I’ve definitely seen pizza and cake/pie be snapped up. The most confusing part, to me, is having cake you just won’t finish 
. I’m not judging. It’s just a very different mindset.
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This happened once to me. My old boss ordered a cake for my going away party, and because I always did this sort of thing for her did, not realize that a full sheet cake was 18 x 26 inches. It barely fit into my car to take home!
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OK that is a LOT of sheet cake! But like a 10 inch round though? I just have it with coffee for breakfast for a couple days! 
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Oh I often give away cake. In fact I did two weeks ago. I LOVE Costco cheesecake and pumpkin pie. But husband and I aren’t sweets people. I’ll have like 2 slices max. So I’ve started arranging with people to just swing by and pick up the other 1/2-3/4 of the cake/pie when I buy it! Then I don’t even need to make room in my fridge lol.
ETA and I figure I wouldn’t mind spending $14 on two slices at a restaurant, so why not just pay for a whole one I prefer anyway and then share the love?
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And I gave away 6 Krispy Kreme donuts from my free Graduation Dozen. I did not need a dozen donuts, but I wanted some (and the photo op).
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It was a good week for money things here. We spent $66 on groceries, which is awesome. We also got a holiday bonus and I saved on top of that so I was able to transfer $1,500 to savings this month! I should be able to put away another $500 by the end of the month. I also got all the refunds processed for our vacation so my credit card bill is like -$900 right now.
Hopefully from here on I can regularly save $500 a paycheck until our lease is up. That would set us up well for our home purchase timeline!
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WELP, spendy weekend. Spent $68 at Trader Joe’s and $50 on goth night because I went by myself and therefore wasn’t cool with public transport late at night (this was mostly Lyft there and cab home. Grrrr.
I just need to, like, hire someone to whap me with newspaper and shout NO every time I start to spend money.
I did realize that I’ve paid for literally all groceries in December. I’ve asked Boyfriend if he can do the next run; when we started going back into stores we pivoted from “split everything down the middle and settle up at month’s end” to “let’s take turns shopping and it’ll all even out.” But with him being out of town, that hasn’t happened yet.
I do think that I need to drop my savings goal from my current $800/paycheck to $500/paycheck. That’s probably more realistic, at least until we are moved and settled.
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But all your spending is reasonable. As you said at the time on the Lyft/cab, safety first. Spending in itself is not wrong. Also I wouldn’t consider $118 a spendy weekend, especially since you bought yourself treats you don’t normally get (I would categorize this as self care) and you went to your last goth night/one of your last goth nights in your current city (you can’t buy this experience again later so definitely money well spent).
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I mean, I could’ve chosen not to go, I guess, but as you say, this is likely our last one. (There’s another in February but we won’t go if it is negative 1 million out or there’s a snowstorm, which always seems to happen.)
If Boyfriend had been with me, he would’ve paid for transport there or back as we usually split that cost. So I think it caught me off guard - “oh wait, I have to pay for transport BOTH ways.” Not to mention that if he’d been with me we would’ve taken the el there, probably. Which is kind of hilarious because if some jackass pulls a gun on us, me having a penis alongside me is not going to be all that useful! It’s the perception of safety, I guess. 
I’m not sure I mentioned on this forum at all that Boyfriend is now SUPER on board with buying a house at some point, like, he actively wants it. Which, I don’t think he did before. So once we are moved we need to figure out steps toward that. (Step 1 being, do we even like our new city!)
ETA: also, I know that costs for everything are up but sometimes it just smacks me in the face. Goth night admission is $5 more than usual, coat check was $2 more than usual - this is also a singles tax as usually Boyfriend and I grab a seat in the balcony and just dump our coats there and he rarely dances so he can sit there with them. Not that anyone steals coats there, we’ve done this often and left them unattended and it’s been fine. Lyfts are more expensive, as I mentioned elsewhere I’m really fortunate that a cab passed by because I was going to get reamed with surge pricing on the way back - and it was after 1 a.m., what choice did I have? Not going to get on the bus alone at that hour even though it’s an easy bus ride home.
