Levin: Spending, investing and your life's plan

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Mary Oliver asks in her poem, "The Summer Day." I certainly didn't ask myself that question as I was storming back to our vacation hotel after a missed subway stop and a cab ride to a closed restaurant. So here is where I went wrong:

• The closed restaurant in a remote area meant that we were not going to find lunch anytime soon.

• While the subway on a full stomach could be an exciting adventure, on an empty one it was actually penance for paying for the taxi to a failed destination.

• There is nothing that we like more than walking around strange cities when we plan to do the walking, not when we exit the underground miles from our intended end point.

It is easy to ask why we may not have taken a taxi from the subway station once we realized the error of our ways. The answer is elementary, my dear Watson — moi. I was unable to see clearly because my errors were compounding. I was stubbornly saving a few dollars because I had misguidedly already spent them. But the next $10 would get us comfortably to a meal so that we could enjoy the rest of the day. Nope.

After the late lunch, we were able to regroup and do what we wanted, so I didn't completely ruin the day, but I affected it. Why? I got stuck. My first mistake altered my experience enough so that I didn't enjoy the wildness of the day and instead I created an unstated set of rules that continued to get in my way.

Most of us do this all the time, but we don't really notice it. But by not paying attention to our reactions or rules, we end up making decisions that cause bigger issues than the initial one.

I admit that I negotiate with myself on how large a foundation I will create if I win the lottery. Weird.

So if Mary Oliver were your financial planner, how would you spend your money for your one wild and precious life? On vacation, I could either have spent the extra money for a cab ride so that we could enjoy more time where we wanted to be, or I could have treated the subway debacle as an adventure from which we would have stories to share. It isn't about whether I spend or don't spend, it's about how I am going to respond to the spending choice that is in front of me. I don't believe that Oliver would encourage spending wildly, but rather spending consciously.

Would I really want to be anxious about money for my one life? Money anxiety is about losing what we have — what we currently own or our images of our future. If we spent on fewer things that give us lasting enjoyment, would we be as anxious? If we spent for reasons of our own lives rather than the expectations of others, would we be anxious about money? Try a quick exercise. Make a list of some of the things that you want and then take some time to write about why you want them. What will they do for you and how long will the feelings last? If you don't have a good answer, don't buy it.

Or if your issue is that you don't spend because of being anxious about money, play worst-case scenario. Go through what would happen if your worst fears were actually realized, even though that is unlikely. And then ask yourself whether you want your future to look like your present.

Do you have a plan for how you are saving and investing? Is your plan dependent upon what your neighbor, co-worker, or magazine celebrity is doing? If not, then why are you affected by what they may be saying?

At their most basic level, investments have four ingredients (growth potential, safety, income, and tax advantages) and more of one means less of the others. How much you have in these categories is a function of your age, risk tolerance and needs.

This is your one wild and precious life. Live like you believe it.