Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette! In today's video, I discuss eight things
that being broke taught me. We did a video about 10 things that I wish I had known
in my 20s and this video is somewhat of an extension to that. Currently, I am in my
mid-30s and 15 years ago, my life looked very different. I grew up in Germany with
parents that were in the middle class but neither my mom or my dad ever got
any money from their parents and building a house, that was always a
financial struggle. Yes, I did get a bit of pocket money but it was not much more
than a bit of a change. So I learned from an early age, if I wanted something, I had
to work for it. My first job was a paperboy at the age of 14 then I got
into selling fountain pens on eBay which may be quite a bit of money and that
ultimately started my interest in classic men's clothing. After high school
and doing my civil service, I ended up going to a private law school in Germany.
This was the first time I was exposed to other kids who just had a lot of money
that they have from their parents. One of my fellow students actually just flew
home to his mom bringing his laundry so she could do it for him there; that was a
world that was entirely new to me. The German school University System is quite
good in the sense that they try to allow you to go there even though you come
from relatively low or no means at all. I had 450 euros at my disposal which at
the time was about 500 bucks, so I had to pay rent from that which was about $300.
That was not quite cheap and I ended up staying at a really rundown place that
was originally designed for officers' widows and when there weren't enough of
them, they just put in students. I first started out in a very small shared room
on a third floor of a building but it didn't have a bathroom in the unit so
every morning I had to go downstairs into the basement where there
was a coin-operated shower and for 50 cents, you've got seven minutes of warm
water but you could stop it in between and I was able to actually shower with a
20 seconds of hot water but hey, I saved 50 cents that way. At the time, my main form
of transportation was a bike and even as a student, I worked at the university making
some money on the side. I remember coming to the US, I didn't have much more than
my two suitcases and a few dollars to make a new start here and today, I'm a
lot more comfortable, however, being broke taught me a number
of valuable life lessons and I want to share them with you today. Number one,
money itself doesn't just automatically make you happier. I know people usually
only say that once they have achieved a certain level of wealth. What I can say
though is that money has the ability to make your life a lot easier, things less
stressful, you don't have to worry about any upcoming emergencies, you don't do
the math when you go grocery shopping, and it's just easier to focus on the
things that really matter in life. I definitely feel a lot free now that I
don't have to worry about paying rent or what if there's an
emergency coming up, I can simply pay for it out of pocket. Instead, I can now
pursue hobbies, I can take dance classes with my wife that I really enjoy, I can
take piano classes, or just anything else that gives me purpose or have a
sense of self improvement. Overall, I've always been a very happy person even
when I was broke and if you remember Notorious BIG who said "mo money mo
problems" and he definitely had a point. Social studies have shown time and time
again that earning anything over seventy five thousand dollars doesn't make you a
happier person, sometimes it can even make you less happy because your life is
all of a sudden a lot more complex, you have to deal with tax issues and other people
may just want to hang out with you because you're rich not because they're
actually interested in you as a person. While I found that just being rich or
money itself doesn't make you happier, there are a few ways where you can
utilize money to buy happiness. The big thing is you have to invest in
experiences with others that you like rather than stuff. Once you have more
money at your disposal, you automatically adjust your lifestyle,
you accrue more stuff but it just becomes a new normal and it doesn't make
you happier. Instead, if you spend time with your friends, with your family, maybe
you take them on a trip and you can share experiences afterwards and you've
something to look forward to, that definitely makes you happier. Also,
spending money on others, donating, usually makes you happier and spending
money on things that really give you purpose will maybe cost more upfront but
in the long term, will make you more happy. For example, I love the Gentleman's Gazette!
I love to help men to become gentlemen and to improve
themselves and that is my purpose in life and so I enjoy that no matter if I
make money or not. Also, instead of just buying something right now, it makes
sense to pre-buy things, let's say a cruise with your family or an event,
something that you want to do that you look forward to where you can relax and
spend time with them because you have all the anticipation building up to the
actual trip itself. Last but not the least, something that I do a lot more now
than I used to do when I was broke is to simply pay people to do things I don't
like to do so I can spend my time with my family
or just on things that I truly enjoy. The second thing that I learned when I was
broke was that the self-reliance I had made me a lot stronger as a person. My
parents always raised me to be very independent not just in terms of money.
Other people than you would get a lot more pocket money but they didn't necessarily
understand or were able to manage money better than I was. Overall, it's a lot
harder to adjust to less money than to more money. I pretty much always knew if
I wanted something, I simply had to work for it and do it myself and I never
really thought about it until I met some buddies through my civil service
and one guy told me "You know, whenever I wanted something, I just put it on my
Christmas list and it would just appear." You, on the other hand, have just learned
how to just come up with ways to get what you want,
be creative, have a side hustle or work in a certain way and I envy you. I
never thought about it that way because for me, it was always normal.
