Imagine your boss calls you into the office today and gives you a raise! What do you INSTANTLY think about doing with that money? The majority of you will think, “yes! I can afford that thing now. This is the time to buy it”. Why do we instantly do that to ourselves?!

You’ll think about the car you want but don’t need yet, the 2 bedroom apartment you have to have because a 1 bedroom apartment is for poor people or perhaps. Here’s a good one – you start believing you can live like the person you envy – that dude who buys new clothes every week, drinks flat whites every morning and drives a BMW.

So, what should I do with my raise? Practically speaking, act like you didn’t get a raise and save every last penny of it.  BORING! You should still do it. Living a well-balanced financial life means making tough choices that don’t instantly change your situation but, instead, benefits your future self. If you have credit card debt, student loan debt or auto loans – definitely use the raise to pay off your debt first, then start saving or investing it.

If you have $3,000 in credit card debt and receive a $5,000 raise your debt could be demolished in 7-8 months! Then you could keep saving money without that terrible gut-feeling that credit card debt provides to all of us. Imagine how good it would feel to see a $0 credit card balance when you login to your bank account.

Let’s cover a couple types of lifestyle creep:

Envy.

It makes you feel inadequate and makes you want what another person has. This is a really damaging type of creep because it feeds you a lie that you can obtain what someone else has, no matter the cost. For instance, your coworker may drive a new BMW with a $600 car payment but he has no student loans. You, on the other hand, might have $300 in student loan payments per month so a $600 car payment would be a huge commitment to your cash flow. Each has their own financial walk through life, their own decision making and their own risk-tolerance. You are you and you should not let another’s life-operation to dictate how you should run your life.

How do you fight envy? By celebrating what makes other people happy. When you hear ” Tom” talking about his new whip and how much he loves driving it, congratulate him. Tell him how awesome it is that he loves his car. That’s it. It’s his life, not yours, and you can be happy for him without it dictating your life.

Daily Creep.

I would argue that daily creep is a result of our addiction to media and the next “shiny object”. After all, corporations know exactly how to make us want something before we actually need it. Daily creep starts slow and then it reaches new plateaus without us even knowing it. Let’s take coffee, for example. It is perfectly fine to drink a pot of coffee in the morning and that’s it. It’s also fine to stop by a coffee shop once a week and pick up a cup of joe on Fridays. Once you start doing that it will become easier to order a pastry with your coffee and then before you know it you decide to stop by the coffee shop on Mondays as well. So you not only doubled your weekly coffee spend but you might have tripled it.

How do you fight daily-creep? By being aware of bad habits before they become cemented in your routine. Recognize when you are routinely spending money on items that you didn’t need or want just a few months ago. Fight the urge.

Remember this. You can fight lifestyle creep and still live a content life. All of the possessions and experiences in the world will never satisfy you fully. You’ll always be searching for more.

The best thing you can do is help your future-self and your future net-worth by resisting lifestyle creep. You are your own person and don’t need to be swayed or controlled by others’ possessions.