درسنامه اصلی

Zero Waste – Coaching Lesson

Hi, I’m AJ and welcome to this month’s coaching lesson. Now this month in both this lesson and the other lesson you get this month, I’m talking a lot about financial freedom. It’s very important. One reason I think it’s so important and why I’m talking about it now is I think there’s a lot of risk now and coming in the world financially. I think a lot of changes are happening with technology.

I think the financial system is very risky right now. So I want you to be safe financially with your money. And it’s important to think about this and plan for this and be ready for this so that you have, y’know, financial freedom certainly but also just financial security, financial safety. Because whether we like it or not, our world economy runs on money so we need to be good enough so that, y’know, we and our families are safe financially.

So zero waste, I’m going to talk about how we can use this idea of zero waste in our personal finances, our personal money. And when you do this, you will have much less financial stress. You won’t need to worry so much about if something bad is going to happen in the world or if you’re going to lose your job or all these kind of things.

So, y’know, money is one of the biggest sources of stress for most people, right? I mean people just worry, worry, worry so much about money, they’re stressed about money. It causes so much pressure. It can cause a lot of problems with marriages and relationships. So achieving financial, not even freedom, just financial safety is very important and will improve your life so much. It will just be so much more relaxed and stress-free and that’s important.

Alright, let me start with a story from my own life. When I was younger, in fact, I’d say most of my 20s, okay, during my 20s, after I graduated from undergraduate university, so the first four years, all through, all in my 20s and my early 30s even, I was under, we say under…under stress. I was under a lot of financial stress. In other words, I was stressed constantly about money. I had very low income.

And I was always just, ah, I was so stressed out. I was in debt. It means I owed money for credit cards and things. And it was just constantly a source of stress. Money, money, money, always, always, always worrying about money. In addition to that, I wanted to do things in my life. I wanted to travel, for example. And it was always very stressful to figure out how can I travel? I need money. So super stressful.

Finally, I started to look at my life and my finances to figure out like, y’know, how can I solve this problem? How can I reduce this financial stress? And the first thing I noticed was how wasteful my spending was. Okay, yeah, my income was low. And I always used to focus on that. Oh, if I had more money, everything would be fine. If I could only make more money, it would be better.

I was working as a security guard for a long time, part-time. So little money. But then eventually I did go back to school and I got a better job as a social worker, not making a lot of money certainly, but much, much better. It was enough to live on. And yet, I was still financially stressed out. Because as I made more money, I started spending more, and still wasting money.

And I thought, oh well, if I just make even more, then I’ll be happy. Then I’ll be stress-free. But, of course, that’s not how it works. That’s not true. And this is what most people do. They just focus too much on making more, making more, making more. And they don’t look at the other side, which is how wasteful their spending is. Your spending is probably wasteful. We all have waste in our finances.

And so what I finally did, the thing that made a huge difference in my life and reduced my financial stress tremendously, immediately, before Effortless English, before I started making a lot of money, was to change my focus. Stop looking so much about how much I was making and instead focus on my expenses or expenditures. An expenditure is something you spend money on, right?

It means, if your rent is an expenditure, right? Your rent is an expenditure. It’s an expense. It’s something you spend money on. So I started looking at my expenditures and looking and asking myself the question, is this a waste of money? Where am I wasting money? And I found out, wow, I was actually wasting a lot of money. I was spending a lot of money on things that were not necessary.

And quite honestly, on things that really didn’t improve my life much. And so I made a decision. I’m going to cut waste. I’m going to eliminate all the waste in my spending. I’m going to cut wasteful expenditures. And then I also developed what I call an investment mindset, an investment mindset. So I’m going to make radical cuts to my expenses, radically cut the waste. Radically means very, very, very, very strongly, powerfully, extremely.

So I’m going to make extreme cuts to waste, wasteful spending. But I’m also going to change my mindset and look at spending as an investment. Alright, if you spend money then the money just goes out and nothing comes back. It’s just the money goes out, out, out. That’s how a lot of us think about spending money. We spend money and it just leaves, bye-bye.

But if you invest, well then you spend money to buy something or get something but that thing then brings something back to you. The classic example, the normal example, is let’s say you buy a stock, right?

You buy a stock in a company. So you spend the money to buy the stock but each month, or each quarter, that stock pays a dividend, so it pays you back money every three months. So you’re buying something but it’s not just gone forever. It’s not just spending and it’s gone.

You’re buying something but it goes out, the money goes out, but then money starts coming back in, too. That’s an investment. Something comes back in. You can make financial investments where you buy something and it brings back money, but you can also, education is an investment. You spend money on education but then you get benefits, things come back to you, knowledge, experience, better jobs. Lots of benefits come back to you. It’s an investment. So an investment mindset, very important.

So I want you to start thinking of your expenditures, the things you spend money on, as investments and focus on zero waste. Let’s talk about some examples. Number one, food. Food’s a big one. I noticed this when I was younger. I was spending money on junk food, on food that was not giving me anything back, wasteful spending.

