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My parents always told me to save.  My accountant tells me to set money aside in my RRSP.  Saving seems like a reasonable thing to do, but why?  Why do we save?  More importantly what are we supposed to be saving for?  After being able to take care of life’s necessities: shelter, heat, food and 3 months of living expenses set aside, what else is there?  My TV tells me I should be saving to get a new car, a bigger TV (I gave in to this one), a bigger house, a nice vacation, etc.  What a fucking scam.  You work your ass off for 60 hours / week and then you buy a nice big house or a downtown condo and now you have to work 80 hours / week to maintain the same lifestyle.  So by saving and then upgrading, you’ve essentially locked yourself into a job you already hated.  Btw, if anyone thinks their house is an appreciating asset just ask your US friends, especially those in Florida or California.

Convinced that savings suck, but not sure yet about what to do with the extra cash?  Do what I do:  Save just enough for your next business “risk”.  That could be investing in a bottomless stock market, buying a cash flow positive income property with lots of room for equity growth or starting a business.  Your friends might think these ventures are risky.  Your friends must be employed.  Investing in yourself or what you’ve researched is a lot safer than being employed by a corporation that can fire you at any time, for any reason.  What if you fail?  Each failure contains valuable clues to achieve success the next time.  Save some money and try again.  Feel shitty about failing?   Remember that your lost investment would have just eroded in your bank anyways.

It’s a bit counter-intuitive because of how society has defined “risk”, but really one of the riskiest things you can do with your money is to take no investment risk at all.  Yet somehow, I think our asian parents would disagree.

I’ve always considered myself a strategist. I determine what options are available to me, weigh pros and cons (sometimes obsessively) and make a decision. It’s worked well for me. It’s worked so well for me, that at this point in my life it would take a fantastic set of occurrences to fuck things up. At the same time, I sometimes find myself not wanting any of what I have. The house, the car, the businesses. Probably because with them comes the responsibility and the weight of managing them. When you have “things” you always have something to lose. I seem to miss the days where I had nothing to lose. Life seemed lighter. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize the advantages of having nothing. Instead, because I thought I grew up poor, I always focussed on acquiring wealth and didn’t pay nearly as much attention to living or experiencing life.

Btw, I say thought I grew up poor because in hindsight I never really grew up poor. Although I lived in a 3 BR apartment with my mom and grandparents, never having my own room until I moved out at 21, I never went without food (lots of food), clothing, shelter and some pocket money. I thought we were poor because my parents didn’t dress me up in MTV clothing: Reebok pumps / Nike Airs, Tommy Hilfiger polos, cK jeans, etc. For these reasons, I didn’t fit in prior to uniforms being enforced in high school. I also grew up in a poor neighbourhood, but I realize now that my grandfather’s choice of area had more to do with value than comfort. In actuality, I was richer than most, I just didn’t look the part. Anyways, I’ve digressed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love making money and I love what I do to make money, I’m just questioning whether I placed too much emphasis on it too early. I like to think that I’m talented when it comes to developing and creating businesses. Given my cup is pretty empty when it comes to travel and living a life where I have more options than obligations on a daily basis, self-made or otherwise, the concept seems romantic. Maybe I could take a few months off and make up on some lost opportunities. Time to strategize on what it will take to make that happen :p.

In some parallel universe right now, I’m complaining about the lack of structure in my life and how I’m tired of not knowing what tomorrow will bring :-).

nK.