just wait and see

University students often have to live off tiny budgets, this is mostly because they don’t work and the little money they do get goes towards alcohol. Living like this sucks but it is not too difficult, here are some foods that are dirt cheap (Note: not very healthy)

• Sandwiches @ $1 for a loaf of homebrand bread plus choice of jam/spread
• Oats @ $1.30kg normally last forever
• Milk is pretty cheap here ($1 a Liter for homebrand)
• Spaghetti bolognese: 65c for homebrand pasta, 85c for homebrand tomato sauce, $1.20 for 4 Beans (4 servings)
• 2 minute noodles = 5 for $1.20

Simple, now living healthy is a little more expensive but you can’t have everything (Super cheap or healthy).

See, Cheap Living is Easy

I could work 20 hours a week on the minimum wage in Australia and be able to comfortably afford to eat healthily, sleep in my nice bed, and play my favourite sports. All the good things.

Anyway it got me thinking, there are blogs about living cheap and getting your finances in order but they don’t really explain what to do with the excess money/time you get. Getting your finances in order is important, but there is more to life than simply living and being able to comfortably afford food and shelter.

However higher purposes need a solid foundation to work from, saving the world is impossible if one is too focused on ensuring that basic life necessities are around. So yeah financial education is important as a foundation for self actualisation.

The problem is that many people are slaves to their money, they confuse luxuries for necessities and have to work longer to cover theses “necessities”. In this situation a person isn’t free, they work hard and sacrifice to afford short lasting consumerist pleasures (The Rat Race).

Overcoming consumerism and materialism is the modern-day method of liberation. Once these burdens are shed working less is possible, allowing time to dedicate to better things. But no-one is going to tell you what these better things are, you have to do some heavy thinking to decide what you are going to pursue. Many people would rather work than be faced with this (They rationalise it as boring).

So much effort these days is allocated to addressing the issue of the rat race, but I don’t think it is the problem. Everyone is born free before slipping into a life of bad habits. Living on the cheap is easy, overcoming materialism is easy, Freeing yourself from the rat race is easy. But Living free is hard, it’s boring, it requires deep thinking and soul-searching.

So we choose the rat race, we consciously know that our lives aren’t complete but our subconscious is happy that it doesn’t have to deal with the pressures associated with freedom.

And these pressures? They are self inflicted fears of failure; with the open doors there is nothing stopping us from becoming great. But the possible humiliation is too terrifying.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.  – Marianne Williamson