How to live a life of luxury without feeling guilty

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There are two types of individuals that are reading this article:

• The ones who may have come into extra amounts of wealth and don't know what the hell to do with it
• The ones who aspire to live a life of luxury but may not have the funds just yet

Whatever your position, the wisdom I pass onto you can still apply.

I distinctly remember when I first heard the idea of living your first class life.

How foreign?

What the hell did that even mean?

Could I even afford such a lifestyle?

Well, first things first, let's clear the assumption that you have to be mega wealthy in order to be living a life of luxury - that's not actually the case. Let's dive into what luxury life living is and is not.

But first, let's identify what got us here in the first place?

Have you ever been told that money doesn't come easily?

Or that you have to work really hard for money?

Or you can only spend money on the necessities?

If you're like me growing up, whenever I would go to the mall with my mom, I never dared to look at the full price retail section; you would see me buried deep into the clearance aisle finding clothes on sale thinking that I just found my next goldmine!

To this day, I still do that. I actually think my parents did a really great job of teaching me how money works and doesn't work.

But here's the thing, I never felt like it was okay to spend money on myself just for the fun of it. Can you relate?

Ask yourself how much of your money practices is your own and how much of it comes from watching your parents grow up? Are their money practices in line with the lifestyle you want to live? Maybe some are and maybe some are not, and that's okay. But take this time to keep the money beliefs and practices that serve you and let go of the things that don't.

Yes, money should be spent on the necessities, but what's the point of working if you don't actually ever get to enjoy the money that you're creating?

No, I'm not talking about spending money frivolously where you embrace a high consumption lifestyle and a negative net worth.

I'm talking about spending money on the things that bring you joy and spending less on the things that don't. Have you ever heard of such a concept?

It's called spending money consciously. I learned of the concept from the book "I will teach you how to be rich" by Ramit Sethi. I highly recommend this book as it teaches you how to systematize your investments while spending money on living a life you love.

But back to the point, when most people think about living a life of luxury, they think of buying the next latest and the greatest car, or living in a multiple million-dollar mansion; and that's okay, that's their #firstclasslife, but is it yours?

Most people live their lives pleasing other people in fear that if they don't cater to the norm, they will be ostracized. Why do you think people flock to the next iPhone? Even when their phone right now works perfectly fine?

If you really took the time to analyze what you buy, ask yourself if what you buy brings you joy, or if it's just another purchase that satisfies a perception you want to present to other people?

If you realize that most of your purchases satisfy other people and not yourself, I want you to think about how much money you'll have leftover if you cut that out and spend money consciously on the things that bring you joy? How much better your life could become! Would your life be luxurious if you did more of that?

Luxury has a very different definition for everyone

Living a life of luxury is what you make it to be. For me, I live my life of luxury by living in my absolute dream apartment that has amazing amenities like a hot tub, coworking space, and gym. People would think it's outrageous the amount of money I pay; but I decreased the costs of how much I spend on my car, because I don't need the latest and greatest car, so I can live in my dream apartment.

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What does living a life of luxury mean to you?

Luxury is spending more time doing the things you love and spending less time on things you hate

For example, I absolutely hate cooking and cleaning. So even though my budget doesn't YET have it for an in person chef or cleaner, I buy a pre-made meal subscription service and have a knockoff Roomba (I call him Mopey!).

I personally think that living a life of luxury is about having options. You can have the option to do something and have the option to not do something. People will disagree with me and that's okay. But I promise you that once you allocate more of your money to spending it on the things you love, you will never go back to a life of saying "Oh I can't do that".

You don't owe anyone an explanation on how you choose to live your life of luxury

The sad truth majority of the time is that people hate to see you doing better than them, or worse, live a life that they think they can't live. In summary, people like to project their insecurities onto other people, and that's their problem, not yours.

I remember when I was sitting at the dinner table with my mom and brother one time and my mom had asked me to shovel the snow. So like all things, I said "yeah mom, I'll hire someone to do it for you".

She grew absolutely livid; she didn't want me to spend money on something she thought I could clearly do. Of course, I could do it, but honestly I didn't want to. I would rather spend that time making money so I can afford to pay it forward and hire someone to do it for me - I mean, aren't I allowed to contribute to this growing economy?

The point is, my mom and my brother ganged up on me. They thought I was lazy when in reality I leveraged my time differently. I realized at that moment that they weren't actually saying that I was lazy, but they considered themselves lazy if they were to do such a thing.

This brings me to another point:

Stop spending time on things that you hate doing

More than likely, what's preventing you from living a life of luxury is not actually the ability to pay for it, but the high tolerance of continuing to do things you hate.

Why continue to spend your precious hours doing something you hate?

Do you hate doing the dishes?

Get a damn dishwasher.

Do you hate shovelling the snow?

Hire your local neighborhood kid to shovel it for you

You get my point. If we continue to do things we hate, we leave very little room for doing the things we love. We all know that time is our most precious asset, so let's take the time to use it efficiently and effectively.

Living a life of luxury is not hard, we choose to make it difficult. Living a life of luxury is a right, not a privilege.

Now, I understand that there is a portion of the population that genuinely cannot afford to do such things yet, I get it.

But I ask you to look back at your finances and see what you can cut out (especially if it's something that doesn't bring you joy), so that you can create more room for spending on things that you love?

I ask you what is a small thing you can do today that will make you think you're living a life full of luxury?

Maybe it's investing in a dishwasher or a meal subscription. But the point is you have every right to live your life of luxury. You don't owe anyone an explanation because they're not living your life; you are. You 100% can say no to doing the things you hate to do so you can create more time for doing the things you love to do.

In summary, you do you.

What does a life full of luxury look like for you?

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