Don’t let the small victories get in the way of your larger ones.
It’s motivating to have small financial victories. The motivation that you gain can lead you to larger and larger successes.
However, it’s also possible that small victories can get in the way of larger ones. What do I mean by that? Here’s a recent example. I purchased a few items online shortly before they went on sale. Once the sale started, I used the store’s website to request a refund for the difference in price, and a couple of days later, I received my refunds.
It was a very pleasant experience. The store not only has a specific policy of refunding you when prices drop, but their website makes the process easy. As the purchases were small ones, the amounts I gained were correspondingly minor, but seeing 3 deposits in my account definitely elevated my mood!
What concerned me, though, as I thought about it later was what were other things I needed to do that would have even larger returns. Maybe they wouldn’t result in such pleasant feelings, but a larger return — and I don’t necessarily mean a financial return — is better.
To make the above clear, let’s see examples for a financial return and a non-financial return. First, for a financial return, let’s start with the total refund I received, which was USD $8.74. How else can you earn $8.74, especially as easy as going online to request a refund? One way would be to move some funds in a non-interest bearing account to one paying 3.8% annually. If you moved $230, this would pay $8.74 the first year. Actually, it would probably pay a bit more, due to compounding, but that’s close enough. Also, assuming interest rates stayed the same, it would pay that amount every year.
There are some non-financial returns you can make, though I don’t know of any way to calculate their return. However, I can list a number of examples: spending time to build relationships with family members or friends, donating time or money to a worthy cause, and taking care of your health are a few.
In summary, it’s fine to get small rewards. Just be careful that in chasing small rewards that you are not overlooking larger ones.