The following is a guest post from A Gai Shan Life. You can enjoy more of this writing style by checking out Updating Your Resume is like Banking Your Savings, High School Reunions and Ruminations, or Booking Summer Travel.
With few exceptions, most anything we do with spending or saving money is inextricably linked to our habits and how we’re mentally wired. We’re motivated to save or trained to spend, trained to fuss or motivated to figure according to our childhoods, parental and authority influences, and personal inclinations.
A close friend’s mother is the biggest deal-seeker I’ve ever met. Practically living with them growing up, I was motivated to seek out bargains because of her example. My friend? Not so much. She, growing up in a household where she felt bargain-hunting was forced upon her, spent like full price meant she was above penny-pinching.
It took years for me to quit showing her how not to pay full price, and for her to quit mocking me about my coupon-clipping. Never mind the fact that my bargain-seeking ways were also the instrinsic driver in me to push for a well-deserved raise based on the fact I knew I was providing major value for little money – she thought it was laughable to care about saving cents because obviously they don’t add up. Actually, she hasn’t quit mocking me at all. But I also only saw that she didn’t try to save because she didn’t have to, and not that she used spending more money to limit the amount of stuff she could afford. She feared becoming a hoarder.
But through blogging, I finally understood. We’re a mish-mosh of emotions and form habits based on how we feel when we do things, and most people rarely take advantage of knowing ourselves well enough to form habits to achieve our goals painlessly. This concept of behavioral finance is curious and fun to play with.
1. If I eat out at work, I will enjoy the food and be in a coma for the next 2 hours.
Solution: I’m packing delicious pastrami sandwiches full of fresh veggies, then take a short walk after eating. No more misery, no desperate need for caffeine.
2. I want dinner before 8 pm every night.
Solution: I cook big portions of entrees over the weekend and only prepare side dishes during the week. Dinner’s on the table in 20 minutes every night. This also cuts down on eating out.
3. I hate paying real money (money out of my expense fund) for books, clothes, and entertainment.
Solution: I juggle my credit cards for the ones with the best cash or GC rewards and fund my fun using those rewards based on ordinary spending. The key is NOT to ever watch the rewards build up and spend in anticipation of the next reward payout.
4. I like having flexibility in my spending from month to month, which could kill a budget.
Solution: Once upon a time, I was allowed $75/month for all expenses: gas, groceries, and fun. Now, the expense fund gets allotted a monthly budget every paycheck and I spend from the pot. Some months are higher than others, which means some must be lower or suffer the consequences.
5. I hate late fees.
Solution: The expense fund is stuffed with dough, so I can pay bills every two weeks, well ahead of their due date regardless of when I get paid.
As befits my personality, many of these are Occam’s Razor solutions – I do overthink it but the simplest answers to my problems are usually the best. Even if my motivations are entirely emotional – I want, I hate, I like – my solutions are practical and work with the desires, not because of them.
What do you do when it comes to wants, needs, likes and dislikes?
My achilles heal is eating lunch out. My evenings are incredibly busy with the kid’s activities, so my lunch habit is really my social life. I spend next to nothing on other social activities so I don’t really feel too bad about it. I guess maybe I should, but I just gotta get out sometimes.
Other than lunch, I don’t really spend money on me. I go to the library for 95 percent of my books. We use Netflix for our movie watching. We do have an exercise membership, but so far, we are using it frequently. I suppose the biggest thing I do to watch our spending is plan ahead of time. I plan meals on Sunday, which is important when life is busy and we are going to be on the road for dinner. Those nights I try and plan ahead an pack dinner in a cooler of sandwich, cold chicken, whatever.
You seem to have things very in-control. Good job!
Love this post…and the fact that each of us approaches spending/saving from different experiences. It is also true that sometimes we can change our way of thinking about money and even someone else’s, but it is difficult.
I know that I have always been frugal because I can remember as a child watching my mom spend heaps of money on herself (jewelry, fur coat, clothes, sporty convertible) and my dad cringing. I would feel sad for my dad and try to convince my mom to spend less, even when she wanted to buy me something! Needless to say, they are divorced!
[...] great guest post from Gai Shan Life, posted over at Budgeting In the Fun Stuff, about spending [...]