I was just talking to my wife about the state of our economy and how this time if Bitcoin hits back down around the five mark, I am going to be buying - regardless of what her fears might be. Last time in 2020, she vetoed my decision, something that likely cost us around 150K. However, I do understand her fears with this, as she is not only very risk averse, but also spends far too much time reading the news and all she ever picks up about crypto is, scam.
But, while she worries about the rising costs of living, what she doesn't dig into is how she can affect her own purchasing power by increasing incoming cash flows. Like most people, this all comes down to "getting a raise" at work, but especially at times like this, the chances of that raise being enough to beat inflation is very, very iffy - because the rate is so high. In Finland at the moment, it is 5.7% and like everywhere, on the rise.
Sure, that is still lower than many places, but the consumer buying power in Finland has never been that great and Finns tend not to spend that frivolously because of it, so even these level of rises has impact on daily living standards, because there is not that much fat to trim.
Luckily, over the last 5 years I have built up my own crypto portfolio and through various (highly volatile and unreliable) processes, I do have some incoming trickles that allow me to keep investing, even if the amount is quite low. This means I can increase my crypto stacks through a bear market, to take some advantage in the bull peaks.
What it also does is, push come to shove, it would provide an additional income in the real world, if needed, which is somewhat of a safety net. For example, Hive curation, Splinterlands rentals or Cub DeFi earnings can all be leveraged and at least currently, it beats the inflation rate.
If for example our households monthly income is 5000€ and the inflation rate is 10%, it means that a year from now, to maintain our current spending power, we would need to increase our monthly income by 500€. That is highly unlikely through wage increases, so it would have to be through other sources of income. Dividends, tax deductions, second jobs and crypto ventures all add into the fray.
However, maintaining purchasing power is one thing, but that doesn't mean spending on maintaining lifestyle. Instead and as I was discussing with my wife, we are looking to cut back on non-essentials like many people, whilst looking for ways to use any "additional" resources we have to put into value-adding activities. Of course ideally, I would have cashed out a large amount "at the top" (the top is always unknown at the time) and had a lot more to invest now, but, that is the past, we have what we have and have to act accordingly.
For example, I know that a lot of people feel that they deserve a holiday after two years of Covid nonsense and are therefore booking their summer trips abroad in response. However, what they don't seem to factor in is the true cost of the trip, which includes opportunity cost also. For example, a trip for my family to Rhodes for a week will cost somewhere in the vicinity of 4-5000 euros, all said and done. However, that money is a tool that can purchase "anything" including a generative investment, where even if I bought BTC today at 19K with it and it dropped to 10K - if I hold and sell at 60 in 2 years time, that is a 3x gain for 15K total. However, the one week holiday in two years from now would be worth zero.
But the experience is priceless!
Is it?
The Rhodes holiday in two years from now will still in all likelihood still be available to take and even with a 10% inflation rate, will only increase in price to a max of 6000. That means that holding off for two years gives me the opportunity of a holiday, plus 9K in my pocket. But people heavily overweigh the value of the moment, rather than the potential value of the next, which is why most people will go on the holiday, even going into debt to do so.
Then, what people also omit is the value of other opportunities in experience, where they assume that Rhodes (in this example) is the only experience available because that is what they are focusing on. However, that is never the case, so while we might want to be somewhere warm by the pool, we will also be able to do other things in its place, where for example, we spend a few days at the beaches in Finland. It might not be Facebook worthy, but we will still have a good time and as long as we accept the current conditions, we won't miss going to Greece that much - and we know it is just postponed anyway.
We could have some fantastic experiences in Finland throughout the summer for 1000€ total, meaning that rather than the week away, the surplus we would have spent would be injected into investments in the coming months. Two years down the track, it would be 80% investment volume at potentially 300% for not going on holiday, meaning that the total gain will still be around 12K - which still gets a 6K holiday to Rhodes or similar and leaves another 6K in pocket.
Opportunity cost is something that we aren't very good at applying to our experiences, because our mind tends to overvalue what it is currently focusing on, rather than doing the work to look at alternatives. Yes, this saves energy resources used for brain power, but it also misses understanding the alternatives and making a more qualified decision on what to do. And, factor in that we live in a society driven by consumer activity and we are encouraged to spend regardless of the value of the purchase, and we start to make some very poor decision in regard to our financial futures, whilst being blinded by the concept of "valuable experience" from consumptive activity.
I believe that in order for us to improve our real quality of life, we need to better understand what is of value to us, including the alternatives that have potential value, but are outside of our awareness, as we focus on what we have been told to focus on.
While not everything is about money, it is good to note that pretty much everything we are encouraged to experience in life through society, culture and our peer networks - takes money. Ignoring this is going to lead to hardship on to major fronts - our additional experiences in life and, our quality of daily life.
Experience depends on our attention, the most valuable resource we have at our disposal, but where we spend that attention is going to determine what experiences are available to us in the future. Are we "paying attention" on generating rich experiences, or wasting our attention on things that lessen our quality of life? It might depend on what we value, but what we value "right now" might cost us what we value down the road, but is "now" out of reach.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
