Many of us are active in the crypto world with a very specific goal: We want to achieve financial freedom for ourselves. We are willing to do a lot to get there. Blogging, Tweeting, Staking, Hodling, Investing, and sometimes even Gaming. You name it, many of us are hustling all day every day. A lot of my articles cover the different ways to acquire some additional crypto currency for yourself, always asking the question whether the endeavor is worth your time or not. For many, acquiring (free) crypto is a way to generate wealth without having to tap into their (fiat) salary.
I'm among them and personally, I keep my everyday money and my crypto money strictly separated. Everything I earn in the crypto world is staying there until later. There's another way to increase your crypto holdings, though, and it's one that often times is severely underrated: Save your money! Instead of spending it all, use some of it to invest into your financial freedom!
Unfortunately, we often tend to overestimate the value of what we earn and underestimate the value of what we spent. People will spend hours after hours claiming faucets for micro payments but waste 100$ on a night out without ever giving it a second thought. That's not to say you shouldn't spend some of your money. Quite the contrary! If you can afford it, use some of your money to do something good for you every now and then. What I'm hinting at is more to always question what exactly you are spending your money on and if that's really a necessary spending.
Let me give you a very mundane example. On my way to work I'd always stop at a local bakery. It's a family business passed on through generations, they make some excellent buns and believe me, bun completely fails to translate what a proper German Brötchen is! I always get one for breakfast and I've also always bought a cup of coffee alongside it. Both the bun and the coffee were 2.6€ each, so roughly 3$. I never gave it much thought, it was just a nice way to start the day. Well, that was until I've read one of @revisesociology's amazing articles that actually made me pause and think about it.
Why was I buying that coffee at the bakery? Making my own coffee at home before leaving for work would amount to maybe 0.4$ for the same amount of coffee. Even worse, coffee is completely free at my office, so just 10 minutes later I'd get the same treat without having to pay for it at all. You might wonder what I'm getting at here. 3$? That's not much, is it? Well, I thoughz the same way, until I started to compare it with some of my crypto earnings that I'm so proud about.
3$ is about as much as I make on a really good day on noise.cash. It's a little more than I earn with an average article over on Publish0x. To make that much I'd have to claim the Freebitco.in faucet about 145 times! In short, compared with my crypto earnings, which I'm quite happy with, this actually is a lot of money! Another trick I have picked up from @revisesociology is to look at things over a longer period of time. So say I work 20 days a month, that's 20 coffees at 3$ each or 60$ each month! 60$, just think about it for a moment! Most of us would certainly consider any crypto endeavor that consistently pays out 60$/month without much effort to be more than worth our time. But instead of having to put in an hour per day to come up with an article, all I have to do is drink my coffee 5 minutes earlier or 10 minutes later. That's like the easiest money I've ever "earned".
When looking at your spending habits, it's really important to put things into context. We tend to look at these expenses as isolated events and because of that, they seem to be irrelevant, way too small to even care about. But once you look at the bigger picture, you start to realize how much money you'd be able to save if you just made little changes here and there.
Once you start looking for them, these little saving opportunities are everywhere. Parking fees you could avoid, using the public transportation when you don't really have to. Buying coffee instead of making it yourself, eating out when you just as well could have prepared a meal yourself. I'm not asking you to start leading an ascetic lifestyle, not at all. But I'm asking you to think about your spending habits and try to come up with ways to improve them.
Make it your own private Bitcoin faucet: Try to find ways to save 50$ per month just by changing your spending habits and then use these 50$ to buy BTC every month. I promise you, you'll earn more Bitcoin that way than any real faucet is every going to pay you.
Just as with everything else, it's important to do this in moderation, though. Always ask yourself if it's actually worth your time. If you can safe 0.2$ by parking somewhere else but getting to work takes 15 minutes longer because of that, than it's not worth your time! If you have to spend an hour more to do shopping every week, it's not worth it if you only save 3$ in the process. Just as with earning money, when trying to save money, always factor in your time. You are looking for simple ways of saving money, quick wins like the coffee example from above!
So, what do you think? What ways are there for you to earn some Bitcoin by saving some of your everyday money? Do you already have an idea what to look for? Please let me know in the comments, I'm looking forward to hear your ideas!
And that's all from me for today, thank you all for reading and see you next time!
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Thank you for sharing this content
Beautiful post, goodness me! Well we definitely have to spend sometimes but being prudent in spending is something some people cannot achieve irrespective of their means of income. Lately I've spent a lot but that was because 2020 was s pretty good investment year for me. I however think that is difficult to make crypto money and that's why sometimes we I try to spend less because earning that money wasn't easy for me.
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As with most things, it's always about doing things in moderation. I enjoy spending some of my money, sometimes on things I wouldn't really need, sometimes on things that I could get cheaper elsewhere. But I also always try to save some and reinvest it in things that will make my life better in the long run.
