 Now a lot of people have the idea that one of the reasons you should move to the country is because things are much cheaper in the country Now sometimes that is the case. Okay, maybe things are 10 20% cheaper I don't know may I kind of feel like they're about the same with the exception of the most important thing Land or even rent right is significantly cheaper, but most things are pretty much the same That is not the real reason Financially why it's a good reason to move to the country the real reason is how it changes your behavior How the lifestyle is just categorically different from living in the city, okay? I guess the easiest way to think of it is living in a city or really living in a place where it's expensive to live Over time will make it more and more expensive for you to live there Okay, as you spend more time in a city you will get used to spending more and more money Whereas as you live in the country you will get used to spending less and less money. Okay, let me let's explain Let's think about it in very personal terms. Okay, so let's say there are two people Billy and Sally and they graduate from college. Okay, who cares what their degrees are it doesn't matter They graduate from college. Let's say their boyfriend and girlfriend and they split up. Oh, things aren't working out Let's just go. Let's go our separate ways so Sally She gets a fantastic job. Okay, she gets a six-figure job Working it's a great starting job in some big city. Okay. I'm doing consulting whatever that means So she's gonna move to the city and she's gonna get a hundred thousand dollars a year Okay, Billy on the other hand now. He has a degree But he's a man. I can't I couldn't find a job like anywhere in the city I'm gonna move to the country. Okay, that's what I'm gonna do and he originally he moves just because it's cheaper to get stuff and he'll get some throwaway job that you know Someone just needed someone with a college degree and let's say Billy makes around 50,000 a year Okay, so I'm kind of adjusting for inflation. These numbers would probably be lower a couple years ago But you know nowadays I feel like that, you know, I'm being actually a little generous to both of them right now They'd probably be making a little less but not not that much less depending on Anyway, so Let's say now Billy and his scenario. It's very easy in the country for him to let's say pay I don't know five hundred dollars for rent. It's actually easy to pay two hundred dollars for rent If you're living to willing to live in somebody's house or something like that, right? If you're starting out, maybe Billy's like I'll put up with that But let's say he gets his own place gets his own apartment. Maybe his own house for five hundred dollars a month Okay, easily doable in the country so, you know, he's spending six thousand a year on living expenses and You know, it's actually pretty easy. Actually, let's let's use around numbers Let's say every month Billy spends a combined one thousand dollars half on rent Half on other things, you know groceries, whatever car insurance He could actually get away with you know spending a lot less than five hundred bucks in the country but let's just use their uneven number and say that That's a thousand dollars a month twelve thousand dollars a year, okay? So that's Billy's expenses everything else from that fifty thousand dollars minus twelve is straight into savings So thirty eight thousand dollars. He's saving that, okay? So let's look at Sally here is the issue with Sally Sally's making lots of money Okay, hundred thousand dollars and let's say she starts out in the city at a pretty cheap apartment Cheap for the city is a thousand dollars a lot of times I remember when I lived in Tucson. It was a struggle It was a struggle to find an apartment shared with someone else where I was paying eight hundred dollars And I especially with inflation a thousand dollars. Yeah, that's basically a good starting point if you want a small apartment Of course, if you're in LA or New York City, maybe you can get a pod in someone's bedroom for a thousand dollars I'm not quite sure So but let's say a thousand dollars now. Here's what happens to Sally Something happens to her in the city. She's very busy And she starts out being very frugal she makes her own food makes her self-breakfast make some coffee You know, she takes a brown bag to lunch of lunch to work She'll eat dinner by herself. Maybe with friends. Okay, but she's not going out. She's not going out But this is what inevitably happens, okay? Ah, I'm so busy You know what? I ran out of coffee. You know what? I'm just gonna go I'm gonna go to Starbucks this morning and you know what? I'm just gonna get breakfast there, too I'll get like some kind of croissant. All right, so I'll I'll get some stuff it. I'll make that I'll go there instead. I'll get coffee later. Well, that becomes a habit inevitably. Okay. It's convenient It's just a little bit of money. I'm gonna I'm gonna buy a coffee in the morning. Okay Lunch comes around. Oh, here's the thing. I really wanted when I started this job I really wanted to you know, take my lunch to work But I just feel like a dork cuz you know everyone else in the office They all