Or stuff. Or experiences. Or something.
I was driving with my son recently and asked him…
“so… if I went back to work and made a fair amount of money, what should I do with it?”
He said “I don’t know – buy a new TV?”
Well, he’s 23 – what else would you expect him to say? Nope, don’t need one of those since I don’t (generally) watch TV. Don’t like HD either. It’s TOO realistic. I don’t want to see the spotty skin on Elisha Cuthbert’s face in 24.
We tried to think of a few other things, but neither of us could come up with anything. Mmmkay… Believe me, there’s things that I don’t have in my home that most people would consider to be necessities.
I had dreams of being able to help my kids buy a house or something – but the oldest doesn’t want my surplus money. He says he “doesn’t want to live off a woman – especially his mother.” Call me crazy, but I kind of admire that.
Or maybe I’ve just traumatized him somehow.
In thinking about First Gen American’s post on Rules for Lifestyle Inflation – I thought about:
Poverty of Imagination
Is there such a thing?
Do people who stop or restrict spending for long enough lose their ability to even be able to think of things they could buy – or do -that would make their lives more enjoyable? I think so. I’ve seen it happen too many times in too many people to not think this is a very real phenomenon.
I see it in me. And it kind of freaks me out.
Think about it. If – to save for big goals like early retirement or a paid off house – you had to constantly restrict yourself. Every month or year – or every couple of days – you pat yourself on the back for resisting all that temptation. You start to see yourself as no longer slave to your wants or emotions.
Eventually you think that people who DO spend everything they make (and possibly then some) are sort of silly or stupid. Do it for enough years and you become a financial anorexic. There’s food (money) all around you, but you refuse to eat (spend) it because you feel virtuous for not spending it. You’re not physically wasting away though – so there’s no brakes to your “issues”. Hell, some people even admire you for it!
As much as I truly value my frugal friends (and make no mistake, they aren’t as frugal as I am) – I value the spendy ones just as much, if not more. They push me to spend on things when I internally kick and scream (mentally) not to. They plan holidays and ski trips and restaurant outings. They look great and go clothes shopping with me so that I stay in touch with the fashion world – even just a little bit.
I just have to show up and hand over my wallet. I’m forever grateful to them for this. They’re enablers – of the best kind.
They bring me back to the earth I want to live on by acknowledging that yes – it’s completely idiotic to expect me to be biking or walking around when its -30C in the winter – and tell me that I really do need a vehicle. Preferably one with 4WD.
Can I take the other approach? You bet I can.
But I don’t need to be walking up the hill (going uphill both ways of course) in freezing temps – with a broken leg and no shoes.
And I don’t need to be thinking that I “should” either.
Luckily, my husband is my buffer. I can only imagine what my house would look like without him. I probably would still have the same ratty stuff from college.
It really is hard to spend when you have been trained not to. What I haven’t figured out is why some people follow in their parents footsteps while others do the complete opposite. I also know people who rebel completely and spend, spend, spend once they are free from their money hoarding parents. I guess I am glad that I aire on the side of underspender. Seems safer that way.
Sandy, I did the opposite for awhile. So did most of my siblings. We all moved kind of to frugalish-center over the years. It’s a nice place to be.
I would be (and am) the same about the old furniture since I don’t have a more reasonable DH to moderate me. But I’m conscious of it – and keep trying to be “normal”. No doubt about it, it’s hard though and something I have to focus on just as much or more than I used to have to watch my spending years ago. I just went to a show home auction with a friend a couple of days ago and came home with some pictures and a rug. I told her “next time – MAKE me buy some furniture.” That’s what I really need.
Funny how I’ve run the whole gamut from uber-frugal to spendy (but not really since I didn’t make a lot back then) to trying to be really moderate.
I’m always going to want to eat really good food — which costs more than the subsidized junk — and to travel. I think between those two things I’m in no danger of having too much money sitting around, unused.
You need some expensive hobbies like horseback riding, golf, weaving, etc.
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Hey Linda! Is weaving expensive? I would like to ride horses again like I did growing up, but I wouldn’t like it enough to do it all the time. Golf I don’t mind, but I have friends that have memberships that I can go under anyway. I can’t travel much more than I did this summer because I don’t really enjoy it enough. Although Road Scholar does have some learning vacations I’d like to take (w/o children) down the road that are fairly pricy – pricier than DIY vacations anyway. I’ve found some singles-type group vacation sites too (that aren’t singles meat markets) with some great trips I’d love to take when my little guy is older. I’m sure I’ll be singing a different tune now that downhill ski season is here anyway.
I’m also starting to decorate my house (never having done this kind of thing before) – but am scoring awesome deals at auctions. Sigh… it seems I can’t even do that right!
I hear you on the price of decent food. I found some old (we’re talking 13 years old) grocery receipts while decluttering recently and was really quite surprised at the inflation. Should write a post on that…
And a cleaning person! Almost anything you don’t want to do you can pay someone to do.
Hm, we do have some of the same ratty stuff from grad school… and will probably continue to do so until it falls apart (or longer).
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Oh, and charity. You can do a lot with a lot of money.
Personally I want enough money saved that I can live off the dividends without tapping the capital, and I want money to target at causes I care about.
Nicole recently posted..Ask the Grumpies: Who are the working mom bloggers?
Nicole, I’m a bit mad at the cleaning people. They threw a bunch of my spices into a garbage bag along with some stuff out of my fridge. And some books in there too? It wasn’t a pretty sight (or smell) when I found it and opened it up a couple of weeks later.
I’m trying to “honor my home” a bit more so am trying to lose my tolerance for bad (or no) decorating.
It’s expensive, but not really too bad. I’ve got a post coming up on that in the next couple of days.
My blogging friend Kelsi lives off of her dividends – she retired at 37 and pulls over $50k/year off of dividends. I’ve got too much of mine set up under a DRIP program, so have to switch that eventually (in a couple of years).
Agree on the charity, but I find I tighten that up when the stock market swings down. I’m much better at giving when I’m on a salary of sorts and have money constantly coming in. Also because the write-off on taxes is a bigger payoff then, so I kind of time it in conjunction with income. Hmm. That’s kind of selfish sounding.
We DRIP too, but we’d need at least a million saved to get 90K in dividends/year … and uh, we don’t have that. So, keepin’ the day jobs for now!
That is bizarre about the cleaning people. We don’t actually have anybody doing anything for us mainly because good help is hard to find and manage. But if we had more money we could afford better help!
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I think maybe his response came from him thinking that you don’t really need the money for anything. It would be supplemental?
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