Income Optimization, Part Two: The Donut Lesson
I missed last Friday because I was heads-down learning some new financial technology at a financial conference. The kind of stuff I want to bring back and teach here, actually, about optimizing what we earn and what we already have. Funny timing, because my 13-year-old handed me the perfect example of that before I even got back to my desk.
The Donuts Nobody Planned On
My wife had already made cookie dough for my son’s spelling bee team. Then the teacher asked specifically for donuts. No real reason given, she just asked. My son didn’t want to disappoint her, so we drove out and grabbed a box. About $15 we hadn’t planned on spending.
It’s supposed to be a team of ten kids. Two showed up.
Most of us would call that a wash. Money spent, plan didn’t play out, nothing left to do but shrug it off.
What He Did With What Was Left
He didn’t shrug it off. He carried the box around the school and handed several of his teachers a donut, just a little breakfast pick-me-up, no big deal. Then he was down to one last donut. He found the newer friends he’d made this semester and split it three ways.
He may have walked out of his spelling bee with about eight donuts left, but he found good uses for what was in front of him, right where he was, instead of treating the mismatched plan like a loss.
Optimize Where You Are, With What You Have
That’s the whole point of this one. You don’t need the right amount of income, the right job, or the right circumstances to optimize your money. You optimize wherever you currently are as best as you can.
Maybe your income is exactly where you want it. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe your expenses ran higher than planned this month, or lower than expected. It doesn’t really matter. The move is the same either way: look at what you actually have right now, not what you wish you had, and get the most out of it. Wealth is often created one action at a time. Find one area, either earning or spending, no matter how big or small, and challenge yourself to optimize it.
My son didn’t wait for the outcome at the spelling bee to look different. He worked with the donuts he had.
So here’s this month’s move. Don’t wait for your income or your expenses to look different before you optimize. Take one thing exactly as it sits today, your current paycheck, your current bill pile, whatever’s already in front of you, and find one better use for it this week. That’s the whole exercise.
See you at the top.
