Posted at 7:00 a.m.
So how will the election of a new government affect your finances?
OK, that’s a tricky question. The truth is that our finances should never depend on things as unpredictable and beyond our control as the identity of the next government.
Do you want the key to getting rich? A rule that has worked for millennia, and which has nothing to do with the mood of François Legault?
Come closer, I’ll tell you, but don’t say it again.
The trick to getting rich is spending less money than you make.
Whether we are on minimum wage or whether we are the CEO of Bombardier, our task is the same: to protect the dollars that are in our pocket.
I hear people from here say, “Yes, you have to save to get rich, but it’s not nice to save. We only have one life to live. Why would I deprive myself? »
This argument misses a fundamental, and too little discussed, truth: the importance of distinguishing between spending and happiness.
Everything in our society, from advertising to the eyes of the people around us, associates spending with happiness. So much so that these two notions are now laminated together, inseparable from each other.
However, this association does not hold water. Do the exercise: ask someone around you to write down on a sheet of paper the ten moments or activities that give them the most happiness in life.
People who take the time to do this typically write things like: “spending time with my children”, “walking in the woods” or “laughing during an evening with friends”.
Intuitively, we all know that the activities that give us the most pleasure are not necessarily the most expensive. I’d be surprised (even worried) if someone put “stroke my smartwatch” or “wash my new van” in their list.
I experienced it recently during a nice family day, when we went to see my son play soccer in a nearby neighborhood, before going for a swim at the municipal swimming pool. We made the trip by bike, taking a quiet route that I had discovered by consulting Google Maps.
On the way back, we passed an imposing movie set. Further on, we came across a street play where we happened to meet some friends.
At home, since it was late and everyone was hungry, we made pasta with pesto — pesto cooked from the basil that grew like weeds over the summer in our vegetable patch.
In my mind, this beautiful sunny day, filled with laughter, discoveries and discussions with people I love, is priceless. In fact, it didn’t cost us more than a few dollars.
Did I “deprive” myself that day? Instead of using our bikes, we could have been driving a state-of-the-art 2023 SUV financed over 96 months. For supper, we could have ordered from the restaurant, with a minimum bill of $75 for a meal quickly forgotten.
It wouldn’t have made me happier, but it would certainly have made me poorer. With, the next day, the realization that the balance on my credit card had just increased. Still.
Am I still spending a handful of dollars a day? Certainly not. But such days exist to remind us that happiness cannot be bought.
We only have one life to live. Why would we deprive ourselves?