So if I buy a candy…if you buy a candy bar, for example, that’s just waste. You’re wasting that money. Okay, so you’re buying it. It tastes good. I guess that’s a small benefit that you get. But the truth is it actually hurts your health. It’s actually taking away health. You’re not getting anything beneficial, anything good from that candy bar. So you’re totally wasting the money and getting nothing back, nothing positive back.

However, if you buy, let’s say you buy a fresh vegetable juice and you drink that. Okay, you’re still spending the money, but you are getting something back. That is improving your health. That might…that’s giving you more energy. It’s giving you vitamins. It’s giving you minerals. It will help you to avoid getting sick. It’ll help you to feel stronger. So it’s an investment, right?

You can think of all your food spending in this way. Every time you buy food, any kind of food, you can ask yourself, okay, am I wasting this money buying this food, or is this an investment? In other words, is this food giving me health or energy, right? Is it giving me a health benefit or is it not. If it’s not, you’re wasting your money. It’s a total waste. It’s waste. If it is, then it’s an investment.

Housing, same thing. Wherever you live, an apartment or a house. You only should spend to rent or buy something that is necessary, necessary for your needs or the needs of your family, right? To give you…keep you warm in the winter, cool in the summer, give you shelter from rain and keep you safe and secure from bad people and all of that.

So you can again look at your housing, where you live. Is it wasteful? Do you have like extra space in your house or in your apartment that you don’t really need? Are you spending money on something bigger than you actually need? That’s waste. That’s money that’s just going out and nothing’s coming back. You’re not getting any benefit from it.

Clothing, lots of people waste a lot of money on clothing. This has never been a problem for me but I know for a lot of people they like to have fashionable clothes. They’re constantly buying new clothes all the time. Again, what do you actually need for clothing? Well, for like say a work environment, you need to look professional so yeah, buy a few outfits that look professional, but you can do that simply.

At home, you just need it to be comfortable, comfortable and durable. I would say buy durable clothes. Durable clothes are clothes that are tough. They last for a long time. Now my wife always laughs at me because I have this one warm shirt, this kind of undershirt for the winter. It’s a thermal shirt. Thermal means warmth or heat. And I think I’ve had it for 20 years, okay? I’ve had it for 20 years.

The sleeves are all kind of like, y’know, rough and there’s little pieces of string coming off of it. But it still works. It’s still warm. It’s still super comfortable. It’s 20 years old. That’s the kind of clothes that are useful and durable. They last a long time. So are you wasting money on clothes just for fashion? Are you constantly buying new stuff and then two years later it’s not fashionable anymore and then you have to buy more and more and more.

Are you wasting a lot of money on clothing? Look at your expenditures. Have an investment mindset even with clothing. I’m investing in this piece of clothing so it’s going to last a long time. It’s going to give me warmth and comfort or it’s going to help me look professional in my job, but I’m going to be able to use it and wear it for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.

Education is a great investment, one of the best. Now, however, I will say that the best education investment is independent education, self-education. Because nowadays universities, for example, if you’re going to go to a school, you are wasting so much money. Oh my god. I personally wasted tens of thousands of dollars doing university degrees and courses.

When I look at them and I’m honest, I realize 95, perhaps 98% of the courses were wasteful bullshit, meaning just not useful, nonsense. That’s what universities have become unfortunately. Maybe some of the hard sciences and engineering programs are a bit different but in the humanities, it’s a disaster. That’s massive waste.

You can learn all of that by yourself, buying cheap eBooks and inexpensive online courses. I mean, you’re in the VIP program. You’re in the ACC program. It’s so cheap compared to going to a university and going into their English program. So self-education is so much more efficient. It’s a great investment. Not only for English but for anything, almost anything.

So this month your task is to cut waste from your expenditures. You want to look at all aspects of your life. Cut the waste. Cut the waste. I have done previous VIP and ACC lessons similar to this topic, about simplicity, about cutting waste, about keeping your expenses low. Why? Because it’s so important. It’s such a source of massive stress and unhappiness for people.

I see it every day, all around me. Even people online who contact me on Twitter. Money and finances such a source of stress. And so much of that is caused by wasteful, wasteful, wasteful spending. We think, oh no, I’m not wasteful, but if you really look at it, you’re being wasteful. So I want you to cut all waste this month from your spending and have an investment mindset.

So every time you’re going to spend any amount of money, even some small change, right? I want you to ask, number one, is this an investment? Is this an investment? What benefit, the second question, what benefit does this expenditure bring me? What benefit do I get from this? If I spend this money, what do I get back. Ask yourself that and think about it for every single one, even really tiny expenditures.

If you don’t get a good answer, if you can’t think of a really good benefit, don’t spend the money. Cut that expense. If you think of a very strong benefit, then fine, it’s an investment, go ahead and spend that money. Tell me on Twitter. My Twitter is ajhoge. My Gab account, gab.ai, is also ajhoge. Tell me on Gab, tell me on Twitter your experience this month cutting waste. I want zero financial waste in your life. You will do it.

Alright, see you next time. Bye for now.