Sunday, August 8, 2010

Frugality

I have a special relationship with money (as we all do) and I feel I'm perhaps a little weird. I blame my mother. When I was six years old I wanted to buy a hair clip. It was six dollars. I asked my mom to buy it for me. She said no. She said that I could have it for my birthday if I wanted--months away. That was like an eternity to a six year old. Then I came up with a beyond brilliant plan. My mom would buy the hair clip, and I would pay her back when I got the money. My mom broke the news to me (this was not an original thought) and began to teach her child about debt. I remember her pointing out her shoes. They were dirty and old and she said "What if I decided to have the shoes and pay for them later. They are dirty now, who wants to pay new money for old dirty shoes. What if they break? What if they were to get lost or stolen." She didn't know it then, but my mom had planted a seed of anxiousness in my mind. I didn't want to buy old shoes with new money. I didn't want debt.

Anyone who knows me, knows that spending money makes me physically cringe. I spent 5 dollars today and got a familiar pit in my stomach that made me question my "extravagant" Amazon purchase.

On the flip side, saving money, or finding a good deal gets me high. I spent 11 dollars today at the library at there annual Used Book Sale and bought 44 books. 44 books for 11 dollars--yes please!

I recently found a website that is crazy conservative like I am that I wanted to share: Frugal wife=Wealthy Life Read it, love it.

2 comments:

Mariella said...

Thanks for sharing this, Melissa! I've only read a couple of articles...and so far have found one other blog through those articles. I can't wait to read more!

Stephanie said...

Sweet! I am going to check that out. I get the same feeling when I go to spend money. Brad and I know what it's like to have debt for surprise things (medical bills) that we didn't have time in our marriage before or between to save up for and it's a physically sick feeling. Few people our age get the importance of saving for a rainy day. We learned our lesson with Ethan and we are still paying for it in some ways but we did much better with Brad's "surprise". When faced with your child or husbands life a pair of shoes just doesn't compare.