Widening the Gap

If you want to aggressively build wealth - whether that means pay off debt, save and invest more, or both— you better be ready to control your standard of living.

As the words “lifestyle CREEP” imply, it happens slowly over time and sneaks up on you. A larger house payment, vehicle upgrades, new social activities and events, finer dining and clothing.

Eventually it all adds up and you suddenly think “How did I get here?!”

The key to overcoming lifestyle creep is to widen the gap between your income and expenses over time. It goes beyond consistently living beneath your means, as the two parallel lines show.

It’s slowing down the increase in spending in comparison to the rate of your earning.

I’m not totally out of touch. I’m not going to tell you your rate of spending can remain completely flat over an extended length of time. Life happens. Families grow. New needs arise. Economic inflation is real. My lifestyle has definitely increased over the last 25 years. I absolutely spend way more money now than I did when I was 23!

The difference though is that both my husband and I have resisted the urge to spend at a pace that was following our percent of increases in income.

In fact, we took steps like paying off our cars and our home to widen that gap even further!

Now those monthly payments are going toward investments for our retirement and our kids’ college savings.

So think about your gap and the angle of lines you would draw if you created a chart like this for yourself.

Did lifestyle creep sneak up on YOU?