One of my favorite quotes about investing and money comes from one of the most instantly recognizable faces on Wall Street, the Oracle of Omaha himself, Mr. Warren Buffett: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” It’s a great quote because it’s a great piece of advice, and of course because it comes from someone who has had ridiculous amounts of financial success (and that’s putting it a little lightly).
Buffett and all his words of wisdom have inspired countless numbers of people who seek just a fraction of the good fortune he’s had in his long business and investing career, and I believe he makes an appropriate role model for anyone looking to build wealth. There is his immense success to look up to, obviously, but in my mind the fact that he is a philanthropist and a proponent of living frugally might be even more important.
But the thing about Mr. Buffett is that he’s very.. mainstream, you know? Maybe it’s time for a fresh perspective, a new financial hero we can emulate, whose great money habits we can adopt as our own. And wouldn’t it be great if we could discover this new finance guru before anyone else?
Turns out, we’re in luck, because I’ve found the very thing we need to get us through as we continue our struggles with a weak economy and the rising cost of living, and it’s coming at us in plaid: hipsters.
That’s no joke. I firmly believe hipsters should be our new financial role models. Ready to find out why?
Wait, What’s a Hipster?
For the sake of clarity, let’s quickly define the term. A hipster is someone in their twenties or thirties – in other words, of the millennial generation – who embraces independent thinking, most everything progressive, and all things creative and different. Hipsters are a proud subculture who thoroughly enjoy going against the grain and tend to shun all things mainstream.
Now that we’ve settled that, let’s move on to why hipsters are your new financial role models.
They Don’t Buy into What’s Popular
Forget YOLO and mainstream consumer culture. Hipsters forge their own independent paths and they don’t care what anybody thinks about it. They’re not concerned with trying to fit in they don’t cave under societal pressures. Hipsters are too busy doing their own thing and creating the life they want to lead to be worried about what other people might say about their eccentric and alternative lifestyles.
Apply this rejection of all things popular into your financial life. Forget about keeping up with the Joneses’ and focus instead on eliminating debt or saving more for the early retirement of your dreams. People will tell you that you need to splurge today because tomorrow isn’t promised (no, it’s not, but I’d like to think I have many tomorrows to plan for), or they’ll question why you’re working so hard towards financial independence when you could just go get another credit card. Don’t get distracted by sheeple who say you have to do things a certain way because society expects you to. Instead, tune them out with your favorite indie rock record and keep doing you. As they say, haters gonna hate – so ignore the people who will try to bring you down and do what you need to ensure your financial life is on track.
They Enjoy Frugal Activities
Hipsters have mastered the art of free or frugal entertainment. They enjoy literature and can pass many a quiet evening reading a new book. Many fancy themselves as writers, and spend hours jotting down notes and thoughts in their well-worn Moleskines – or they’ll pull out their Macbooks and spend the afternoon typing up a new blog post for their site (find them at Zen and the Art of Fixie Maintenance, or I Heard It First: Bands I Can No Longer Love Because Someone Else Heard Their Songs). Additionally, many hipsters are wildly creative and engage in drawing, painting, or making other types of art. Of course, you can always find a congregation of hipsters at your local independent coffee shop where they can stretch a $3 Americano into five hours of spirited debate amongst friends as to who has the best lumberjack beard.
Cut down on your discretionary expenses by finding your own frugal (or even free) activities and hobbies. In addition to reading, writing, or crafting, you can participate in a local rec league for your preferred sport, go for walks and hikes, start running or biking, or spend some time volunteering for your favorite local charity. You can even look into monetizing your frugal hobby so that you’re not only saving money, but you’re increasing your income, too! If you make art or crafts, sell them on Etsy, and if you love to write or take pictures, start up a blog and build your audience so you can eventually monetize your site.
They Know How to Save on Their Purchases
According to hipsters, what is old is new again! They are masters of reuse, and often, the more vintage something is, the better. Thrift stores are treasure troves of great stuff for the hipster wardrobe and home. They save serious money by thrifting all kinds of items over buying new (and when Goodwill fails, there’s always Craigslist).
Hipsters also know how to save on nights out. Forget fancy wines and expensive liquors – hipsters are perfectly happy with a few cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Of course, they still appreciate a good craft brew (beer is the new wine, after all), but those can be saved for the outings where they go straight to the brewery and get a great deal on drinks and some entertainment all in one.
Of course, they also know it’s not all about the savings. Hipsters could teach us a thing or two about boosting our incomes. Many work night shifts as coffeehouses or as bartenders, and some others put their out-of-this-world musical tastes to work by DJing at events and parties.
They Know How to Adapt and to Survive
Obviously, this post has been slightly tongue-in-cheek. It was meant to be entertaining, though it certainly does contain some great reasons why picking up some habits usually associated with hipsters would be a good thing for your budget and your bank account. But I would like to end on a serious note, and perhaps the most important reason you might start looking at a hipster as your new financial role model.
As I explained when defining what a hipster is, most are members of the millennial generation. They, and all of us other millennials, came of age in a financially difficult period. Some of us graduated just as the stock market tanked in 2008 and have been unemployed or under-employed ever since. Others have become “boomerang kids,” young adults who, in the past, would have made it out in the wide world on their own with nothing more than their entry-level salaries, but because of new economic realities that include crushing loads of debt and extremely low starting wages, are forced to move back home with Mom and Dad.
Because of this, hipsters, and most other millennials, have had to scramble avoid poverty and to be included in a shrinking middle class. They’ve had to adapt and change in order to make a good living. They’ve done this by picking up second jobs, establishing side hustles in their spare time to bring in more income, making aggressive plans to pay off student loan debt, learning that there are more important things in life than keeping up with the Joneses, and by making frugality a popular concept again. They know today’s economic stability can be wiped out in a heartbeat tomorrow – they saw it get swept right out from under them while they were still trying to gain their financial footing as adults – so they understand the importance of striving toward financial independence.
Hipsters can teach us valid lessons that will help improve our finances. They show us that thrift stores are a perfectly acceptable place to find clothes and that we don’t have to buy into mass consumer culture just because everyone else is doing it. But more importantly, they can teach us how to rely on ourselves and to find creative, innovative solutions to our money problems. They can teach us to be financial survivors.
Have you found solid financial lessons in the least expected of places? Do you have an unconventional money hero or financial role model? Let me know in the comments!
Photo Credit: Steven Depolo on Flickr
