Preventing Lifestyle Creep

I have written about ‘Lifestyle-creep’ in the past and have found myself discussing this a bit more often during planning meetings as of late. 

Lifestyle creep is when people find that their spending is gradually increasing right along with their income.  Sometimes this is intentional, and other times, not so much. 

Lately, in light of inflation, the ever-growing list of subscription services we all end up with, and the newest versions of phones or gadgets tempting us to upgrade, I have found that this subject is starting to become more of an issue. 

Either way, lifestyle creep can leave you feeling you’re treading water and not making progress towards financial goals. 

Lifestyle creep can also lead to unintentional debt and other sneaky issues that can quickly spiral out of control. 

In our financial planning work with clients, we strive to help clients to put basic systems in place to help prevent this from becoming a problem. 

What do I mean by systems? 

Our planning process places a heavy focus on things within your own control, like cash flow management, properly structured accounts, extra paychecks, bonuses, stock options….  You name it and we can plan for it. 

We have intentionally built and honed our planning process around things like this for the past 20 years.  

Do you suspect lifestyle creep may be an issue for your finances?  What pre-meditated plan do you have in place to prevent this? 

We want our clients to accomplish BIG things and to have a financial life free of lifestyle creep.  It all starts with planning, and the intentional approach to carrying out the planning. 

If you have questions about lifestyle creep and how to keep it out of your financial life please reach out.

Test us out, kick our wheels….we’ll be happy to help.