My solution? My regular expenses are significantly smaller than my income, which lets me basically ignore my personal finances. (This does not mean I do not consider whether a gadget is worth the price. I just typically do not need to think whether I can afford it or not) How do I do that? By making relevant choices in the biggest expense classes, i.e. housing and car. My accommodation and car choices are _well_ below my typical peer standards. Easy? Depends on your character. Personally I enjoy the freedom and control I have on my own life much more than I dislike the laughs[1] I get from my old friends when I pop up into meeting them with a crappy old bicycle.

[1] Obviously this is much easier when both I and my friends know that I could "afford"[2] to buy a similar car than they, I just have chosen not to.

[2]In the normal sense of being able to finance it. My personal definition for affording something is that I do not have to care financially whether the purchase gets stolen the following day or not

How do you know this? By what method do you account for your spending?

> when I pop up into meeting them with a crappy old bicycle.

How much do you spend on repairing your bike (either time or cash)? Does that work out as being more cost effective than buying a new bike / taking the bus / etc?

If only there were a simple way to keep track of spending to see if it really were cost effective...

When I check my bank account, there typically is more money than before.

> Does that work out as being more cost effective than buying a new bike

I don't know and I don't care. I don't claim that I don't do _any_ budgeting/planning/accounting/whatever, I just try to minimize the mental effort needed for that. Obviously one effect is that my consumption bucket is not economically optimal. I have no clue, nor interest to find out, how expensive these choices are for me. For some people it is worth putting money to luxury items. For me it is a luxury that I can afford not to worry how optimized my consumption is.

(One more thing. I do have above average salary in my country. Obviously that makes things a bit easier.)

Most of us here can easily say the same thing. Most of us could also say that we are above average intelligence and we, too, could just as easily have a sense of our finances. However, we choose to keep track of everything a little more accurately than that.

Precisely. And there is nothing wrong with that. I just have made a different choice based on my preferences, and I see nothing wrong with that, either.

Unless I am completely mistaken about what either of those terms mean.

Your approach follows amdahl's law by the way. Optimize for big wins instead of doing micro optimizations. Accounting is how you know which are which.

Really? Repulsive?

> [1] Obviously this is much easier when both I and my friends know that I could "afford"[2] to buy a similar car than they, I just have chosen not to.

So, you ... care ... what people think of you.

Sorry, I am not a native English speaker, so there may be some connotation with the word repulsive that I am not aware of. What I tried to say is that I dislike very much planning, budgeting and figuring out exactly where and how much I have spent money.

> So, you ... care ... what people think of you.

But of course. Did I imply something else somewhere?

No. Emotions are the key to all of the previous things, either mastering them or expressing them. That's where one should focus their efforts.

Accounting keeps me in check so I can use my money in ways that make more money instead of fritting it away.

In my estimation, cutting that $50-60 a day that I spend on eating out and such isn't really worth it. Dropping my $300 a month car payment for a new car isn't worth it. What is worth cutting out is the hundreds I can sometimes blow on things like unnecessary clothes or electronics purchases. These things add nothing to my life, I usually use them once and forget them.

Spending freely on eating out and buying drinks for my friends and pretty girls at the bar brings way more value to my life. And, paradoxically, it can be a more stable expense. Expensive restaurants just aren't as good as my favorite ethnic spots. My local haunt has cheap drinks and a more fun clientele than the high-falutin spots downtown.

There's a point of diminishing returns on everything you can possibly spend money on. Most of us blow way past that point without even thinking. But if you keep this point in mind, then you can get phenomenal bang-for-your-buck in places that nobody could ever think would be affordable. I took two two-month long trips to Colombia staying in hostels for not a whole lot.

Budgeting doesn't teach you this mindset.

I have a much smaller surplus, and of course you're welcome to argue that I should be behaving differently in order to increase it.

But really, spending an hour a week doing my finances (I use YNAB) does not affect my earning potential in any significant way. I don't think it makes any sense to argue that I should stop doing it, and spend that time trying to get a better job. I can do both! That time spent gives me the reassurance I need that I can carry on paying my mortgage, feeding and clothing my family and taking them on holiday, and also that I can very probably meet any unexpected expenses that arise. This is a great feeling, well worth an hour a week of my time.

First you say you don't believe in accounting, then a few posts down you decide to suddenly do some accounting. I'm confused.

If I went from $100K to $300K, my personal spending would go up, but not dramatically. I've already found points of diminishing returns for most of the things in my life that I've found that's worth spending money on. I'm sure I could find ways to spend it, but the sort of mindless spending on stupid crap that most people do, I seem to be immune to it.

But accounting taught me this mindset. It helped me realize that I don't value some things as much as they cost. So I don't do them.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