OmniTip #3: Bigger Crab Theory

This life pro tip was inspired by At One Point Captain Ly. He might still be a captain. I don't know. For all I know he could be a WalMart greeter or an ISIS agent now. Regardless of mishap careers, Ly has a really good outlook on life developed from and applied by video games. Yes, it's called Bigger Crab Theory.

COME AT ME BRO

As children (andmaybeasadults), we played a lot of video games. Mainly Japanese role-playing games. If you've never played one, the gist is that they have monsters to battle at every corner that look like they were designed in the same place where all the Hitachi toy designs were rejected.

                  I bet it's been done.







Anyway, the Bigger Crab Theory states that after fighting one of those fucked-up enemies that seemed a little too easy, a BIGGER fucked-up enemy is on his way to mop the floor with you. Which happens 90% of the time. Squash little crab, make BIG CRAB ANGRY.

As experience, wisdom, and common sense developed in the latter half of our adolescence, Ly applied the theory of big crabs mopping the floor with us to real life. You think you're tackling your job really well today and making quite enough money to buy that crotch rocket, but tomorrow you get pink slipped and suddenly you're living off food stamps and peeing in chamber pots.

Aw! I take that back, it doesn't look so nasty!

So how do you prepare for the bigger crab? Hoard your potions and ethers like the apocalypse is approaching. Uh, but in real space, it means treat your money like it'd spontaneously combust at any moment. Which, for most people, is a reality. The average savings in Canada alone is something stupid like -2%. How do you save -2%? BY UNDERESTIMATING THE BIGGER CRAB. You got a Christmas bonus so you thought it'd be okay to max out your credit card this time, but then the washing machine broke and the water boiler crapped out and your daughter needs braces and black Christmas just got RED.

Live under your means. Do you really get all your value out of cable? How much more helpful is the new iPhone going to be compared to the last one? Did you throw out leftovers? How could you have saved them so you didn't have to go to Milestones again? Why get a new car when you can get the same one, two years old, at half the market price? Why do you buy things that don't make you happy in the long term?



The banks will grant you that loan for a mortgage even if they don't think you're good for it. Some of you may have been rejected for loans and contest this statement, but just go back to 2008 and ask the economy what got its spirits down. People were buying houses they would never be able to afford. Banks granted them mortgages because the government has agreed to bail out the banks when people can't pay it. That makes sense, doesn't it? Get the tax money to cover the people who bought the three bedroom house in the burbs when one works in retail and the other has a really expensive weed habit. Ever complain about paying into healthcare when you're healthy just so the cancerous smoker can get treatment? You were doing the same thing for people who bought houses, at least in Canada and the US. Suddenly the United States was facing the bigger crab and no one had saved any potions.

Admiral Akbar's dying words: "It's a tra--aaaarrrrrgh..."

So we had to reload and grind our levels until we could crawl back out of that financial mishmash and beat the bigger crab. What have we learned? I don't know about you, but I've decided I like to save money and invest it like they're pinball machine points. I do not want a loan EVER NEVER.

And I've never had one. I paid my way through university on savings and now I'm living in Lavish, Luxurious, Expensive-Pants London for a year. All I gotta say is I'm still sitting on a lot of potions and ethers right now guys. I'm like a level 80 Paladin.

I don't wear this to the bank, though.

If you're interested in hearing a success story of a family man who has retired in his thirties, read Mr. Money Mustache's blog; maybe you'll learn an interesting thing or two!

If you meet At One Point Captain Ly somewhere out there... you and I never spoke.