One of the recent phrases tending right now is YOLO, which means, “you only live once”. In some ways, I understand this concept. After all, it makes sense to enjoy life. But you have to be careful about how you apply YOLO to your life, or things can start to get out of hand.
Watch Out for Debt
One of the things you have to worry about when adopting the YOLO lifestyle is debt. A number of young people think that seizing the day should be done at all costs — even if that cost is debt.
It’s tempting to believe that you have plenty of time to pay everything off. After all, you are young. What does debt matter, even if it’s high interest debt, if you can enjoy yourself now? The idea is to have a good time while you can; you’ll have plenty of time later to work at a job and pay off the debt.
I can see the appeal to that. In college, I had a lot of fun and piled on debts. However, I came to regret that approach. Paying so much in interest each month reminded me for years that I still needed to pay for my fun. I came to think that everything would be more enjoyable without the interest hanging over my head. I was lucky; I hadn’t done too much, and most of it could be mended over time.
How I Approach YOLO Now
I’ve managed to moderate my approach to enjoying life. This way, I still manage to enjoy life now, while I can, without breaking the bank and without racking up the debt.
My feelings on the subject revolve around the way I save for retirement and what I plan to leave as an inheritance for my son. Simply put, I’m not into amassing a huge amount of wealth to sit uselessly by. My husband and I have figured out how much to set aside so that we can have a comfortable retirement and we do that.
We also don’t think there is a need to pass on huge amount of money to our son. We contribute to a college savings fund for him, but we are pretty sure he can earn his own money for his own life. We want to help out, but at the same time, we also think the best help we can give is for him to teach him sound money management principles that can guide him later on. It’s really the financial gift that keeps on giving.
This way, our needs are taken care of and we can enjoy ourselves. We like to eat out and I like to travel. We want to do these things while we are still young and healthy enough to enjoy them. I don’t really like the idea of completely depriving ourselves in the name of building a huge pile of cash (that we will never use) later. I’d rather enjoy it now.
What do you think of YOLO?
