Today, I'll share examples of how I implemented this strategy over the years along with the pitfalls to avoid whenever doing so.
I've mentioned this before but I used to be a very cheap individual. Pinching pennies was such a character trait that I was known by all my friends and family as "the cheap one." Then I started reading personal development books and was eventually introduced to the concept of abundance. Most of the thought leaders in the personal development world talked about the infinite nature of money. And the more we associated money with lack, the more lack we would experience in our lives.
Being cheap is the epitome of feeling lack. I was always in search of the lowest cost item even if I had the money to afford better quality. There's nothing wrong with looking for a bargain. But I eventually realized that my cheap nature led to other problems. I was always buying stuff because the items I had would fall apart. Then I'd end up having to buy it again which means that I was spending just as much on two low-quality items as I would on something mid-range.
Eventually, I decided to apply the principle of creating abundance in my life to see what it would create. Step 1 didn't involve any spending at all. It simply required me to not react to the cost of expensive items. Cheap people are notorious for causing a scene as soon as they see a price tag. I was no different. With my new approach, I didn't try to pretend that an expensive item was affordable, I just could not react to the price in a negative way. I treated the price as neutral no matter how much the item cost. I did this because, for wealthy people, the item wasn't very expensive. If I were to become wealthy one day, I must react as they would. Another thing I did was not freak out if something came up that required me to spend a lot of money. If my car got towed or some other emergency that required me to shell out hundreds, I never allowed myself to get emotional about it. I just handed the money and moved on. No matter how much it cost, I was never to give the situation any emotional energy.
Once I mastered the art of not freaking out over the price of something, I moved to phase II which involved spending my money in a way the granted me feelings of abundance. At the time, I was working my first job and was earning $9.75 an hour. After a year, they generously gave me a $3.00 per hour raise. I'll never forget that day I received the first check after the pay increase. Instead of going home after work, I immediately drove to Publix to do some grocery shopping. This was a huge deal because I only grocery shopped at Walmart. Mind you, I didn't buy much that day at Publix. The purpose of the exercise was to immerse myself in the feeling of abundance while pushing my cart down the aisle. It felt amazing! Over the next several years, I experienced multiple pay raises and each time I did an abundance related action to commemorate the event.
You might say to yourself, doesn't everyone spend more when they make more money? What makes this any different?
Great question!
Whenever I conducted my abundance promoting experiment, I always made sure to follow one simple rule. Don't let my spending create any debt. Sure, I could have gone out and spent thousands of dollars on stuff but if I could really afford it, but I'd be creating more feelings of lack. Seeing the bills come it with no money to pay for it is not a way to feel abundant. It just doesn't work that way. I made sure to save ferociously so I'd have enough money to enjoy my moments of abundance. There' no better feeling than splurging on something knowing that there's more than enough money in the bank to pay for it. And if a financial emergency were to occur, I would always be covered.
Another thing to be careful of when buying for abundance is the law of diminishing return. For example, I decided to purchase a designer bag to step outside of my spending comfort zone. Before I knew it, I amassed a small collection of expensive purses. I love my bags but I realized that with each bag I acquired, the feelings of abundance diminished. Not because I was getting poorer but because it didn't heighten my feelings of abundance proportionately. It was just another purse that I bought. Eventually, I realized that I had to reallocate my money in a different way.
A couple years ago, I decided to try another abundance experiment. But instead of buying more stuff I decided to focus my attention on experiences. So I did things like getting massages and facials on regular basis, booked a series of float tank sessions, etc. Basically, anything that I thought would make me feel amazing, I tried. This paid off in a major way.
It's been a while since I've conducted an abundance experiment and I'm way overdue. This time I may start by brainstorming and journaling what my life would look like if I had unlimited financial resources. Then I'll bring in very deliberate elements from my vision that would make the most impact. The best part is that I can look back on past experiments to determine what would generate the greatest feelings of abundance. For instance, I know that the feeling of buying physical items is sometimes short-lived versus the experience of planning and executing the perfect day. The planning process itself creates a wonderful feeling of abundance so even if you don't have much in your bank account, you can carry out this experiment. It cost me nothing to begin this abundance creating experiment and it won't cost you a dime either.
[Abundance spending works because of its ability to create the feelings of having more than enough. According to the Law of Attraction, that feeling causes us to give off the vibrations that align with what we want to attract. If this is true, we will eventually attract more ideas, people, resources that lead us to greater finanicial resources. ]
Remember not to spend money in a way that would create lack in the near or distant future. Celebrities are notorious for creating a false sense of abundance by amassing a bunch of physical items and long-term debt. How many times have you heard of a multimillionaire celebrity becoming broke and losing everything? That person didn't apply the principles properly. There's a third method of using spending money to create more abundance that I didn't get into in this article, but I've written about it in the past. It involves the actual allocation of money for creation activities such as investing in assets that increase in value or that can produce cash flow. This allows wealth to constantly flow into your life. If you don't know where to utilize your money to make more money but don't know where to start.....start with a high interest savings account. It's literally a source of free money that requires no work. I can't think of a more passive income stream. From there, more ideas will come to you and if you take action on those ideas, you'll be surprised on how easy it is to create wealth.
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