Welcome to a new week and a new theme here on the One Minute Retirement Tip! 

This week I’m talking about materialism and why it might be wrecking your retirement. I’ll be talking about the deeper issues behind our materialism, specific signs to look out for in your own patterns and behavior that indicate your own materialism may be destructive, and how to overcome materialism. 

Today, I want to lay the groundwork by discussing what materialism is and why it’s a problem. Materialism has many different definitions, but here’s how I’m defining it this week for our purposes: 

Materialism is the pursuit of pleasure, comfort, and wealth as the highest goals. Materialism places money and monetary success above all else. Materialists are overly concerned with this pursuit of monetary success and wealth to the detriment of their relationships with each other - family, friends, neighbors, as well as one’s relationship with God. If money or financial wealth is your God, then you are most definitely a materialist. 

The problem with materialism is that many of us blindly pursue more and more, with the expectation that doing so will make us happy. A higher salary, a bigger house, a nicer car, and a first class plane ticket with bring contentment. 

The taste of these things in our lives do bring pleasure, but the pleasure wanes quickly. As soon as the flight in first class is over, or after about a month driving that new car, we’re right back where we started. 

As Steve Taylor wrote in his article in a Psychology Today article about materialism: “The sense of ego-inflation generated by wealth or expensive possessions can be more enduring, but it's very fragile too. It depends on comparing yourself to other people who aren't as well off as you, and evaporates if you compare yourself to someone who is wealthier than you. And no matter how much we try to complete or bolster our ego, our inner discontent and incompleteness always re-emerges, generating new desires. No matter how much we get, it's never enough.”

I think that sums it up pretty good right there. So we just continue in the rat race, all the while spending money on things that don’t bring happiness and backfire by getting in the way of what really matters in life or what truly does have the potential to fill that hole in our hearts.

That’s it for today, thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

----------

>>> Subscribe on iTunes: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Check out our blog: https://truenorthretirementadvisors.com/blog/

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast, materialism, disadvantages of being materialistic, causes of materialism, materialism in society, how to beat materialism, materialistic