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You are here: Home / Guest Posts / Shilpan’s Seven Habits to Live More with Less

Shilpan’s Seven Habits to Live More with Less

by jlcollinsnh 16 Comments

One of the over-riding themes here on jlcollinsnh is that when it comes to investing simple is not just easier, it is more effective and more profitable.

My pal Shilpan runs a blog I read faithfully: Street Smart Finance.  What is most appealing to me is the wisdom he brings from a lifetime of learning, hard work, success and failure. He is one of the few people who makes me, when he writes something with which I disagree, sit back and consider that maybe, just maybe, I might be wrong.

He also regularly expands my horizons. The best investing really is the simplest investing. In the post below, which he has graciously allowed me to reproduce here, he reminds me this is true of far more than just investing. It is actually drawn from his other blog: Success Soul. Enjoy!

Live-more-with-Less

Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.
-Confucius (BC 551-BC 479) Chinese philosopher.

Simple life is a pathway to happiness. It’s as simple as a rainbow of seven colors. In the modern world full of gizmos, simplicity is an extinct virtue.

Simplicity is a subtle, profound way of life leading to the nurturing of your inner happiness. That makes me believe that sources of external happiness veil our capacity to nurture inner happiness.

Simplicity is a way to manage our time to deposit more inner pleasure in our Bank of Life.

Habits and addictions are two sources of external happiness that keep our focus on excess leading to more habits and addictions. As I grow older, I’m mindful of my life; I am dwelling deep into time; I am trading for the pleasure of mine that takes away eternal, inner pleasure of time with my wife, my children, my spiritual being and the community that I live in.

Excess in eating, spending, working, ego, thinking, pleasures and — of course — doing everything to please others is a sure way to wreck your life speeding on the highway of more stuff for happiness; I am not against materialism, I am against excess that leads to the wreckage.

These  7 habits are essential to set limits, and to create inner awareness to live happy, content life with less.

Less eating:

Overeating has many dreary consequences including high fat, high sugar food, sedentary life and emotional clutter leading to depression. With my new-found mantra, I’ve been devoting my focus on the diet. My mantra for the day becomes, “Better and balanced diet to invest time to deposit more inner pleasure in Bank of my Life.” This allows me to be mindful about what I eat. Being a vegetarian, it allows me to focus my attention to eat vegan food rich in fiber and protein. I feel excess in energy — and certainly relaxed — as a result.

Less spending:

If you pay attention to your closet, you can see excess manifested through your spending habit. We’ve all had time in our life when we refused and abhor to open that bill, charged every credit card in our wallet to the limit to buy things that we wanted. I’ve lived in the third world country, and I know that it takes lot less to deposit more inner happiness in my Bank of Life. If I am mindful for a day to buy only what I need and not what I want, I’m feeling calmness and peace that comes from within.

Less working:

I’ve always struggled with this habit. It’s manifested my life to a degree that I’ve become addicted to setting goals and seeking external pleasure by setting higher goals to spend more time working for those goals. I’m mindful for a day to turn off the laptop and head back home no matter what happens. I’ve now realized that life moves on. It has allowed me to develop inner consciousness about the goals and their relevance to my new mantra of life.

Less Ego:

An ego is an excess form of time spent on self-centric thoughts. I’m not against having an ego. Without an ego, we can not instill burning desire to achieve what we conceive. It’s excess that takes time away from my purpose to invest time for the inner happiness. With excess in ego comes the root of an evil; It kills the veins of morality leading to horrible act of self-indulgence. If I’m mindful about keeping my ego in the closet when I leave home, I’m nurturing the mind of magnanimity.

Less Obsessive thinking:

We’ve all been victim of this viral state of mind. We choose our thoughts and focus our attention to those thoughts. It’s that very decision we make to choose and obsess with thoughts of events that went wrong on the day, lack of forgiveness for the mistakes we’ve made on the day that leads us to misery and despair. With new mantra, I’m mindful about the thoughts I choose and thoughts I harbor. By allowing mind to relax with yoga and meditation, I’ve learned to focus on thoughts of content and not on the contempt.

