When Is Less More?

Less can be more whether it’s about money habits or consumption habits. A few years back, I gave up coffee for tea. This habit gradually turned into only green tea drinking.  I’ll share with you that the tea is meant to steep very briefly, or else it becomes bitter, for those readers who are not green tea drinkers.

Recently, while on a visit to the incredible and wonderful Herb Bar in Austin, I decided to indulge in a new loose leaf green tea. I usually just drink Whole Food Market’s plain organic tea because it’s quick, and easy, so this was a tiny bit of indulgence for me. As I sat on the porch on this gorgeous morning enjoying my new tea, I caught myself wanting to brew the tea a little longer than usual to get every bit of the flavor out of the leaves. Then I realized that by doing so, I may ruin the flavor altogether, since it gets bitter if brewed too long. Then I thought: hmmm, less is definitely more in this situation, like so many areas of life.

When is less more regarding your money? As a society, at least in the United States, I think we experienced this phenomenon as zero interest credit cards encouraged more and more accumulation in the mid 2000’s. Then boom, free money ended and we realized that we suddenly had too much stuff…and too much debt!

Sometimes less is definitely more; I am a collector; I really do like my things; I love to decorate, I love clothes, I like nice things. .. but I have come to realize that too much stuff stifles me. I can’t find what I need, I can’t organize what I have, and I feel cluttered when I have too much.

As we complete our cash flow templates this week for the Roadmap to Financial Success course, the less is more mindset wears well for the spending portion of this equation. If less is more, then spending less equates to more money to invest and grow. More money to grow means being able to provide those things that money can buy that really matter in our lives. Where can you apply the less is more principle in your spending to get you to the more of what really matters in your life?