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Exploring the dam, expectations, and gamifying money

Welcome to the Intentional Dollar weekly newsletter — great work taking this small step to move your money forward. I’m Logan, a Certified Financial Planner™, and I’m excited you’re here!

What’s inside?

• One tool to experiment with

• Two quotes from others

• Three questions to dig deeper

• Four lines of poetry for the point

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.

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_{One tool to experiment with:}

The Dam:

Dams are built to control the flow of water. They are placed in a strategic area as a blockade against the wet force that flows. To control the flow of water is to build strategic cities and harness hydroelectric power.

And it’s true that sometimes we must build dams in our financial lives. The water’s going to flow — so what are we going to do about it?

In general, our money will flow where our desires will go. But these desires can become so entrenched that no amount of disciplined redirection (willpower) will change the flows. We need something more substantial. We need a dam.

Let’s think of dams as simple restriction devices. Don’t fret because it’s not bad to have these restriction devices in place. We don’t drive to Las Vegas, look over the massive Hoover dam and mock it, we marvel at it. The massive structure was intentionally built to gain control over a powerful river.

You might think money should be easier to control — that it shouldn’t require a massive structure to avoid spending on something trivial. Maybe, but dams are effective. Why not go full force and ensure you stop the suboptimal flows.

Money dams can be as large or small as required for absolute effectiveness, you be the judge.

While our money rivers travel in different geographic regions, there are some common dams that will serve as a launch point:

• If credit cards get you in trouble, cut them up. Build a dam against their use.

• If a small dam like a budget works, build it. But if water breaks through you’ll have to do something more. This could be a reverse budget — save for your targets first and then you’ll force yourself to spend less on other areas. Or maybe this is the envelope method, once the cash is gone, your spending is done.

• Butterfly net 

• Have an accountability partner — someone that enforces preset consequences, should you exceed a limit. Friend, spouse, etc.

• If you spend cash recklessly, avoid carrying cash (me)

• If you often fall into “deals” unsubscribe from shopping emails that induce purchases

Your cash outflows are the rivers, and these rivers are the starting points for construction of your money dams. If you have no inflows (water) that’s another problem (I’m sending hope that rain is on its way). Our objective is to identify the rivers that seem to flow out of control. Then, to select this site for the dam. We are not looking for the largest cash outflows, but the outflows that give us frequent problems, the ones that keep flooding our cities.

This dam question is a fundamental one. It’s about building constraints and governors, to serve as protection against our own biases, impulses, and predilections; the things that wreck our money.

Through this careful construction, we make it difficult to spend the money — this is the precise point. We want friction. The kind of friction that snaps us out of our desire to acquire.

For some reason, one that I try to reconcile often, I cannot seem to hold onto cash. It’s slippery. It just disappears when I get it. In my mental-accounting-mind, it’s like a treat. Free money. A treat that allows me to go spend on any category I want — with no consideration of the impact. I’m sure you can see how this could be one very large problem for me. I see that too, but it’s not. And that’s because I’ve built a dam. I’ve made it a point to not carry cash. To prevent, limit, govern, control, mitigate — whatever term you want — my behavior.

It’s hard to wrestle an impulse stronger than your current willpower levels. But it’s easy to avoid, or set the conditions so you don’t face the impulse. It’s like knowing a bully lives on a street you walk home from school. Instead of walking down this street, go a different way. You have options.

This friction creating, or dam building, is an effective tool. Struggle with time on social media? Delete social media. The hurdle of downloading and signing in again is just enough to keep you on the task you’re supposed to be on. Dams do their jobs.

You are the architect of your life, so go build the dam so you don’t drown in the river of consumption.

_{Two quotes on expectations:}

High expectations for yourself, low expectations for others.

_{Three questions on gamifying money:}

1. How might I gamify my savings?

2. What if boring money practices are the things that keep me gated from doing well with money?

3. Why is money often boring and bland?

Which question stuck with you? Questions like these are spotlights for the mind. Reply to this email and let me know which one shined light on a previously dark cave.

_{Four lines of poetry for the point:}

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Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.