for short-term savings
Be well and prosper.