Confessional
You know, I'm not very good with money.I never have been.
My parents are, which is how we managed to survive some exceedingly lean financial years when I was growing up. We dressed in hand-me-downs and secondhand clothing, ate many meals that were based on such cheap and healthy fillers as lentils, and learned to do without wherever possible. This did not, however, translate into an amazing set of financial skills.
I don't know. Maybe it was the lack of an allowance. Maybe it was growing up poor in a well-to-do neighborhood. Whatever the root cause or causes the reality remains the same: I'm horrible at budgeting.
With money, I'm like the child who isn't allowed sugar at home, and so gorges on it at birthday parties and sleepovers. There are all these foods and clothes and books and toys and things to be tried, you see. The appeal of the new and the shiny to one who grew up with the old and the dull should not be underestimated. And, to be blunt, one thing I learned during my DINK days was that all too frequently, the more expensive option really does taste-look-wear-work better. Usually a lot better.
There's a back and forth going on in my brain, with one voice telling me, "This should be easy. After all, you grew up without." and the other chiming in with, "Yes, but you didn't actually like growing up without, now did you?"
My goal with this whole frugality venture, aside from the obvious one of surviving on a vastly reduced income, is to somehow find a balance between the voices, one I can live with, and one that won't leave my daughter with the same money issues I struggle with daily.
But damn, it's not going to be easy.
posted by mohmlet @ 12:47 PM
2 Comments:
I commiserate. I was there, during my childhood, and I'm here now, wondering why I don't understand how money works, how to save it, and how to stretch it.
And very often bemoaning the fact that neither the husband or I chose anything resembling a lucrative field to work in.
"And very often bemoaning the fact that neither the husband or I chose anything resembling a lucrative field to work in."
That's us, too. Well, mine's lucrative, but not steady, and his is steady, but not lucrative. And before we had a kid in the mix, we weren't exactly savers.
I know an insane amount of money went to things like eating out because we were too tired to cook. Right now, that's not a problem, because I'm home and can cook/plan meals/be the housewife, but I'm not looking forward to going back to work outside the home and cooking on top of that.
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