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In the long run, making better decisions is what matters even if it sounds easier than done.
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You hit the nail.
Now it is covid, but earlier also I used to avoid go to shopping for groceries and order them online.
Because groceries cost same but online shopping save my time, transportation cost and some food bills.(usually when you shop 3-4 hours, you get an urge to eat something outside.)
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That's absolutely true! When you go shopping you are almost guaranteed to spend more than you had planned initially. At the same time, it will cost you a lot more time to get everything you are looking for.
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Food for thought.
Very true. It's not about how much money you earn, it's more about how much money you spend.
Damn, you are killing it! Nice.
Perspective! Sometimes the way we look at things can really make a huge difference. I mean I do agree with your second clause, but I keep making the mistake described in your first one.
Thanks for this thought-provoking read.
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Thank you for stopping by!
The fun thing is, although I know these things, I still make these mistakes more often than not. It's just how we work, there really is no getting away from it completely ;-)
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Very good points that I have contemplated often. Usually while collecting faucets wondering if it's worth the effort.
In the end I stopped looking at "unnecessary" purchases as a waste of my Crypto earning time. Like you I separate my fiat earned from my job, and my Crypto earned from my time.
Yes $3 earned from noise.cash could be spent on one cup of coffee. But it's not, that BCH is safe in a wallet and it has a lot more potential than the fiat $3
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Exactly true. It might be 3$ now, but it could 30$ or more in 5 years.
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Well, the stench of a fellow German is drenched all over this article.
As much as I like the saving mentality to hard avoid debt and try to always have a buffer, I became very disenchanted with saving money when I learned about inflation, but now that we have Cryptos the German Sparer can overtake the world!
I have to say that while I became more educated about economy I was able get behind the concept of inflation to punish the saver, saving money hurts the economy after all. Looking from an economic perspective you are saying I am happy to provide, but I don't want the goods you are providing in return, I am going want goods in the future. Therefore putting the economy into a debt to you.
Honestly I just hate controlling my spending that's why I changed topic :D
Haha no worries, I get you.
Saving money alone never helps, it's about what you use it for instead of consuming. So if you just put it aside, it will buy you less in the future than what it could have bought you today. But if you use it to invest and to grow your wealth, it might buy you way more in the future than it could today.
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Time is the most precious resource we neglect the most. I would pay for most of my mundane tasks if I had the means to. For example, I hate it in Germany that there are very few carwashes where you can drop the car and you pick it up cleaned in the interior. This is a task where I would gladly pay 10-15€ for someone else to do.
I do also try to separate both fiat and crypto, where at the start I used fiat to buy crypto and used crypto to buy some fiat generating income.
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I hear you on the car washers. I think that's a general issue with us Germans, though. There are a lot of mundane tasks I'd gladly pay for myself, but thanks to the strict regulations, taxation, and so on, it often simply isn't viable unless you are having it done illegally... something we are not really fond of, either ;-)
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I would definitely try to find legal loopholes for them. Sometimes I need to go for work to Stuttgart where I found a big washing saloon that offers this service. I gladly pay 25€ to have the car clean inside and outside during a meeting that I can attend. :)
Yes, the German rigidity can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.
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This is a mantra that I have been repeating for years. Instead of always trying to earn more, try first to spend less. I have a bit a minimalist approach with that and I really spend only what I really need. The great thing is that I need much less money to live than others. This means more free time, less stress and more time to do crypto stuff LOL. Great post!
Cheers!
I try to find a middle ground myself. Reward myself every now and then, enjoy live, but also try to save up as much as possible to reinvest it :-)
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hmmmmm to me this is a bit complicated.
For example, i get the point of the post and i have realized it in my everyday life as well so i have cut a lot of expenses like clubbing, drinks, and stuff like that.
On the other hand, though, coming from a country with a vast majority of small businesses i can't help it to feel a little closer to some small business owners. Not that we are friends or something but because it's easy to learn how their life is, because mostly everyone has a friend or relative with a small business.
So, for example, depending on the small business if i had the money to spare for a coffee or a bun in a small business i would do it without regret! Because if i didn't do it and many others followed that logic most of these small businesses would be out of work :P
and that's coming from a guy that rarely buys bread for example, as i know how to bake :P
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Understandable and honestly, I feel the same way. I'll always buy my bun (well, Brötchen ;-)) from the bakery as long as I'll live here. But that's because it's something that I can't get in that quality at home or at the office. The coffee though is just a bonus and I can get it in the same quality without having to pay for it.
I guess in the end it's a bit about finding that middle ground. Do something good for both you and others, but at the same time see where you can save money without hurting you (or others).
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exactly i think that's the essence!
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I love pineapple and mangos so I bought both yesterday, the total price was almost 15€ which is pretty expensive. I started to plant my own pineapples today, it will take some time but as curious I am, I will have a lot of fun. However, mangos are quite difficult to plant on a flat hehe.
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