Instead of trying to increase your income, why not just try and decrease your expenses?

Instead of trying to increase your income, why not just try and decrease your expenses?

Because increasing your income scales near infinitely whereas spending less gets impossible past a certain point.

Earning $1000/mth more than you are isn't hard. Spending $1000/mth less isnt really impossible unless you blow it like an idiot. There is infinite money to make but I can only get rid of my car, cable and spend less on food so many times

>Because increasing your income scales near infinitely

It can't be infinity when there's a finite amount of money.

There is an infinite amount of money as far as we're concerned

But spending less gets impossible past a certain point where you need to save $2 but massively cutting your quality of life by getting singleply toilet paper

But in terms of pragmatism, it's easier to reach $0 than it is $infinity

/thread

Not yet

awaiting response for

because when you run a business you have to spend money to make money. And you have to spend MORE money to make more money.

spending less money means I make less money. Dumping wads into advertising, equipment, and happy employees grows my business. Growing is cheaper than shrinking since growth produces money while shrinking costs it.

Spending less will always reach a hardcap and marginal returns until that point.

Eventually to save $200 you'll need to live like a homeless person whereas $200 more per month earned isn't all that much and is much more achievable

nobody said anything about having infinite dollars. he meant if your income is $50k, there's a lot more room between $50k and $1 billion than $50k and $0. and he said "near infinitely"

>pragmatism
>spending $0

pragmatism: an approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application.

so what would be the success of the practical application of spending $0?

2016 guys let's step it up.

and to answer your OP:

Because it means making a lot of sacrifices and spending a portion of your life willfully denying yourself pleasure and experiences that come with spending that money. What if you decrease your expenses and die a year later? You might be better served spending your money when you have it on fun times and great memories.

smart people do both though, with emphasis on increasing income.

This sounds like Republican bait. But you aren't going to get an interesting response from them, just "dur hur liv within ur meens librul." Ironically, the extreme end of that is associated with many "librul" stereotypes like not having a car and not eating meat.

But aside from that, you reach a hard limit pretty quickly. You have to have a dry place to sleep, you have to eat food, and you have to have transportation to work to pay for the other two. There's no way around it other than dying.

I do admire people who can cut down to the bare minimum. But when I hear stories about extreme savers, it's generally someone who is younger and either lives out of a van or lives at home.

Van living, no thanks. I'm not twenty anymore.

And living with parents just offsets your costs from you to them. Unless you're paying market rent, you're fooling yourself and everyone else in a sense.

But yes, in general, frugality is a game of grossly diminishing returns.

Expenses will eventually reach a minimum level of necessities and results in poor quality of life or recreational activity.

Budgeting is important to control expenses, but most people's life goals and desired standard of living require certain levels of income.

>Earning $1000/mth more than you are isn't hard
but tell us how

I already live ascetic :^)

By getting another job, a better one or a second job or any other number of things that earn money

This basically assumes that you don't have a shit job without upward mobility. Basically jobs that you won't/cant get until your mid 20s most likely. Once you're in one of those spots you can bust your ass and get that kind of raise.

>There is an infinite amount of money as far as we're concerned
bait

How is it bait? You can always scale up and earn more money

A business can earn billions in profit potentially but saving money reaches a hard limit quickly and has nowhere to go because you're spending $600 month - $300 for rent in a cockroach infested, moldy room in the part of town where black people live, $150 on ramen and water and $150 on everything else

/thread

It's a simpler and more rewarding path to find new ways to generate income, than it is to find ways to decreases expenses.

For example in my own life, if I became a cheapskate I could probably drop my annual life expenses by about $5k. Or I could work a LITTLE harder at work, do some Craigslist deals, etc... make an extra $10k per year and still live at my current level of comfort.

Besides, quality bitches are a premium expense.

>not stealing toilet paper from work
It's like you want to burn money.

...

I don't know about your workplace, but now we have to ask for toilet paper when we go to the can.
Thanks a lot.

>Earning $1000/mth more than you are isn't hard. Spending $1000/mth less isnt really impossible unless you blow it like an idiot.
Consider the following
>Earning $1000 more must be after-tax income, thus you technically need to be paid about $1250 extra
>Saving $1000 is just that - $1000
So if you cut spending by $1000 you might see it as a good ROI as you've essentially negated the need to earn an additional $250 to be in the same net position had you not cut spending

Not sure if making sense but you'll figure it out.

the fuck you want me to do, eat dirt instead of beans?

>Get $800/month raise
>now you have enough to live like you were, and lease a Porsche or BMW M3
>OR, if you're a real smartass, you can afford to buy a house that's $80,000 more than otherwise.

Simple, my friend. Not everyone is about that poor life.

There's only so many expenses I can cut before I might as well just go live innawoods. And the government won't let me live innawoods.

Bernout dectected

How realistic is living in an RV or similar when you're so used to taking a daily shower, have a nice toilet to shit, and not sweating your balls off or freezing?

Ask the 10,000,000 young backpackers per year who go around the world with a pair of jeans, 2 t-shirts and some underwear