go down to the sandwich shop. That's like on the bottom lot on the first floor where we are and You know, I just want to go with them for lunch I just feel I would feel like kind of a nerd if I stayed around and ate my own brown bag lunch I'm gonna go with them, you know, maybe just once or twice a week that turns into a habit as well Okay after work. Oh, I'm so stressed after work. Oh, you know, I could just go home and like Just I don't know do whatever I do at home But it'd be really I kind of want a smoothie. Ooh, there's a happy hour going on The guys at work want me to come to that. Ooh there. Oh, I really want boba tea. There's a Vietnamese place right next door They're all these different things there They're all these different Temptations in front of you all the time and once you fall for the temptations They become habits and that's how it is and that's how it is for a lot of people living in cities I know many people Who have lived in cities or live in cities who easily spend a hundred dollars a day a hundred dollars a day Just on different stuff again They're making six figures Sally's making good money But a hundred dollars a day or even half of that adds up, you know I if you were spending a hundred dollars a day just put two zeros on The number of days in a year and you will find that that is thirty six thousand five hundred dollars a year Okay, that's a significant pay decrease for personal convenience Okay, now a hundred might be an exaggeration might be an underestimate on my part depends on where you live Cities can be very different But my point in general is that the longer Sally is out there the more she is tempted to spend more and more And this doesn't just apply for getting food at restaurants. This applies for where she lives I said, oh, she got a budget thousand dollar apartment Well, what happens when she starts going to all of her friends houses and she realizes everyone else has a slightly nicer house than me and You know, it'd be I just need a little bit more space or oh it'd be really nice to just maybe I'll get this place for 1500 okay, maybe this place for two thousand right I just need a little more wiggle room It just needs to be a little nicer. I don't want to be that that girl who's in a nasty apartment, right? Same thing happens with her car, which she maybe she doesn't even use it that often But when she does she's embarrassed because she has a clunker that she used to use in college Everyone else. I'd had they all have new cars and cars that are only a couple years old I'll just get a hey I mean I can I can make a monthly payment Even a good maybe five hundred dollars of a monthly payment on some car, right? I'll just get a new car and do this, you know, blah blah blah, you know how it works, right? So there are two things that work here one is the temptations are always in front of her see there are all these conveniences Expensive conveniences or maybe they're not even expensive. They're just so many of them That are constantly in front of her and secondly, there's the social aspect now There there's always a social aspect to consumption. It's true in the the country as well But in the in cities now it is cutthroat Okay, if your buddy gets a boat you want a boat, you know if your buddy I don't know if they're hang gliding you want to hang glide, right? There's this sense in which a lot of people will do the same kind of Consumption as their friends and there's always an arm race arms race and again You might start out with a hundred thousand dollars, but that ends up disappearing as the year goes on You know, you can read you can look up statistics about you know, I Remember there's one I forget which period periodical it was what were which periodical it was with But it was something like Millennials 60% of Millennials making over a hundred thousand still are living paycheck to paycheck, right? That's the lifestyle they live in Because they on paper they have this great income that is all just being eaten away by bad habits bad habits Which they could not have in the country. So what's the difference in the country? I mean the irony is there a billion Sally might be saving Exactly the same amount of money at the end of the year because Sally might be and Sally might actually Be saving a lot less because she's blowing through it. Maybe she goes on expensive vacations and all this kind of stuff You know getting a new car. I don't know all these kind of things But let's say they're they're going home with the same amount of savings Let's say they're both going home with $30,000 at the end of the year right to put in a savings account. Well, that's actually that makes Sally lose even more because That money means a whole lot more to Billy Okay, because he he can wait let's say five years and he could easily just buy a house in cash And never have to worry about having to pay a mortgage or having to pay rent anymore, right? That's his he can leverage that to his own purposes. He could buy in cash a Small building downtown and start a little business can Sally do that if she saves up a hundred fifty thousand dollars Can she buy a seat a house in her city? No, no, it doesn't mean anything, right? So and and the money this is