Less Pleasures:

External pleasures always imbibe our inner pleasure. I do not drink or smoke, but I’ve habit of drinking a can of diet coke a day. I’m more mindful on a day to avoid these chemically altered drinks to invest my time to deposit more inner pleasures in my Life Bank. I’m feeling more energy and higher state of awakening due to seeking pleasure from within.

Less People Pleasing:

Keeping up with Joneses is the norm in the modern-day society. It’s both sad and disdainful to live life just to seek approval of others. If I know myself well and accept myself deeply, I don’t need approval of others. People pleasing is a form of external happiness that’s as fake as a mirage. Pleasing my inner self allows me to invest time to deposit eternal happiness in my Bank of Life. It also allows me to eliminate the emotional clutter I’ve deposited in the form of rejection by others who indeed have no interest in investing time to deposit more inner happiness in my life. I’m mindful for a day to do what pleases my inner self and care less for what others opined about my decision to do so.

 

To read more from Shilpan head over to Street Smart Finance.
To hear Shilpan tell his story, check out his interview with the Mad Fientist:  The Real American Dream
Here’s the video Shilpan sent me on Minimalism.

Related

Important Resources

  • Talent Stacker is a resource that I learned about through my work with Jonathan and Brad at ChooseFI, and first heard about Salesforce as a career option in an episode where we featured Bradley Rice on the Podcast. In that episode, Bradley shared how he reached FI quickly thanks to his huge paychecks and discipline in keeping his expenses low. Jonathan teamed up with Bradley to build Talent Stacker, and they have helped more than 1,000 students from all walks of life complete the program and land jobs like clockwork, earning double or even triple their old salaries using a Salesforce certification to break into a no-code tech career.
  • Credit Cards are like chain saws. Incredibly useful. Incredibly dangerous. Resolve to pay in full each month and never carry a balance. Do that and they can be great tools. Here are some of the very best for travel hacking, cash back and small business rewards.
  • Personal Capital is a free tool to manage and evaluate your investments. With great visuals you can track your net worth, asset allocation, and portfolio performance, including costs. At a glance you'll see what's working and what you might want to change. Here's my full review.
  • Betterment is my recommendation for hands-off investors who prefer a DIFM (Do It For Me) approach. It is also a great tool for reaching short-term savings goals. Here is my Betterment Review
  • NewRetirement offers cool tools to help guide you in answering the question: Do I have enough money to retire? And getting started is free. Sign up and you will be offered two paths into their retirement planner. I was also on their podcast and you can check that out here:Video version, Podcast version.
  • Tuft & Needle (T&N) helps me sleep at night. They are a very cool company with a great product. Here’s my review of what we are currently sleeping on: Our Walnut Frame and Mint Mattress.
  • Vanguard.com

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Life

« Stocks — Part XIX: How to think about money
Stocks — Part VIII-b: Should you avoid your company’s 401k? »

Comments

  1. Trish says

    June 21, 2013 at 6:14 pm

    Thank you. Love that you included “work” in the list of excesses. Most of us still feel we’re being “good” when we work harder. That’s a difficult habit to break.

    Perfect for a weekend when I’m thinking that a “Gazpacho Lifestyle” is where I want to be heading. Simple, good food, simpler lifestyle. And not stressing about all the ways I’m not there yet!

    Reply
    • Shilpan says

      June 22, 2013 at 1:57 am

      Thank you, Trish. I am workaholic myself. So, it’s a constant struggle to balance work-life. I enjoy what I do. So, I have always struggled to know when to stop. I wish there was a magic way to turn my subconscious on and off to maintain the balance.

      Reply
  2. Shilpan says

    June 21, 2013 at 6:42 pm

    Thank you for the honor pal! I have profound respect for your wisdom and generosity. For many of you who don’t know me I have been around the blogosphere for a while — I launched my first blog in early 2008 — and I have met two great friends.

