Why do you look for cheap? To save money? To get more? To spend less?

What are you worth? What is your time worth? What does value mean to you?

Ok, I’ll stop asking questions.

So many of us are looking for a bargain. A way to cut corners so that we can spend less and buy more. The perceived value in our commercialized world is to spend less because we are asked to do more yet we are making less money. Walmart’s entire business model is based on this principle, spend less, get more! More of what exactly? Value? Hardly. I won’t argue that you do spend less, but you are getting much less in quality, value and in turn your self-worth.

Scarcity will break you. Believing that you have too little to get more forces you to spend less money but use up more time on getting something cheap. You end up spending a resource that you only have so much of -time- in exchange for a resource that you can get a limitless amount of -money. This cycle of abusing your time is what scarcity is all about. If you are spending more time chasing deals instead of finding ways to get more value, the system has won, and the Walmarts of the world have done their job in keeping you down and feeding off of their perpetual system of lowering your self-worth down. If we all became more industrious with our time and cognizant of our value, we would have no time to shop at their stores.

Now, I am not advocating that you find shady ways to make more money. Selling drugs or thieving from your neighbour is not how you make a quick buck. You can make a lot more money in your life and yet not receive an extra nickel in your bank account. It is all based on how you value the money you have and not the perceived amount of money that you think you are entitled. What is your time worth to you? And what value do you place on the things that you buy and consume?

Personally, my wages have barely kept up with the pace of inflation; in fact, if I dug deep, they probably haven’t. The money I make now is pretty much worth a little less in terms of buying power than the money I made a few years ago. a wealthy I have managed to stave off additional debt, go on more vacations, eat better food, drive more quality vehicles and live better and more comfortable than I ever have at any point in my life. Yet, for all intensive purposes, I make less money.

I have one rule: I never shop at Walmart.

Ok, I have a pick on for Walmart in this blog post, but the reason is quite simple. The money I earn is worth more than the value that Walmart provides. The time I spend earning the money I make is worth more than the time I spend hunting for some kind of bargain on a cheap and low-quality item. I don’t have time to buy something twice, and I don’t need more cheap food and plastic stuff, what I need is more value. Every dollar I spend MUST provide high-quality value, and I refuse to waiver from that. I live like a king, yet make the money of a peasant.

Instead of buying 5 pounds of cheap potatoes from Walmart for $2, I spend $3 on 2 pounds of high-quality, locally grown potatoes from the farmers market. But to many people I know, I am getting less stuff and paying more! How does that make any sense? I am getting less product, but I am getting more value. I get much more nutrients from the high-quality potatoes, and I don’t have to eat as much to feel satisfied. I enjoy eating the higher quality potatoes for the flavour that is freshly picked and local delivery gives to me. I waste a lot less because I value each potato a lot more than had I bought cheap. On top of it all, my valued dollar stays local and has a much better chance of coming back to me that had I given it to a corporate mega-store. Buying less with more money is a win-win-win-win situation.

I am worth more than cheap, and it has nothing to do with the money I make and spend/

Living your life spending every moment you have upholding value leads you to become a very rich person. Pausing to focus on the value that your moment brings will allow you the prosperity to stop thinking poor and focusing less on scarcity. More than at any time in our history, society is programmed us to believe that having more means more value. We are eating more than ever before; we are buying more useless gizmos and gadgets and now are wasting more than at any time in our history. Yet, we have a lowered sense of self-worth.

We seem to value nothing anymore. Not our time or our money. All we value is a bargain and our constant efforts to find “free”. All we value is getting more stuff yet all we end up with is less. Less time, less value and even more sadly, less worth. You are worth more than cheap, you are worth what you value. Spend more of your time seeking value and less on being cheap.

X-XC