Is Sugar Keeping You Broke?

A guy with a $100,000 dollars is really just a guy, assuming zero growth, who didn’t spend $100,000.  Living a healthy lifestyle is just as important to living below my means, and in my opinion a healthy lifestyle will help you cut down on unnecessary snacking and prevent costly medical issues. Which begs the question, how exactly does eating sugar keep you broke?

Sugar by Lauri Andler (Phantom)
Reproduced under Creative Commons 3.0

My personal diet consists of very little carbohydrates (which is converted to glucose) and virtually no sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup.  Eating in this manner keeps me from getting the hunger pains associated with going a long time between meals.  In the morning I usually skip breakfast or, if I’m feeling hungry, I’ll have an egg with some bacon.  For lunch I typically have a salad with leftover meat from last night’s dinner and some days I’ll skip lunch altogether.   How can I skip breakfast or lunch without thinking about my stomach or spending $3 to $4 dollars on snacks between lunch and dinner?  It is because my body is fat adapted, instead of burning sugar for energy my body is able to easily access a substantial amount of stored energy, fat.

Typically, most people get hunger pains between meals and instinctively reach for a snack.  If no food is around and you are nowhere near a grocery store you are looking at spending at least a few dollars at the nearest vending machine.  $2.00 a day on snacks five times a week is $10.00.  It may not seem like a lot of money but the power of compounding will prove to you otherwise.  $40 a month can grow to a sizable sum over time. 

The problem we face here is essentially the future value of an annuity.  How does it work?

If you were to invest your monthly snacking savings of $40.00, growing at .66% (8% / 12 months) for 60 periods (12 months * 5 years), you would have $2,939 by the fifth year, only $97,060 to go to reach our coveted goal of $100,000.  You saved $2,400 in principal but have $2,939, amazing, the opportunity cost of snacking is $539 over a five year period.  Not much you say?  Over ten years the opportunity cost of snacking is a whopping $2,485, over twenty years it is $13,727.  By the twentieth year you would have $23,327 versus $9,600 in principle saved, trust me when I say that that hand full of vending machine Cheez-Its for $2.00 isn't worth it.

In case you’re wondering, I chose to live a primal lifestyle a few years ago and have never looked back.  Many of the principles of primal living are in direct contradiction with traditionally accepted dietary advice, and I am fine with that, because the financial lifestyle of living below my mean goes against the traditionally accepted consumerist ideal of instant gratification, yea I'm rebellious in nature (as long as the rebellious activity has some basis in fact).  If you are here reading this post you probably know that the root cause of the financial problems most households have, even our own country, is due to spending more than you make, consumerism at its finest.

Living a primal lifestyle has helped me save money by; getting rid of a two year struggle with chronic hemorrhoids - and its associated medical costs - in one month, cutting down on snacking binges and even helping me to quit smoking.  Full disclosure, I’m no doctor so don’t take what I’m saying as medical advice.  I do encourage you to check out a community of like minded primal individuals who know more about the primal life than I do, from there you can decide if the lifestyle will or won’t work for yourself.  Just be sure to consult with your doctor or physician before making any drastic changes to your dietary habits.

Health, happiness and wealth, in any other order happiness would never be possible.

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Living Primal @ Mark's Daily Apple