    Jim is one of these two friends whom I consider most honest and down-to-earth. I love his passion for a simple and fulfilling life. And his audacity to speak truth when truth hurts many.

    We both agree that we write about personal finance not because we want to become rich; we write about it so that money can never pose a threat to live our dreams and passions. Simply put, less is more…

    Reply
  3. Prob8 says

    June 21, 2013 at 9:45 pm

    ” If I know myself well and accept myself deeply, I don’t need approval of others.”

    Nicely put. I wonder how many of us have reached this level of awareness and acceptance. I know I haven’t. I’m working on it.

    It was a pleasure to read your guest post here. I also enjoyed your interview with MMM and JLC on your blog.

    Reply
    • Shilpan says

      June 22, 2013 at 1:53 am

      Thank you my friend. It’s an honor to guest post for Jim and to know his readers.

      Reply
  4. Andria says

    June 21, 2013 at 11:10 pm

    Great article today and just what I needed to see. I finally have my finances under control and will be stashing away lots of cash into VTSAX. I am scared though that I am going to end up paying a lot of tax on it. Anyone have tips on this???? This money is going to be stashed away as the retirement is already maxed out.

    Now, if only I could get my diet together. That is my next task.

    Thanks for an awesome read today!!!

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      June 24, 2013 at 4:32 pm

      Hi Andria…

      Glad you enjoyed Shilpan’s guest post!

      As for your question, don’t worry too much about this. For one thing, taxes are unavoidable and, since it means you have lots of money, not an all together bad problem to have.

      Remember, you won’t be taking the money out all at once and so any tax hit will be spread over time.

      As for how to do this, there are several ways. The easiest is to have your dividends and capital gains reinvested and then just pull out whatever percentage you choose. For example:

      Suppose you have 100k in VTSAX and you want to draw 4% ($4000) per year from it. You could have Vanguard sell $4000 worth of shares and send the money to your bank. Or you can divide by 12 and instruct them to send $333.33 to your bank each month. Easy-peasy! Make sense?

      Reply
      • Kristi says

        June 24, 2013 at 5:51 pm

        We are in a similar situation with looking at opening a taxable VTSAX. Right now we max out a Roth for my husband and myself and we put in up to the match at my husband’s employer…we thought to put in more but don’t really like some of the fund options. Anyway, we are thankful to still have money yet to invest and thought taxable accounts would be the way to go since we don’t want everything in retirement accounts when looking at early retirement. Question….are we taxed every year on the dividends in those accounts if we have them reinvested? Do we have to do anything on a yearly basis tax reporting wise with them or is it not until you sell? Thanks!

        Reply
        • jlcollinsnh says

          June 24, 2013 at 6:06 pm

          Hi Kristi….

          First, I’ll be assuming you live in the USA?

          If so, VTSAX (and really any mutual fund) is taxed three ways:
          1. On the dividends it produces. About 2% for VTSAX these days.
          2. Any capital gains distributions reported at year end. These are gains from stocks sold within the fund, balenced against any losses, during the year.
          3. Any capital gain or loss when you sell shares you own.

          Each year, Vanguard will send you a statement called a 1099 that reports any and all of the first two. This is also reported to the IRS. You’ll need to include this income when you do your taxes. So yes, you pay tax on these two year by year.

          As for #3, taxes are only due if and when you sell shares. You could, for instance, hold them your entire life and pass them on to your heirs. The cool thing about that is the “cost basis” is then stepped up to the price of the shares when they pass to your heirs. In effect, the tax liability for all the gains goes away.

          This can be confusing so let me know if anything doesn’t make sense.

          Reply
          • Kristi says

            June 24, 2013 at 7:26 pm

            Yes, we are in the US. Thanks for the great info…very well explained. I feel like I have a much better grasp of the topic now. Have a nice evening!

  5. Jake @ CC Wealth says

    June 24, 2013 at 11:46 am

    This is a great reminder. Many times the people who are the most happy are the ones with the simplest lives. If you learn to live and be happy with less then it takes less to keep you happy. It’s very easy in today’s society to get caught up in materialistic things to please other people, but we should try to not let ourselves fall into this trap.

