An interesting realization was that “saving money” and “reducing waste” are often competing optimums. I live in the developing world where there people waste a lifetime sitting at home doing nothing to save money. I am one of two or three people in my neighborhood with a job – the rest “save tons more money than I do” but don’t have jobs so their real income after inflation is negative.

Anyway, I figure out what my time is worth (based on what I estimate I could earn by grabbing extra contract work). Then I don’t spend my time saving money unless it saves something at least comparable to my hourly rate, or it’s in a context where working would be impossible, or there’s a nontangible element (e.g. repairing a thing I like a lot).

I prioritize not wasting my time first (it’s the only resource I can’t buy more of), and spend most of my spare effort finding ways to make more money (I regularly cram-study 2-3 hours per day for this purpose, usually tech). Then with the extra money I make, I can save 80% of my income on a good month.

When I started this habit, I made about 135 USD per month and had zero savings. Even if I saved 100% of my earnings, it still amounts to essentially nothing – so it became obvious that the best way to save more money, was to earn more money. When I had a little money, I didn’t put it in the bank – I invested it in myself by buying tools to learn more things and provide more services to accelerate my gains.

Anyway it’s not the right advice for everyone, I’m just another fool like the rest of us, but I hope it’s maybe useful to someone out there.