Living Your Life Like It's A Business

[arakboss]

View: https://youtu.be/q5jrSu7nvDM?feature=shared



Does anybody here live their life like they would run a business? For working folks it seems like the two are comparable.

Life has expenses and the opportunity to earn income.

A business has expenses and an opportunity to earn income.

Both pay taxes, keep inventory of items, pay taxes, etc.

A business owner places a value on their employee's time. In life do you place a value on your time, what about your family members time?

Example, we have an adult family member who doesn't contribute to the family income but cost money to have around. In a business you would probably cut that person from the company.

Time spent sleeping, lollygagging, etc is time that could be spent bringing in extra income.

Money spent on unnecessary items could be invested in ways that generate more income.

I have not been doing this but maybe I should be?

Retirement could be compared to the period in time when a business owner sells his successful business and enjoys spending the proceeds.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.synchronybank.com/amp/blog/run-finances-like-business/

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[Certaindeaf]

My pimp hat says yes.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

How someone runs their life...is their business.
What they do or don't do may or may not work for them or me.

Speaking only for myself...
If what I am doing works for me...and does not cause me , my family or anyone else any harm....
Then that is good enough.

Life is meant to be lived...fully and enjoyed...not always necessarily figured out to the last penny or outcome.
Andy

 

[Alexx1401]

Ditto what Andy said. I live my life for me and my Wife now. Kids are LONG grown and able to fend for themselves. We certainly "could" spend money more wisely. I don't want to. Tell the Wife all the time when she wants something and is on the fence about it. Want it? Buy the damn thing. Not going to make a bit of difference to us later. No doubt some would see how we do it and think it "not best". I could care less. We work and do NOT expect others to support us, so what we do is what we do. I have LONG been of the opinion that I pretty much don't care what anyone else does as long as they don't harm kids and don't want me to pay for their poor choices.

 

[Certaindeaf]

There's wasteful and then there's greedy. Right in between is content. Try for that.

 

[Alexx1401]

There's wasteful and then there's greedy. Right in between is content. Try for that.

I like that. That sums up my life goal right there, content. FAR from being "upper 1%" and such but just don't really care. Would it be fun to have many times the money I have? Hell yes but, I find myself very happy with life as it is.

 

[Nosferatu]

Life is finite. It will come to an end.

A business can live long past it's creator.

Tomorrow is promised to no-one. I'll keep living my life like it's the only one I have.

 

[Provincial]

When I was a young adult, my career choices followed what I enjoyed doing. In my forties, my focus changed to things I could do while supporting (not financially, but by being nearby to help) my parents, who were getting old and had health problems. That change in focus led me to start a business that took off, but required a lot of time and effort.

In my late forties, I met my wife, who was widowed, with young adult children. We had children together, and grew the business together. In my late 50's, I sold the business, and have since focused on managing some pretty large pieces of timberland that have been passed down through both families. Our youngest children are out of the house and embarked on their own life journeys, so our time is left to ourselves. My wife travels, and I sometimes go with her. I have plenty to do, and an not yet ready to hire others to do it. We both enjoy what we do.

I was blessed with a sense that what I was doing should be productive. It didn't have to be lucrative, but it should be productive. I look back at my life and am proud that the world is better off from my having been here.

I look at our modern society and see that there is a focus on immediate pleasure. This seems both empty and unproductive. Fortunately our children have inherited our productive natures, and the grandchildren seem to have followed that pattern as well. It is the best gift that we could ever give.

 

[arakboss]

I would like to budget more like a business and be more productive with my time.

Ideally I would like to incorporate my hobby of collecting firearm related stuff with a greater preservation of wealth and or increasing my income.

When I spend money on routine items, I would like to get the best bang for the buck and only buy stuff that helps keep me productive or increases my asset values.

I can only work so many hours at a workplace (65ish hours a week seems to be my limit) but I could potentially do something to make money more passively from home.

 

[Soli]

In answer to the question, no, unless I twist the essence of a business all out of shape to accommodate the notion. "Value" and even "productive" have very different meanings in my life than to a business.

In hindsight what's served me best is having a work ethic; if I don't work I don't deserve it. Don't go into the weeds here lol I'm lazy as all get out when I give in to it. But I'm not surprised when I have nothing when I've done nothing.

A great moment in raising the family was when the eldest looked me and said "nobody owes me anything." Unprompted. We were talking about his working while some of his friends didn't and it was said in the context of a much longer conversation. A throw away line really, kind of just the way he saw things. It didn't strike me till a bit later how significant I thought it was, and I smiled thinking we'd done at least one thing right raising him.

