The goal of values-based spending is to spend without guilt on what you love and build the right barriers to say no to what you don’t. It emphasizes finding what matters most to you, on a macro and micro level, and prioritizing spending on or saving for those things. And oftentimes the best way to learn what matters most is to first define the things that don’t matter.
When’s the last time you sat down and decided what you value? Never? You’re not alone. Figuring out what’s worth spending on isn’t like preferring mint chocolate chip to Grey Poupon ice cream. Defining what you value and don’t value is like lining up one hundred delicious ice cream flavors and having to choose your favorites. Every day. There will probably be thirty to forty flavors you like, but some days you can only choose four or five, and other days you’ll only be able to pick one, and the one you want most may not be in stock. And as time goes on, your favorites will change for no reason. Life isn’t a Baskin-Robbins, but practicing values-based spending will feel a lot like taste testing. In this book, we want to give you the space (and the spoon?) to try new things.
— Buy What You Love Without Going Broke by Jen Smith, Jill Sirianni (Page 8)
Reminds me of what @lucas@post.lurk.org and I have been talking about how constraints and boundaries can give us more freedom and abundance, not less, and how those things will likely be ever changing.