Just when I met other people who just had gotten a lot of money from their
parents, I realized that it was actually a benefit that I didn't just get
everything handed to me as a kid. Three, being broke or being rich is really a matter
of perception. My dad's from Brazil and we lived in Germany so whenever we would
go to Brazil and visit relatives, they all thought we were filthy rich so they
all expected us to bring a lot of gifts and to pick up the tab and pay for the
bill when in reality, my parents were in debt and had to worry about how to pay
for the mortgage and how to make ends meet. But we lived in a different country
and even though we had absolutely more money, relatively, we were not richer or
poorer than the people in Brazil. The first thing I learned was that having
extra money doesn't just happen. You have to actually plan for it. My roommate in
college would always buy certain ___ right through to the beginning of the month in
case she would run out at the end that she could at least eat. Even though at
the time I thought it was a little extreme, she was totally right. If you
don't manage your money upfront. you'll just spend it, at least, that's what I do
and most people I know. If you never plan to set aside money for an
emergency upfront chances are it'll hit you very hard and it'll have very
drastic consequences. That means you have to be very deliberate about your
money, you have to set yourself a budget and then chop the money off right when
you get paid in the beginning, otherwise, it's just not gonna happen.
The fifth thing I learned was that you can buy pretty much anything
secondhand or vintage or at a deal. Honestly, until I was in my 20s,
pretty much everything I bought was either on sale at a store, it was a
hand-me-down from someone, or it was a vintage item. Even though I got certain
outfit elements that were quite a bit bolder and not the foundational wardrobe
pieces, including the shirt I'm wearing here right now, I still have a lot of the
items from the period that I still wear today because they have a certain
timeless character to it that allows me to
wear them now but also ten years from now. At the time, I always focused on great
value, finding handmade garments that no one
else knew because they didn't have a certain brand name but they fit me
somewhat and just made me feel good. Even though I was relatively poor, I always
felt I could buy stuff on eBay and since it was so inexpensive, I could justify it
but if I take a step back now, I can see that I spend a lot of money on a lot of
stuff, none of which was a foundational wardrobe piece and because of that, I had
to end up giving a lot of it away and selling it and basically, it was almost
like an addiction where I spent a little money on a hat on eBay trying to convince
myself that I got all those good deals when in reality, it was just spending the
money that I probably could have saved up and gotten something that I really
really wanted instead. The sixth thing I learned was that being poor takes a lot
of time. If you just always have to think about how you pay for your groceries and
for your rent and for any kind of other expense, your mental capacity is
just focused on that and your brain is just spinning and trying to understand
where you can find something else. Also, if you think about it, if you don't hire
anyone, you do your own laundry, your own cleaning, your own grocery shopping,
your own cooking, and all those things, yes, you do it yourself
but that doesn't allow you to spend time with your friends or with your family.
Also, constantly looking for discounts and deals, including for gas and figuring out
where you can save five cents more but then it means you actually waste 20
minutes of your lifetime plus the gas to get there, it's just all that stuff
that takes a lot of time that ultimately is not really worth it to me, looking at
it from viewpoint today. Honestly, it pays to stay in a budget but understanding that
your time is valuable and that you can use your time to work and make money
rather than just looking for discounts is a very powerful concept that took me
a while to understand and grasp. The seventh thing I learned was that being poor can
actually make you quite adaptive and creative when it comes to problem
solving. When my car breaks now, it's easy!
I just go to the dealership and have them fix it. If that isn't an option, maybe you have to borrow with
someone so you can help them out and they help you out or you go to youtube
and figure out how to fix it yourself. Trying to overcome an obstacle when you
don't have the money to fix it is a really valuable lesson that even helps
me a lot now that I'm a lot more comfortable financially. Last but not
least, the eighth thing I learned when I was broke was that you can still treat
yourself if you do so responsibly. What do I mean by that? Well, I remember back in 2008,
I was still going back and forth from Germany to meet Teresa and she had
found this new place that was bigger, it was nicer but it also cost at least $400
more a month. I felt it was a financial stretch and I was able to convince her
that we would just stay in a place where she was before, keeping our expenses low
and just spending time with each other instead. Now, six months later, she lost
her job and we were both extremely happy that she didn't take on this additional
financial burden of a lease that would maybe have led to a bankruptcy, who knows?
We ended up staying in that small apartment until 2012 and at that point,
we were financially secure enough that we could afford to move out into a
larger space but we really had much more financial depth to even deal with
emergencies which in the other case, we would have never had. So how do you treat
yourself when you're broke? Well, you buy little things and things that don't have
a high cost or a long-term monthly recurring cost. You can go out maybe with
someone at a restaurant that's not super fancy but it's small and the gesture
counts and you can still very much enjoy it
or maybe you buy yourself a jacket that you've always wanted and that you need
because it's so cold outside but honestly always ask yourself is it
something I really need or is it something I just want and if you need
something every once in a while to keep going it's okay. Just stay away from
these long term contracts and don't put it in your credit card and accrue that super
high interest because it'll cost you a lot more. in today's outfit I
wear quite a few vintage pieces I wear a vintage tweed coat it's part of
a suit that I bought for around 50 bucks my tie comes from an Estate Sale it costs me
about a buck the shirt is vintage from my times as a student even though it's from
Siniscalchi I got it just for a few bucks the new thing is my pocket square
which is navy blue it picks up the tone of the tie and is a little bit more
muted than the strong striped shirt it's from Fort Belvedere and it's in
silk wool and you can find it in our shop here my chinos are from Ralph
Lauren they are quite old they're a wardrobe staple the socks I have are blue and
gray blue striped they're visually interesting but pick up the color of the
pants and provide a good transition to my Brown quarter brogue oxford shoes
last but not least I'm wearing some for Fort Belvedere cufflinks in malachite and
silver which you can find in the shop but I could also picked one of my older
cufflinks that have bought for five bucks at a flea market