YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
WotD: Lifestyle creep
Definition of Lifestyle Creep
Lifestyle creep is a financial phenomenon in which people spend more as their income increases.
Lifestyle creep means that, instead of saving or investing extra money, people gradually increase their spending on dining out, bigger homes, or luxury items as they earn more money.
Over time, lifestyle creep can make it hard to save money, even for those who earn a very good salary.
Causes of Lifestyle Creep
Many people think that earning more will solve their financial problems.
However, lifestyle creep makes it difficult for anyone to make ends meet, no matter how much they earn.
As people attain raises or better jobs, their expectations and spending habits grow, often without them noticing.
This is lifestyle creep, where small upgrades become permanent expenses, leading them to live beyond their means.
The Dangers of Lifestyle Creep
Lifestyle creep is dangerous because it can prevent you from saving for important goals, such as buying a house or retiring comfortably.
People who experience lifestyle creep often feel stressed about money, even though their salaries are high.
Rising prices and changes in the workplace, especially as more companies adopt AI, can make lifestyle creep even riskier.
If you lose your job or face unexpected expenses, lifestyle creep can leave you unprepared.
How to Fight Lifestyle Creep
To avoid lifestyle creep, try to live a simpler life.
Focus on needs instead of wants, and save extra income whenever possible.
Track your spending and create a budget.
By being mindful of lifestyle creep, you can protect your financial future and adapt more easily to changes in the job market caused by AI and other new technologies.
Conclusion
I’ll leave you with a little anecdote from my childhood.
My father was a construction worker with five children and a homemaker wife.
He was always proud of whatever beat-up car or truck he was driving at the time because it was his vehicle, he had paid cash for it, and no one could take it away from him.
He would always point out guys with big cars or houses and say, “See that, he doesn’t own that; the bank owns that!”
Now, my father did not know it at the time; he probably never heard the term lifestyle creep, but he was pointing out, with his school-of-hard-knocks wisdom, people who were financially stretched thin by it.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 12 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 65.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.