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_{Exploring the dominoes, perception, and the cost of yes}

Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading Intentional Dollar — where we look at old money ideas through a new perspective.

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 Dominoes

Single decisions are like lead dominoes. Push the leader over and you have a cascading, rippling effect that lives beyond the initial push.

Rarely do you find a decision that lives without knock-on effects. And here, we’ll define knock-on effects as the events that occur after a decision.

Snoozing your alarm has knock-on effects for your entire day: You miss breakfast to rush for that early morning meeting. The lack of fuel drags your energy to the floor, which results in a bad presentation, etc.

Or, you buy the house which is one single decision point that dictates hundreds and hundreds of future decisions and commitments. It’s not just a decision to buy the house, it’s a decision to mow the grass each week, which means you need to buy a mower, and a gas tank. It’s a decision to buy furniture, repair breaks yourself, pay property tax, and write checks to the HOA. Buying a home is a decision that will continue to spawn new obligations and financial commitments for the duration of your ownership.

Perhaps this is intuitive. But for many of us, the excitement of the first decision clouds the judgment we need to think through the looming knock-ons.

It’s like our minds squish the future costs and responsibilities. We minimize them to negligible, no-big-deal problems, and it’s why we save for a down payment on a house, but forget about all the things that come post acquisition.

But there’s another side to this story.

Knock-on effects can be wildly positive.

The decision to save in your 401k creates future opportunities you can’t imagine; not only for you, but for your children and your children’s children. From one simple decision, you can launch a positive multi-generational legacy.

Same with building an emergency fund. It seems pointless to have cash sitting around, until you need it. Until the job is gone, the economy tips into a recession, the medial expense comes, or any other unforeseen event warrants the use of all that cash. Because it’s at that moment, your past decision to build a buffer pays you the benefits: you avoid the debt, the stress, the arguments, and the awful secondary knock-ons that each of those can generate.

Most decisions, though, produce both good/bad future outcomes. The good decisions we make end up intertwined in a marriage with additional cost. So by investing a little time and intentionally tracing the potential future outcomes, costs, and obligations, you can smooth the wrinkles. You can make better long-term decisions, through your own cost/benefit analysis.

Ask yourself these questions to get more color on the decision you’re considering:

• Am I prepared to invest the time to take care of this?

• What other items will I have to buy in support of this decision?

• How much time will this take up each day, week, month?

• What memories and value could this create beyond?

• What enjoyment, health, lifestyle will I be able to unlock because of this one decision?

_{Two quotes on the perception:}

The greater number of perspectives you can pull In, the more perception you will have. Five people will perceive the same events in five unique ways.

_{Three questions on the cost of yes:}

1. What’s the cost of these commitments I’m saying yes to?

2. What social pressure is pushing me to the yes?

3. Would I have less stress if I said yes less?

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:}

Contact Me:

Content ideas, questions? Reply to this email or reach out to me at [email protected]

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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