I recall seeing a television program on personal finance. The program had a panel of experts giving advice to an audience on how to manage in our current economic environment. Two of the experts repeatedly advised the audience that spending must be curtailed and each person must save, save, and save. A lady in the audience stood up and said, “…But I like to spend. I like spending”. Another member of the panel responded and said “…And so do I”. Amazingly, I also like spending, but I coined the term “PowerSpending”, and prefer to do so more than saving.
Truly, this behavior appears to go against the grain, defies conventional wisdom, and appears to reject what is commonly understood and accepted by everybody that we must save, save, and save. Hold on a second. I think we need to be sure that we are on the same page in understanding the spending and saving concepts.
First let’s define the terms:
a. Spending – to pay out money in exchange for goods or services,
b. Saving – an amount of time or money that is not spent or used, and
c. PowerSpending – purposeful disbursement of time, service (s), resource (s), and/or money in exchange for value-added goods, services, and time useful towards fulfilling a predetermined goal.
Let me share with you a different way of looking at spending and savings. Common understanding is that money used to cover expenses or purchases is considered an act of spending, and money left over or deposited in the bank and not used for expenses, is considered savings. On the contrary, depositing money in the bank is also an act of spending. You have purchased bank services consisting of checking and storage privileges, agreed access, capital security and a modest or trivial interest income with your deposit.
As a customer, you must reorganize your thinking and look at all disbursements of money, and resources including investments as an act of spending. In an up or down economy, you must focus on spending for value as determined by a predetermined goal rather than impulse buying or spending, or just depositing money in bank accounts. Spending for value achieves efficiency, and engages self-accountability by raising obvious reality-checking questions such as: Is it prudent for me to spend this money now? Does this expenditure increase my chance of meeting my goal? Am I getting the best value for my dollar? Or Does this money transaction add to my financial security?
…Go to http://cashovercash.com/gift032710v1 to receive your GIFT REPORT and learn more about powerspending (value-added spending), revenue retention, finance and health, and cash flow and debt management strategies.
If you are interested in reading more about my PowerSpending philosophy, I’ve written a book called Spend, Don’t Save. It is available to you by clicking here.
