If You Don’t Think Twice When Buying Avocados, You’re Rich

If you’re cash secure, you can be a fun and healthy flavor of frugal

If you don’t think twice when you buy avocados, you’ve made it.

This is an absurdly simple expression of personal financial success. However, it might be the only one we need.

In this article, we overuse the word “rich” to the extent we render it meaningless. We also talk about avocados and why they matter in personal finance.

Avocados are expensive, even in California. My east coast friends tell me they’re often prohibitively expensive. At the same time, you get a healthy bang for your buck when you regularly consume avocados. They’re beneficial for all sorts of things, including good skin and weight loss.

Then there’s beer. Not necessarily good for you the way an avocado is. However, beer serves multiple purposes. It can vary wildly in price. Start at the cheap side of the isle and get mostly mass-produced and relatively inexpensive beer. Slide over, and you get to the good stuff — craft and otherwise — for as much as, if not more than, double the price.

How about canned crushed tomatoes? I bought some the other day, so I can make my all-day pasta sauce with a beautiful girl. On the pathetically bare shelves at Whole Foods, the only choice came in at a relatively whopping $4.59 a can. While the $1.99 tube of tomato paste and sale on spicy chicken sausage offset this, I still experienced a second or two of sticker shock.

It’s these day-to-day decisions the cult of frugality frowns upon, if not outright shames. Let’s flip the script. Maybe it’s wiser and more effective to reorganize your goals. For many of us, it will take a significant brain rewiring.

Instead of scrimping on the small stuff, maybe the goal should be situating yourself in such a way that you don’t even notice these comparatively expensive purchases. In other words, you have organized your cash flow in such a way that when you technically overspend here and there, your checking account doesn’t feel a thing.

The cult of frugality will flame me for this. To them, it’s exactly this spending that makes or breaks people. This is not an insane argument. I have bought into it from time to time. I can see why others do, even ardently. That said, it’s always healthy to reassess.

Convenience matters in life.

I don’t want to buy my avocados at the 99 Cents Only Store. That’s an extra trip I don’t need to make, particularly during a pandemic—same story on the crushed tomatoes. I’ll spend $4.59 on my only quality option before I go to another Whole Foods or hit up Trader Joe’s. (For the record, I tend to do my regular grocery shopping at the latter because it is less expensive).

The beer — well, I mean, who doesn’t like good beer?

Being able to live — let’s be honest — a privileged life like this makes you rich. Most of us aren’t millionaires. We’re not going to become millionaires any time soon. For a majority of us, amassing a million bucks is part of the long game. This is why the Making of a Millionaire publication is so great. It provides the tools and insight necessary to inform and sustain the journey.

In the nearer term, you can be rich without a million dollars. It’s not about the “feeling” of being rich because you eschew money and material things. It’s about being practically rich.

Rich enough that $3 for an avocado, $16 for a four-pack of beer (yeah, a four-pack), or $2 or so more per can for crushed tomatoes means absolutely nothing to you. It’s tantamount to a rounding error in your checking account.

You’re not standing in front of the avocados, the high-end beer, and the seemingly overpriced crushed tomatoes hemming, hawing, and annoying the hell out of the masked person waiting their turn roughly six feet behind you. You’re lucky enough to be like, yeah, whatever, as you place these items in your professionally sanitized hand basket or shopping cart.

You pay your rent on time. Your car payment isn’t a ball and chain. You direct ample surplus cash to savings and investments each month, almost without fail. If you’re doing these things, it makes sense to give yourself the leeway to live. Do not waste your time with these (hopefully) small decisions.

Steve Jobs wore the same clothes every day. Mark Zuckerberg (love him or dislike him) apparently does the same thing for the same reason. These guys didn’t/don’t want to bog themselves down with minutia. These little decisions — like what to wear — get in the way of the creative trajectories that spawn the exciting and meaningful.

It’s about where, how, and why you direct your energy, stress, and attention. If you’re doing it in the supermarket aisle, you’re either not in the best personal financial shape or — just maybe — you’re going about your budget in a somewhat inefficient way. It’s the big monthly cash transfers that matter. If you’re making them, you’re probably hitting and on the way to achieving your goals.

Don’t think of being rich as having a million dollars. Don’t think of being rich as a “feeling.” That is so 2019, early 2020.

Think of being rich as a practical application and thoughtful execution of personal finance strategies geared toward the righteous goal of cash security. It’s at this juncture where you can binge on avocados and good beer without taking up space in the grocery store aisle for more than a few seconds. (Unless, of course, you’re indecisive about exactly which good beer to buy).

This article is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.