Coming around tho making money "passively" is definitely worth looking at. The old fashioned way is putting that dollar in a savings account. Now that's exploded into craziness. Warning: many, MANY, things marketed as giving you "passive income" require capital, a lot of time, good decision making, and some luck, and even then don't make you much money. That said, "only buy stuff that helps keep me productive or increases my asset values" is a great way to look at your spending. You'll "passively" increase your wealth by not spending the money you get from your work.

 

[CountryGent]

I am a workaholic. That is not a joke or some lame attempt at machismo. It is a real problem with very real repercussions.

Why? My upbringing, cultural background, how I entered adulthood, etc. all had an impact. The fact I came from a family of six children, with one income, and were poor, undoubtedly played a big rôle. My parents were traditionalist in that the father worked outside the home and the mother didn't, so money was always a worry. When I entered adulthood, I was told to leave the home, with little more than what was on my back, and was expected to take care of myself. I vowed to survive and never have the problems my parents did. I made good on that promise and clawed my way from below the poverty line to the upper income tax brackets. It came with a terrible cost to my health and relationships though.

The last four years I've had more people in my world (family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances) die than all the decades before that combined and it really started to make me think. Then November 7th of last year I survived the most horrific night of my existence. In those hours, and the days that followed, few things I once considered important mattered any more, including working those long hours.

So run your life like a business? No. Live your life. Love the ones you love with all you've got. Find joy, purpose, and meaning where it matters. Sure, absolutely, take care of the needs of now and well planned preparations for tomorrow — to do otherwise is foolishness. Just don't lose proper focus or your soul in the process.

Well wishes, friends.

 

[monkeybutler]

I would like to budget more like a business and be more productive with my time.

That might start with not spending so much time finding discounts on cheap, unreliable, crappy gun stuffs.

you have 458 Bear Creek uppers. My two Noveskes are cooler. And work reliably. You can't take all that crap with you.

 

[Mono1]

That might start with not spending so much time finding discounts on cheap, unreliable, crappy gun stuffs.

you have 458 Bear Creek uppers. My two Noveskes are cooler. And work reliably. You can't take all that crap with you.

Did you build up the Noveske's yourself or buy them complete?

 

[monkeybutler]

Did you build up the Noveske's yourself or buy them complete?

Builds. I was never fully happy with stock upper options, i have far more uppers than lowers.

Lowers are about the right trigger and buffer system for various uppers.

 

[Mono1]

Builds. I was never fully happy with stock upper options, i have far more uppers than lowers.

Lowers are about the right trigger and buffer system for various uppers.

Commendable.

 

[monkeybutler]

Commendable.

Yeah. I'm a tech nerd, more or less.

 

[trevi]

I wish I could live my life vicariously like Jerimiah Johnson but simply don't have the gumption. The same issue that kept me from enlisting would be the same issue that keeps from being the king of the Alaskan jungles, shouting, "get off my snow! "

 

[arakboss]

That might start with not spending so much time finding discounts on cheap, unreliable, crappy gun stuffs.

you have 458 Bear Creek uppers. My two Noveskes are cooler. And work reliably. You can't take all that crap with you.

I think you may be right. I would like to switch it up and start buying higher quality parts, firearms and accessories that will hold their value better or even have a potential to increase in value. I will limit my crappy gun stuff purchases to purchases made with fun money or items I can buy below what I could sell them for.

As for fun money amount, I haven't decided what that will be yet. It will likely be a percentage of my "profit" made each month. If income is insufficient to cover expenses in the month, then no fun money. I have read about the concept of "pay yourself first" and I don't like it. I would rather pay bills first then pay myself.

 

[arakboss]

It seems there is not much difference in accounting for small business versus personal finances.

View: https://youtu.be/cv_cXHVa0xU?feature=shared


My main reasoning for looking at my personal finances as a fictional business is to help me focus on accumulating assets and lower liabilities.

If I go out to a movie, or dinner or take a trip to the coast, it does not add to my assets, instead it adds to my liabilities. I have easily spent over 10k on firearm related purchases in my lifetime. My collection could worth 5k now. If I had spent 10k on movies, eating out and trips to the coast, how much asset value would I have remaining from those experiences? Near zero, unless I took home flatware, extra sauce packets or found whole sand dollars. Sure I may have memories from eating out or seeing a movie in the theater. More likely than not, the memories would be of getting ripped off with high prices.

If I start looking at all my purchases through this lens, it should help prevent me from spending too much money on highly depreciable items and worthless experiences.

A trip to the coast that involved buying some great deals along the way might be a better way to justify a trip.

There are going to be expenses in life that don't add to asset values. I have to eat, I have to live under a roof, pay taxes, etc, to remain productive. The less I can spend on those things, the more I can spend on assets that will hold some value.

 

[arakboss]

View: https://youtu.be/1XrzwsCGycM?feature=shared

View: https://youtu.be/OjPbzqCDXFE?feature=shared