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Originally posted by final_identity
The idea of money giving you options -- sometimes that's the case, but quite often the quest for money LIMITS your options instead. At least, occupies so much of your time, that you don't have the freedom to exercise or consider all those options that you can afford. It's an odd balancing act.
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Money isn't that hard to have, if you ignore it. Making money is hard to do: you almost always have to put work into it, be it by managing investments, labour at a job, keeping track of the real estate market, or schmoozing with contacts.
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And to me, travel is VERY important ... not that "go to the condominium on the beach" type of travel so many folks do as tourists, but rather that deep "experience the soul of the people" type that you can only do by means of extended stays in places. Which takes a type of wealth or logistical arrangement I haven't worked out, yet. I'd love to move somewhere for nine months, and then come back and write about it. Even if I lost significant cash in the process. But my problem is, there wouldn't be a job waiting for me upon my return, and so the departure (and the hiatus in my resume) would be too much of a detriment. It isn't the travel or the expense or the lack of income that's the risk, it's the actual not-working.
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Apparently you can get "working tourist" visas to some places, such as Japan. A friend of mine is on such a Visa as we speak. Amoung other things, he's thinking of visiting a village for a few months that his mother spent a few years in in her youth.
He is returning... sometime, no fixed date.
While I was in England, I spent some time with a colony of Kiwi's who are there on an "overseas experience". They are twenty-something, living 6 to 10 to a house, spending as little as possible, while racking up high-value British pounds. Some are saving up to move back to NZ and buy a house, some are thinking of staying in England, others have saved up money, bought a cheap old van, and are going to go ona tour of Europe for 6 months.
Arrange to visit countries where you can work while you are visiting. If anything, that will get you closer to the country than just being a tourist.
For me, money is really about options. The clutter comment made earlier is right on: I don't want to have to spend effort taking care of possessions. Having ownership of a thing is an obligation, not an asset, to me.
By maintaining a good earnings:spending ratio, it means work is stress-free: if I get fired, the company collapses, or anything else bad happens, it will just mean more free time. And the largest part of this is the low spending. I rent a 400$ room (that's 300 US$ or 160 BritLbs) in a friend's house, live ~8 km from work, drive a 13 year old car, and haven't bought a new computer in years. Most importantly, I cringe at reoccuring expenses: the only two big ones I have are my cell phone and my rent.
And I doubt I could be happier if I traded my finantial worry-free life for one of more luxuries.
As for the consumer trappings of the "movement" I apparently belong to (nobody tells me nothing, sheesh), I could see some justifications for it. It looks like a reduced-consumption movement, not an anti-consumption movement. People still eat. Having stores that sell things that cater to that, or magazines in which items of interest can be discussed or brought to light, isn't a contradiction. Personally, I'd never subscribe to it however.