the the other important thing So as I said living in the city it breeds more spending You are going to be more and more and more Invested in it. You're gonna be buying more and mind you this isn't permanent stuff This is like you're just increasing your consumption. You want nicer and nicer and nicer clothes, right? You want nicer and nicer things And it's like a pretty meaningless arms race at the end of the day, okay? Now compare that to how it is in the country in the country when you spend money that money You know the way I remember doing a video talking about this whenever you have money You should spend money in such a way to reduce your need for more money, right? And the thing about let's say Billy who's living in the country if he has land to work on what can he do? Hey, he could build a workshop a little shed. He can do some things in it He can have a greenhouse. He can have a garden. He has lots of room In and that means that Billy's gonna be less reliant on the money that he makes, okay? So as time goes on Billy is in a better and better and better situation Even if he just has this throwaway job that he doesn't care about that doesn't do anything for him Maybe hey, maybe he'll get a better job. Maybe he'll do something online. Whatever. Everyone's working online. He can do it as well, right? but Sally is not in a good position, right? She she has to constantly she is on the gerbil wheel, okay? That's what I'm this is what I'm talking about. So When you're making life decisions think about this kind of stuff, okay? It sounds on paper like Sally is in a much. Oh, I'm making a hundred thousand dollars a year compared to Oh, my ex-boyfriend who made fifty thousand dollars. No, that's that's not how it works. You know what? I mean, that's not actually I realized that people probably think that I'm like Subtweeting a hypothetical ex-girlfriend of mine. That is not the case. I just want to go ahead and clarify that because But nonetheless like Like a lot of people look on paper at how much money they're making and they feel like they're richer than they actually are Whereas if you can minimize your expense if you can be like Billy and if you if you at 25 30 35 You have a house totally paid off that you own and you have property and your monthly expenses can be really just your groceries or Insurance or little smaller things like that. You are in an infinitely better Situation than someone who has to keep on the gerbil wheel non-stop. You know what? I mean that that is what I'm getting at It is a less stressful lifestyle. It's a better lifestyle and guess what all the perks of a city again I've been talking as if like countries. They don't have anything to do in that You don't have these temptations of like coffee shops or something like that That's not Like in the country if you want to go to a nice restaurant, you just got to do a little more driving You got to drive to the slightly bigger town or something like that. You got to know places around there so, you know if your buddy has a You know a birthday you'll go to a nice restaurant or you'll go, you know on a trip somewhere It's actually pretty normal in the country for people to make I guess carpool together to big cities to do things Over the weekend or something, you know, that that's a thing So these things are not out of your grasp, but they are out of your realm of temptation Okay, so that makes that makes it good like if I if I want to do the things that someone can do in a city I can do them. They're just not constantly in front of me Distracting me from what I'm actually trying to do if I want to go to a city You know I can I can get a ticket to a you know on a bus to New York And I can I can experience that for a weekend Okay, and I can get sick of it and I can go back home where I own everything, you know what? I mean, so that's what I'm trying to get people to understand. It's not it's not about like save It's not about things being cheaper in the country. It's about your behavior changing, right now If you're super autistic and disciplined You might think that oh I can live in the city and I can just not spend money on this kind of stuff But I guarantee you because this happened to me when I lived in college towns or big cities I got into habits of You know me mr. Anti fun misty mr. Resisting temptation mr. All this kind of stuff I guarantee you you know, I fell for this kind of stuff I would not necessarily get in a daily habit But I would end up spending way more than I end up spending out here, you know what I mean because it's there You know that that makes a difference so separate yourself from the temptation that that's what I'm trying to say and You know separate yourself from the cutthroat socialite nouveau rich upper-middle class You know that that kind of cultural environment which it's all people larping as if they're rich, you know what? I mean like I don't know they're not as rich as they think, you know In unless I don't know unless you just never have to think about money. You're not rich You know what? I mean and weirdly enough you can actually make yourself like that by Living in the country much easier than you can by living in the city. Okay, so that's all I have to say