Achieving As An Elitist

I've been reading articles lately about what income makes people happy, and what amount marks the limit of happiness - that is, there's a magical number, where even if you keep earning more than that, you don't get any happier. It turns out that it's a figure most of us will never earn, namely, around the £75,000 mark. But what I found most questionable is that nobody seems to have taken spending into account, only the earnings.

I'm quite sure it's possible to be financially miserable on £75,000 if you are frittering it all away to the point where you still struggle to pay the bills. By the same token, couldn't I be just as financially satisfied, with a quarter of that amount, if I don't spend money on a gas-guzzling monster of a vehicle, and in wasting things, in buying new outfits every week, and throwing half my groceries in the bin?

To me this says that some people in the western world can still reach peak financial happiness on far, far less.

Mr Money Mustache has another take on it. He claims that Mustachians - those of us who live deliberately frugally in order to work less - can consider themselves part of the elite if they just beat a lot of other people at things. I'm not talking about marathons or maths exams, but in how we consume and how we live. It sounds daunting as a number until you realise how obtainable so many things are. I can give you an example from my work - if you always take your own bag to the shop rather than buying one, you're probably beating half the humans around you. And if you then select even just one item in your shopping based on less packaging, you are probably in that elite 5%.

If you choose to go car-free, bam, top 5%. Even if you plan your car trips to avoid unnecessary travel, still top 10%. Or chose a really small car for the fuel savings, top 20%.

Do you walk your dog twice a day for 30 minutes? You're probably in the top 10% for fitness for your age.

I reckon I am in the top 1% for being frugal. Even in a workplace that gets me a lot of free food, many of my workmates don't have any interest. They don't even have interest in stuff that isn't expired, like tea bags with a crushed box or loo roll we no longer sell. So I get crazily excited when someone else shares my thinking. Poppet always takes the fruit home, Sassy always says yes to the leftover pastries, and Work Bestie and I get the most excited over ready meals 😁 which might also make us in the top 5% for being lazy at cooking!

So. What's your top-scoring elite thing?