Broke but happy

We’ve been talking about money, money, money and how we must make more and lose less. Why we should dig deep to know our money personality. Use that to create a strategy for saving more and saving smart. Count our change and use them. How we must agonize over how to grow our nest egg well enough to fund kids’ education and retirement.

I don’t know why but sometimes, being broke and happy sounds like a mystical, deserted, paradise beach where the wind and waves can sound as sweet as Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

Pinoy Penman, who confessed to an addiction to eBay, says he is broke but happy.

It used to be that you bought big-ticket items like refrigerators the time-honored way, first by window-shopping (a kind of visual foreplay), then by canvassing prices, and then by saving up for long, arduous months before marching into the appliance center and plunking down cold cash with a triumphant sigh. There was no such thing as FedEx; you dragged the behemoth home in the back of a rented jeep, and slaughtered a pig or some other four-legged animal to celebrate the purchase of a lifetime.

Today it’s all too quick and too easy. With eBay and PayPal, the world is your mall, and you can let your fingertips do the malling as you hop from “Computer Accessories” to “Vintage Watches” and “Japanese Erotica” (I’m talking theoretically, boys).

But am I complaining? Heck, no! I’m convinced they invented the Internet to mate me with my $1,799 MacBook Air, bought online on credit. Ten years of practice on eBay either taught me everything, or taught me nothing. I’m broke, but I’m happy. How do you explain that?

How indeed?

I think being broke but happy is an art. I find that those who profess to be broke but happy are most likely people who have automated regular savings, have little or no consumer debt, own properties somewhere, and extract happiness from every little thing they do or buy. They may not have oodles of cash, but they know they are not in want and they are pretty secure about their skills and their occupations. When push comes to shove, they have assets they can dispose. But they do enjoy the moment, live life to the fullest and never argue about money with their spouses.

Being broke but happy is not possible for people who have been irresponsibly spending for years without guilt and are lazy to boot. It is different from being broke and just that, totally broke, with no means for escape.

It sounds like a sweet spot to be in. But I know many of you would rather be rich and happy! Here’s hoping nobody slides to the other end of the spectrum –- being rich and miserable.

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