Be Aware of the Lifestyle Creep [Video]

Have you ever found that as you earn more income you spend more?  This is what’s known as the lifestyle creep.

This means as your income increases so do your expenses.  So year by year you slowly earn more over time.  Therefore, your expenses go up over time too.  One thing to be thoughtful of is trying to maintain the same level of lifestyle over time.

If you are looking to long term goals you desire to reach you have to pay attention to your income and expenses.  If you’re always spending what you earn then your long term goals suffer.  You have to think about saving the excess money that you don’t need for lifestyle expenses today.

It’s very easy for these expenses to creep in, so let’s touch on a few that are common to creep in.

• Nic”er” car or clothes:  Some things are reasonable as you move through your career, but stay thoughtful when enough is enough.
• Eating Out/Restaurants:  Just because you can, doesn’t mean we should.
• “More” Vacation or Larger Vacations
• Cable:  There are so many options today to help reduce the cost of what you want to watch.  Think about paying for only what you want to watch instead of paying to have everything available.

These are expenses that just creep in because we never look back to review what we are spending or saving.

If you’re feeling pressured that you’re earning more every year but don’t really feel like you are, it may be because your expenses have caught up to your increasing income.  If you want help making adjustments due to the lifestyle creep we are happy to help walk through this with you.