I wrote an informal essay on "Spending Less". Of the 4 popular ways of growing wealth, spending less the most achievable. In this essay, I present a technique I've learned over many years, which works great for me and a lot of people I know. Turns out, this technique can be neatly explained by behavioural science. https://info.pagnis.in/blog/2020/05/31/spending-less/

Nice summary. Another thing I learned was from my kid's books about "needs" vs. "wants". I "want" a 3d-printer and I can afford it. But after sleeping on it, I realised that I don't "need" it. Yet. 😉 Crisis averted for the time being. I have a "sleep on it" rule for purchases above a threshold. If I still need it in a week (or month, depending) from now, I might give in.

I habitually convert

wants

into

needs

. Happens the most with books. And subsequently to containers for books aka bookshelves 🙂

Yes indeed,

need

vs

want

is a great de-motivator. Which helps, and often works. However, motivation is unreliable. It will go up and down you will barely have control any over it. Sometimes, your brain will simply say -- "screw that, this isn't a want, this is a need. I need this for <some retrofitted reason that sounds applicable>". For this reason, if you truly want to avoid buying, lean on the prompts and ability instead of motivation. Extending that, there are some wants that we want more, and some wants that we want less. I think it's okay to just buy what you want, provided you have a budget for it. What do we earn the money for? This is where the budget cap helps.

great post, one more q's - do you have a set % of spending based on your earnings/cashflow or do you choose a number and stick to it? I know this will vary across, but just curious on your thought process on that. I generally find bugets boring, but I like setting an X % to spend and if I cross it, I try not to spend more monthly via Walnut the app - very visual and does the job

For higher incomes -- specially mid career professionals in 30s, expenses shouldn't go above 25% including rental, children school fees etc. For lower incomes it's 35% I haven't come up with these numbers, a few financial advisors have told me similar numbers. Also "higher" and "lower" is very subjective, but here it's meant in terms of Indian tax filing numbers.