Use the "5 Pillars Rule" to Change Your Relationship with Money Forever

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“Sleep-Well-at-Night Finance series” essay list

• If You Want "Sleep-Well-at-Night" Finances, Stop Listening to The Noise™

• Focus on These 3 Financial Areas and You're Golden

• A Simple and Straightforward Take on the FIRE Movement

• Buying Time = Buying Happiness

• My Aggressively Simple Financial Strategies

• You CAN Live an Incredible Life on a Relatively Small Amount of Money

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The day I heard blogger Paula Pant’s phrase “you can afford anything but not everything” was the day my relationship with money changed forever.

It’s true - unless you’re a squillionaire, you will never be able to afford absolutely everything your heart desires. You have to prioritize.

As I talked about last week, back in my twenties, I never prioritized my spending. I flashed the cash willy-nilly, and thanks to credit cards, I often spent more than I had. This lasted until I discovered minimalism in my early thirties. As with many people who discover the movement, I took stock of my life, including where I was spending my money. It took me approximately five seconds to figure out that most of it had been wasted on stuff I truly didn’t care about.

Of course, that’s not unusual. Our world is designed to eek out every last dollar from us and we’re often only too willing to let it.

When I started to truly evaluate my spending habits, I noticed something. There were a few key areas in my life where I never felt at all guilty about spending money. The areas were parts of my life that “filled the tank,” giving me energy and focus and thus never felt like a waste.

Eventually, these turned into my simple living pillars which led to the “five pillars rule” which led to never feeling guilty about spending my disposable cash again.

Here’s how it works.

5 pillars, 5 priorities

The five pillars rule is based on the premise of you can afford anything but not everything. They are in essence your spending priorities.

To give you an idea, here are my 5 simple living pillars. I developed them over many years of soul searching, figuring out what is truly meaningful to me. 

Why five? Because more would be overwhelming (and not very simple) and fewer could feel like deprivation.

They are:

• Writing

• Coffee, food and wine

• Spending time with friends and family

• Travel 

• Exercise

Yours could be different - they probably will be. They could be spending time with your kids. Charity work or volunteering. Crafting. Meditating or journaling.

You probably already know what they are. You’re probably doing most of them already - or at least you’d like to if it wasn’t for the mountains of busy work and activities that distract all of us from more meaningful pursuits.

Which leads to the second part to the five pillars rule:

Cut out the spending fluff

Once I realized where I wanted to spend my money and where I didn’t, I started to cut the fluff - and never felt guilty about saying no.

I said no to gigs I wasn’t bothered about, evenings drinking crappy beer in crappy bars. I said no to holidays I didn’t want to go on.

I also said no to myself. Every purchase went through the five pillars rule - does it fit? If not, do I really need it or even want it? That includes the big expenditures too. I never upgraded my car. I didn’t buy a bigger house. I only bought clothes when the ones I had fell apart. This stuff didn’t fit into my priorities - so I de-prioritized them.

It helps that three of my own five pillars cost next to zero (I run for exercise, writing online costs almost nothing and spending time with friends and family can be as cheap as a cup of tea at home). The old cliché “the best things in life are free” has some truth to it after all.

Cut the fluff, and something magical happens - your debt pile (if you have one) will start to shrink and eventually, your bank balance will start to rise.

Prioritize = more money in the bank = more money to spend in meaningful ways

85% of my disposable cash is spent on my five simple living pillars and I don’t regret a single cent. I know I am spending my money in ways that are most meaningful to me so I can cut the guilt.

That’s not to say I spend with abandon. Like everyone else I am tied to budgets and restraints.

But what spare cash I do have, I know where it’s going to go. It’s going to go on that food, that bottle of wine, that trip to see my mom. If it fits within my five pillars, I’m happy.

So. You can afford anything but not everything. What makes the cut for you? Let me know.

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This article is intended for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered investment or financial advice

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