    Reply
    • Kristi says

      June 24, 2013 at 5:54 pm

      Great point! I find that to be true in my life as well with the people I am around.

      Reply
  6. Done by Forty says

    June 25, 2013 at 11:59 am

    You don’t expect this kind of deep, contemplative writing on a personal finance blog, but I’m glad it’s here! Thanks for those insights…if I can do one of them today, then that’s a very good thing!

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      June 25, 2013 at 3:46 pm

      Thanks DbyF…

      and thanks for not pointing out I had to go find somebody else to write it! 🙂

      Reply
      • Shilpan says

        June 25, 2013 at 9:51 pm

        Thank you for the opportunity! It’s an honor and shows how well you are connected with your readers.

        Reply
  7. Giddings Plaza FI says

    August 27, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    Shilpan, thanks for a great post! Listing work as an addiction is insightful, and gives me a new perspective on overwork. I have spent years working too hard. I finally quit my job a few months ago, and am on sabbatical. When I return, I’ll use your insight that overwork is a type of addiction. It’s very easy to use overwork as a means of gaining money, bonuses, influence, and status. Thus, your “ego” addiction is closely related to the work addiction.

    Reply

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    • ► October (3)
      • Republic Wireless and my $19 per month phone plan
      • Case Study #3: Let's get Tom to Latin America!
      • The Stock Series gets its own page
    • ► September (2)
      • Case Study #2: Joe -- off to a fast start!
      • Chautauqua 2013: A Week of Dreams
    • ► August (1)
      • Closing up shop plus an opening at Chautauqua, my new podcast, phone, book and other random cool stuff
    • ► July (1)
      • They Will Kill You For Your Shoes!
    • ► June (4)
      • Stocks -- Part VIII-b: Should you avoid your company's 401k?
      • Shilpan's Seven Habits to Live More with Less
      • Stocks -- Part XIX: How to think about money
      • My path for my kid -- the first 10 years
    • ► May (5)
      • Why your house is a terrible investment
      • Stocks — Part XVIII: Investing in a raging bull
      • Dining with the Ghosts of Sarah Bernhardt and Alfons Mucha
      • How we finally got the house sold
      • Stocks — Part XVII: What if you can't buy VTSAX? Or even Vanguard?
    • ► April (4)
      • Greetings from Prague & a computer question
      • Swimming with Tigers, a 2nd chance on the Chautauqua, a financial article gets it wrong and I'm off to Prague
      • Storage, Moving and Movers
      • Homeless, and a bit on the strategy of dollar cost averaging
    • ► March (4)
      • Wild Turkeys, Motorcycles, Dining Room Sets & Greed
      • Roots v. Wings: considering home ownership
      • How about that stock market?!
      • The Blog has New Clothes
    • ► February (5)
      • Meet Mr. Money Mustache, JD Roth, Cheryl Reed & me for a Chautauqua in Ecuador
      • High School Poetry, Carnival, cool ads and random pictures that caught my eye
      • Consignment Shops: Best business model ever?
      • Cafes
      • Stocks -- Part XVI: Index Funds are really just for lazy people, right?
    • ► January (5)
      • Social Security: How secure and when to take it
      • Fighting giraffes, surreal landscapes, dancing with unicorns and restoring a Vanagon
      • My plan for 2013
      • VITA, income taxes and the IRS
      • How to be a stock market guru and get on MSNBC
  • ► 2012 (53)
    • ► December (6)
      • See you next year....until then: The Origin of Life, Life on Other Worlds, Mechanical Graveyards, Great Art, Alternative Lifestyles and Finding Freedom
      • Stocks -- Part XV: Target Retirement Funds, the simplest path to wealth of all
      • Stocks -- Part XIV: Deflation, the ugly escort of Depressions.
      • Stocks Part XIV: Deflation, the ugly escort of Depressions.
      • Stocks -- Part XIII: The 4% rule, withdrawal rates and how much can I spend anyway?
      • How I learned to stop worrying about the Fiscal Cliff and you can too.
