How To Spend Little and Live Well

Rule Number One: Never Spend Your Own Money

That's why I try to work at jobs where they have plenty of food, coffee and cleaning supplies just lying around. Just those three things save me hundreds of dollars per month. Sure, I have to eat a lot of break room birthday cake, leftover lasagna and something-something casserole, but that approximates my own diet, anyway. 

Also, try to get your company to buy things that you want, but convince them they are "for business". Graphics cards are an easy shot: "I need this to show more rows and columns on my, uh, spreadsheets program or something." They buy $800 office chairs for new VPs - why shouldn't I get a decent Radeon card?

If there's travel, volunteer for that shit. When I travel, it's expensive. I tell them "Well, that's why it's called an EXPENSE account, not a SAVINGS account. I had to spend money! Do you want me to continue back home, or should I just stand up here in First Class and put on my parachute?"

If you get lucky enough, you may get to work in a place that has lots of office furniture, couches, paintings, even kitchen stuff like dishes and serving - things. If I paid for things like that, I'd know what they were called. Instead, I help clean up the clutter, Marie Kondo-style, at all my places of employment. That's why I never invite the bosses over for cocktails - they'd probably be sitting at my bar on one of those nice leather stools we had in the coffee area. Or at least someone seems to remember them being there.

Rule B: Buy Lots of Used Things, Invent Their Histories

"Yeah, it's a vintage stereo/phonograph/8-track. My grandpa used to play (Bee Gees, Eagles, Madonna - something old-timey) records for me. Poor Pop-Pop."

"Yeah, dude, how about this vintage, classically-aged coffee table?! I got it at the SPLANK! Art Show! What? Yeah, man, that's REAL Velveeta stuck on there!"

"Well, after she leaned over the catwalk to take that selfie in Costa Rica, I vowed Juanisha I would never wash, repair or re-size these way-too-large cargo shorts. Huh? Yeah, I'm going commando - why do you ask?"

Roman Numeral III: How to Never Bounce A Check

Pretty simple, and this is how I do it: always keep $10,000 in your checking account.

Say you're out walking down the street where the Buy-Here-Pay-Here cars are, and you see a cool 1990s Corvette, the ones with the cheap aluminum engines, elephantine fiberglass bodies with the ugly whale tail and 4 tail lights that look like railroad warning flashers: you're in love, and you have to buy here, pay here, all US$8,995 of it, in cash.

Well, brother, run home and get under your mattress, dig out stacks of twenties until you have enough to cover that purchase you just made, plus ten thousand dollars (ask Siri or Google to help with the math, if necessary), then put that shit into your bank account, ¡immediamenté!

You do have cash hidden away, right? From different countries? Non-serialized bills? Have you been reading my blog? If you follow my 1,211 easy steps to living well, you should have PLENTY of spare Earth commodities to use for your pleasure and attainment.

I guess I'll have to start posting tips here more often.