4108: King for Just One Day by Mr. Money Mustache on Frugal Living

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[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00] This is Optimal Living Daily, King for Just One Day by Mr. Money Mustache of MrMoneyMustache.com. And I'm your narrator, Justin Malik, sharing the best articles that I can find and get permission from every single day of the year. Today featuring Mr Money Mustache, who I read over on Optimal Finance Daily, where I share a little motivation to fix our money situations.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_00] You can find that show wherever you're listening to this. Again, that's Optimal Finance Daily, and it would mean a lot if you gave that a follow too. But for now, let's get right to it as we optimize your life. King for Just One Day by Mr. Money Mustache of MrMoneyMustache.com These summer vacations are great. I'm sitting in a 150-year-old house in the heart of downtown Hamilton, Ontario,

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00] enjoying the steamy warmth of the Great Lakes area, the lush vegetation and well-tended gardens that only our elders seem to master, and some of the world's best home cooking. During earlier stops on this same trip, I had the pleasure of touring the nicest district of a historic city, drinking new kinds of beer with interesting new people, eating in a stylish Colombian restaurant, who knew those even existed, zooming along the Chicago waterfront in a brand new luxury motorboat, and riding around in the fast and expensive cars of various friends.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_00] I've even had the chance to spend quite a few hours playing with the latest gadgets, iPads and the Blackberry Playbook tablet, new computers and a gigantic 3D television. All of these things seem pretty prestigious. Each one of them would take quite a bit of effort and money if I wanted to incorporate them into my own daily life back in Colorado. But while I enjoyed each experience to its fullest, I have no plan to copy any of them. And that's because of a trick I've adopted.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00] I like to call it the king for just one day method. You see, luxury experiences are luxurious precisely because they are novel. If you ask a kid who has grown up in a waterfront mansion how excited he is about his parents' house, he'll probably describe the experience in pretty mundane terms. As you get used to a new luxury, the fun rapidly wears off. Most of the fun happens right at the beginning. When I bought myself a really fast motorcycle back in 2001,

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_00] the best riding experience was the first day I took it up into the mountains. If I bought myself that Tesla Roadster I occasionally fantasize about, the peak experience would again be those first few days or weeks of ownership. The fancy boat in Chicago would lose its thrill after the first season, and a fancy restaurant becomes commonplace after a few visits. But that doesn't change the fact that the initial thrill is pretty exciting. And luckily, in our modern and prosperous world,

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00] friendly people like you mustachians are likely to be exposed to plenty of those thrills, whether you seek them out or not. You might end up in a job where you get to take business trips, bringing your fancy gadgets and special bags onto a jet that can take you to beautiful and distant parts of the planet. You might even get to purchase a salad of seared ahi tuna over a bed of mixed greens with a rich sesame ginger dressing while your employer pays the bill. Others will get a chance to swim amongst tropical fish in crystal clear turquoise seas,

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_00] or sleep in the home of a very wealthy friend or family member, enjoying a view or amenities that most of our fellow humans could only dream of. Even more fun than sharing these peak experiences offered by others is offering your own. When a friend visits my house for the first time, I'm pleased to provide the insider's tour of some of the world's best snowboarding, mountain biking, brew pubs, and camping and river activities. These things have become commonplace for me, but usually seem pretty amazing to new guests.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_00] The key to making the most of these experiences is to enjoy them for what they are without idolizing them as a necessary part of everyday life. All of us have got plenty of neat things to keep us busy in life, and if you take a careful inventory, you'll see that there are already many options you already have that are going unused. So when you experience new things that seem better than the equivalent things in your own life, avoid the temptation to copy them. I don't need to get my own new yacht,

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00] because I've already rated that best first day courtesy of my friend's new yacht. I don't need to buy a seared ahi tuna salad in a prestigious coastal restaurant everyday, because I already enjoy that initial thrill during a business trip. I don't even need other amazing new experiences everyday, because even amazing days would start to blur together if they weren't properly grounded with days of quiet introspection, and other days of good old-fashioned hard work. Lower income people can lose their envy of the rich

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00] by learning that a life of constant luxury is not any better than a life of simplicity punctuated by the plentiful novelty that life automatically invents for us. And rich people can lose their slavery to their own wealth by learning that seeking out constant luxury is like listening to a radio where someone flips from one station to the next every few seconds. Listen to the whole d*** song, then listen to the whole album, and if you can handle it, try making some of your own music. Write your own list of the ways that you've got it good,

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00] and then dig in and enjoy them all this summer before going out to purchase any more add-ons to your already great life. You just listened to the post titled King for Just One Day by Mr. Money Mustache of mrmoneymustache.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Support for today's episode comes from Square, the business platform that helps sellers become neighborhood favorites.

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[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00] Back to school starts now. Get long-lasting battery life on the Dell XPS laptop powered by Series 3 Intel Core so you can work from anywhere. Now starting at $699 with exclusive student pricing starting at $599. Complete your setup with savings on select monitors and must-have electronics and accessories. Limited time deals and free shipping on PCs and more await you at dell.com slash deals.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_00] That's dell.com slash deals. Thinking of Mr. Money Mustache, again featured frequently on Optimal Finance Daily where I share great articles talking about spending less, saving more, money motivation if you like. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already and if you like this show.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_00] I really liked the main idea that a lot of what makes a luxury exciting is just that it's new. The first ride on the new motorcycle. The first day with the fancy gadget. That's the peak and then the thrill fades as you get used to it. It's called the hedonic treadmill and I'm sure we'll be talking about that a lot more on Optimal Finance Daily. And I think most of us have felt that.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00] We save up for something we're sure will make us happy and it does for a little while and then it just becomes normal. The trick, which he calls king for just one day, is something I like to do with cars. Maybe once a year. Rent a nice one for a day. Because the thrill was never really in owning it or doing the maintenance or worrying about scratches and so on. I don't want to deal with that.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00] But the driving every once in a while, definitely. So thank you to Mr. Money Mustache. If you enjoyed this one, come on over and hear more from him and me over on Optimal Finance Daily. But thank you for being here. Have a great rest of your day and I'll catch you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.