    • ► November (2)
      • Rent v. owning: A couple of case studies in Ecuador
      • So, what does a month in Ecuador cost anyway?
    • ► October (4)
      • See you in December....
      • Meet me in Ecuador?
      • The Podcast: You can hear me now.
      • Stocks -- Part XII: Bonds
    • ► September (6)
      • Stocks -- Part XI: International Funds
      • The Smoother Path to Wealth
      • Case Study #I: Putting the Simple Path to Wealth into Action
      • Tales of Bolivia: Calle de las Brujas
      • Stocks -- Part X: What if Vanguard gets Nuked?
      • Travels in South America: It was the best of times....
    • ► August (1)
      • Home again
    • ► June (4)
      • Yellow Fever, closing up shop for the summer and heading to Peru y Bolivia
      • I could not have said it better myself...
      • Stocks -- Part IX: Why I don't like investment advisors
      • Happy Birthday, jlcollinsnh; and thanks for the gift Mr. MM!
    • ► May (6)
      • Stocks -- Part VIII: The 401K, 403b, TSP, IRA & Roth Buckets
      • Mr. Money Mustache
      • The College Conundrum
      • Stocks -- Part VII: Can everyone really retire a millionaire?
      • Stocks -- Part VI: Portfolio ideas to build and keep your wealth
      • Stocks -- Part V: Keeping it simple, considerations and tools
    • ► April (6)
      • Stocks -- Part IV: The Big Ugly Event, Deflation and a bit on Inflation
      • Stocks -- Part III: Most people lose money in the market.
      • Stocks -- Part II: The Market Always Goes Up
      • Stocks -- Part 1: There's a major market crash coming!!!! and Dr. Lo can't save you.
      • You can eat my Vindaloo, mega lottery, Blondie, Noa, Israel Kamakawiwo 'Ole, art, film and a ride on the Space Shuttle
      • Where in the world are you?
    • ► March (7)
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part V: Sold! and the taxman cometh.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part IV: I become a Landlord.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part III: The Battle is Joined.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part II: The Limits of the Law.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part I: Impossibly Naive.
      • You, too, can be conned
      • Armageddon and the value of practical skills
    • ► February (6)
      • Rent v. Owning Your Home, opportunity cost and running some numbers
      • The Casanova Kid, a Shit Knife, a Good Book, Having No Regrets, Dark Matter and a bit of Magic
      • What Poker, Basketball and Mike Whitaker taught me about Luck
      • How to Give like a Billionaire
      • Go ahead, make my day
      • Muk Finds Success in Tahiti
    • ► January (5)
      • Travels with "Esperando un Camino"
      • Beanie Babies, Naked Barbie, American Pickers and Old Coots
      • Selling the House and Adventures in Staging
      • The bashing of Index Funds, Jack Bogle and a Jedi dog trick
      • Magic Beans
  • ► 2011 (22)
    • ► December (1)
      • Dividend Growth Investing
    • ► November (2)
      • The Mummy's head, Particle Physics and "Knocking on Heaven's Door"
      • "It's Better in the Wind" or why I ride a motorcycle
    • ► October (1)
      • Lazy Days and School Days
    • ► July (2)
      • The road to Zanzibar sometimes goes thru Ecuador...
      • Johnny wins the lotto and heads to Paris
    • ► June (16)
      • Chainsaws, Elm Trees and paying for College
      • Stuff I’ve failed at: the early years
      • Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
      • The. Worst. Used. Car. Ever.
      • Top Ten reasons your future is so bright it hurts my eyes to look at it
      • The Most Dangerous Words Your Customer Can Say
      • How not to drown in The Sea of Assholes
      • What we own and why we own it
      • The Ten Sales Commandments
      • My ever so formal and oh so dry CV
      • How I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth
      • The Myth of Motivation
      • Why you need F-you money
      • My short attention span
      • Why I can’t pick winning stocks, and you can’t either
      • The Monk and the Minister

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