Buying VS. Renting (The Answer May Surprise You) (#34) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 34
Dustin Serviss examines the idea that you do not have to own something to enjoy it. Using equipment for his acreage as an example, he explores buying, renting and the costs that come with ownership.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:23] Enjoyment without ownership
[00:01:39] The real cost of owning equipment
[00:02:56] Focus on the experience you want
[00:04:08] Renting a trailer for family trips
[00:05:14] Borrowing books and audiobooks
[00:06:22] Learning without buying every book
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Transcript
[00:00:01] Show announcer: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth, a podcast all about living more of your life now yet being responsible for your future. Lifestyle experimenter, wealth scientist, and financial coach, Dustin Service, shares life hacks, wealth tips, and interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they're thriving in happiness, purpose, and prosperity.
[00:00:23] Dustin Serviss: You don't have to own it to enjoy it. This line I picked up in a recent podcast with entertainer and country singer and previous successful realtor, Danny Hooper. I recommend look it up in the episode show notes. It was a great, banter for an hour, and and I learned a lot. And and this summarizes something that's specific in in my life recently, and and many people's lives of buying things for the effort or for the intention of of feeling happy for owning them and using them, whatever that is, but also for the prestige of maybe saying that you own it. In my case, what we recently acquired an acreage and, you know, we're moving
[00:01:05] Dustin Serviss: here when I first moved in the first week, it was... I was gonna buy a a mini excavator and a skid steer and a wood chipper, you know, various other machine and implement things that that need... That I perceived to be needed a lot to accomplish the goals that we have on the property. Now, the reality is, a lot of those things can be rented. So, you know, the the debate of, well, you know, you rented this many times, it's gonna cost this much versus if I buy it and I get a good deal, which I could be patient and wait for a good deal, and then I sell it for maybe the same price or a little bit less.
[00:01:39] Dustin Serviss: And then, that difference between what I paid and the the lower amount that I sold it for, that's basically the rental cost. If you take ego out of the equation, and when I really am honest with myself, and and, you know, when I talk to my wife about that or other things in life, it it really... There's an ego piece that's involved there. There's a lifestyle piece. There's, you know, the ability to wanna talk about it and, you know, it becomes sort of who you are or who I thought, you know, this is who I wanna become. This is what I'm, you know, signal to people that, you know, oh, I I own an excavator, I own a bobcat.
[00:02:15] Dustin Serviss: Now, being on the property for eight or nine months and working on numerous projects around the place and renting, I can say that no one gives a shit about the stuff you have. They all have their own battles that they're fighting, and in all reality, what you're seeking in the happiness I'm seeking in in in my situation and what I see in clients is the happiness of the use of whatever you accomplish. So if you've, you know, built a a camp site kinda area. Well, it isn't so much the camp site that I'm trying to showcase, it's enjoying the time with the friends, sitting around the fire, having my own
[00:02:56] Dustin Serviss: trailer, sitting there, so that if people come and stay with us, they've got an alternative, you know, more rustic kinda setting to to sleep in. That is the enjoyment and the happiness. It isn't the fact that I wanna say I own an excavator or I own a bobcat, which built that, you know, area, because I rented those for a couple hundred dollars a day, and then someone picks it up, someone puts gas in it. It's a much more efficient thing. So, the podcast today, you know, I'm circling back to you don't have to own it to enjoy it, and many of those things require big outlays of cash. And and big outlays, we don't have to talk about machinery.
[00:03:35] Dustin Serviss: You could talk about just even small things that aren't used. A classic back when I was in my twenties was, you know, there was a friend group and I... You know, it was sport bikes, and then it was Harley's. And and a lot of guys, you know, didn't or or women didn't put any kilometers on their bikes, but it was... They said they had it, and that was kind of, a prestigious signaling. Well, if you're only gonna go on a ride, if you really love riding, but you can only do it two or three times, then you could rent. I've got a lot of friends who, out in the Shuswap area where we live, you know, cottage kind of camping country, they rent trailers.
[00:04:08] Dustin Serviss: And, again, sometimes these trailers are what I would perceive to be a little bit more expensive to rent, but they're... They roll up with their family, with their food. The company, you know, pulls the trailer to the campsite that they wanna go to. They tell him where... What spot. They set up all the campsite right to setting up the the stove and the, you know, propane fire pit, if that's... If the fire band's on. And that might be two hundred dollars a night to rent that, but you don't have to have a truck. You don't have to have all the stuff that goes along with it. You don't have to have insurance.
[00:04:40] Dustin Serviss: You don't have to worry that, you know, through the winter last year, our trailer, you know, took on a bit of a leak and I had to fix it. You know, that required two days of labor because it, you know, got wet. So, you know, just things like that that this is the world we live in. You know, the world that I remember is sort of my parents is like, you own things and, you know, it was it was signaling and and, you know, spotlighting on, you know, this is how wealthy we are and this is the stuff we have. But the reality is, if you use your toys and you own expensive things, that's one thing. The worst money mindset situation is owning expensive
[00:05:14] Dustin Serviss: toys to signal and showcase who you are, and then not using them. Because you can still get a lot of that enjoyment out of it by renting it. The other thing that's new is renting books. This is something that that we've done and and we don't have to rent them. A lot of public libraries, so, in... We're in the Okanagan region, you can get an app called Overdrive that you can plug in your, you know, the the region that you're in and you get access to the public library. So I remember going to the public library when I was younger, you know, school tours, all that stuff, great resource. I haven't been into the library in many years.
[00:05:51] Dustin Serviss: But now, all of a sudden, they have audio books that you can take out like the olden times and you, you know, show them your card and, you know, but it's all digital. It's all on an app. You get to use an audio book for twenty one days and then you have to return the book and then it goes back in the queue. Some of the books are, you know, a lot of the books are great best sellers right now. Sometimes, you can't find them, but most of the time, you can find great books that you have to wait. You put yourself in the queue, but you sign up for, you know, five or six books. And every week or two, you've got a new book coming in and you're
[00:06:22] Dustin Serviss: able to listen to it. This is a great way to, again, achieve the result, which is the enjoyment of, you know, acquiring new information or new perspective or new insight, but then not having to pay Amazon or, you know, buy a book for thirty dollars. So again, money mindset, reducing your expenses or your bare ass minimum expenses to then have more money to focus on the goals that you have. So that the money... The extra money that you have is being intentionally spent on where your goals lie. We talked about different tools. So I talked about big tools. You can also rent tools from Home Depot. This is another thing, you know, great way.
[00:06:59] Dustin Serviss: You've got one project. You know how to accomplish the project, you know how to do it, you just don't have the tool. You can... I think, you can even go down there and rent a big crescent wrench, which it does... It's not a lot of money, but you don't have to outlay the seventy dollars to buy it, and then it just sits and you don't use it. You don't have to own it to enjoy it. I encourage you to look at that mindset, and look at that approach to the way you live, to make sure that you're utilizing your money in line with whatever goals and your value.
[00:07:33] Show announcer: If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend. If you found this episode super valuable, leave us a review on iTunes. It will help us continue to bring you top quality content. For more information on anything discussed on this show, visit w w w dot service wealth dot com. That's service spelled s e r v I s s. Any investment topics covered on the show are not investment recommendations, and you should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. This show was produced by Podgy podcast. Thanks for listening.