Mar 01 2009
It’s No Longer Taboo …
To say, “I can’t afford it!”
To which I reply, “Thank goodness!”
My dad and my husband Craig both have the tendency to live by the motto - I deserve it. Which in theory I stand by them 100%. But theory needs to be balanced out by reality. Which boils down to - Can you afford it?
To which the answer varies.
For example, yesterday Craig and I were grocery shopping together. We enjoy this time together - most times. But yesterday was different. Craig was crazy nuts on some of the items he was wanting to buy. Our allotted grocery budget would have been shot. We would’ve ate like kings for three days … and peasants for four of them.
It’s all about choices and consequences. I want to eat healthy for all seven days! (And I know so does Craig.) He just sometimes gets in those moods where he wants what he wants.
But he is getting much more open to me saying, “We can’t afford it.“ He realizes, that by us staying within our budget, we have been able to accomplish much more with our money.
It’s not easy to stay on budget. Sometimes we get real pissy with each other. But we recover fast. Because we actually do want the same things in the long run.
Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover how messed up our lives would be if we didn’t live within our means …
(Now my dad - he’s a whole other story. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get him to behave with his money!)
personal finance
Now that I have no idea how long I need my savings to last, nor how much I’ll have to live on from week to week, I am having to get myself back into the mindset much more strictly. Before, I was careful to live within my means enough to save a good bit each month, but I allowed splurges. Now, those splurges are becoming non-existent (or at least I’m trying to retrain myself into eliminating them.)
It’s knowing the difference between needs and wants and then if you need it, can i really afford it.
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We do that whole we can’t afford it thing much more often now than we used to!!
Oh my. I know all about “I want what I want when I want it!”
I’m still into “Do I NEED it?” but it’s not easy…
Great comments!
For someone like me … who is naturally frugal … my husband can be sort of a pain in the butt!
It’s just sort of interesting how he is getting more comfortable with “Thrifty” and “Frugal” now that it seems like EVERYBODY is talking those terms.