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I second this, I don’t think any of your spending was unreasonable and I don’t want you canceling out the good time you had by self-flagellating! Otherwise what is the point of treating yourself to things and experiences you love?
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I found a really interesting podcast recently:
It is the I Will Teach you to Be Rich podcast by Ramit Sethi. I honestly was skeptical at first because I don’t love all of his other stuff but this one is different. He is interviewing actual couples, with actual numbers, talking about their money beliefs. It is so fascinating for me to hear the range of people he has included (from $100’s of $1000’s in debt to $8M in net worth and still cost comparing for almond milk at 3 grocery stores). His main focus is how money impacts relationships, our beliefs around money and how we can change them, and how to make sure you are spending your money in a way that is meaningful to YOU.
If anyone wants to check it out and chat about it, I am all ears. Some of the recent episodes remind me of conversations here in this journal (feeling like you cant spend money on ANYTHING without setting a defined goal to work towards, spending money on impulses that do not align with your actual values, etc.).
My biggest take away’s from the podcast (and this thread)
- We never learn how to actually spend our money. If you are frugal and have the skill of saving money, the skill of spending money in line with your values is not necessarily one that comes naturally.
- It is hard to change your mindset about money, but if you can find a way that works for you it can really make your life better.
- Money impacts how we feel about ourselves, our relationships, and so much more. It is really important to focus on money FEELINGS rather than money numbers.
He has a few comments in the podcast like “I don’t want to hear the words ‘spreadsheet’ or ‘model’ come out of your mouth, this is not what we are talking about here, we are talking about emotions and feelings and our relationship and those things are not going to be in your model.”
Let me know what you think! Some of his commentary isn’t necessarily “money saving mindset” but more “how to spend money in the right way” mindset.
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Ooh, thanks for the recommendation. That sounds like something I’ll really enjoy!
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OMG, this is absolutely true. My financial planning/budgeting has always basically been “don’t spend money, ever, unless absolutely necessary.” Spending money in line with values is something I have a hard time getting my head around. I will check this out, I used to read Ramit’s blog a million years ago but haven’t checked him content out in a LONG time.
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Thanks for the rec! It’s on Spotify, too.
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I listened to the one with the guy who hadn’t known until last minute that his partner had signed him up.
I really wish Ramit had given him a better set of questions about how his approach had served him well in the past (eg avoid MLMs or other scams). But instead Ramit jumped right to the hard sell, and you could hear the defenses go up. And I wish the woman hadn’t done it mostly to score points on her partner, because it is an interesting challenge.
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Like, people complain that old people are untrusting or paranoid, but also people are literally targeting them, and they probably have friends who have been scammed and financially abused.
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I’m interested in this as well. I didn’t know he had a podcast but I read one of his books by the same name. Like you I agree with some parts of his ethos but not others. I think there are parts of the population he doesn’t have much interaction with or awareness of, and that because of that some of his advice isn’t sound in practice.
At the risk of going too broad, I wonder if this superficial inability to spend money (meaning the person had the money to spend) ties to a larger growing reticence to confidently make decisions, without public or peer approval, period. It feels to me that in certain social circles (determined largely by class but also belief system) people my age are very comfortable with the idea that they are fully autonomous adults who have the intrinsic right to make decisions that other people disagree with or judge as bad decisions. And equally that those judgers have no right to judge, and that their opinions are completely irrelevant and not something to lose sleep over. There’s a sense of “I pay the bills, I decide” or “I’m grown, I decide” or “I’m a -insert role-, I decide” and no agreement or assurance is needed or indeed wanted. Often decisions are put forth with confidence, and without caveat or explanation.
But then within other social circles (which I spend more time in these days) it’s like even middle aged adults with property and children and big important jobs, are putting themselves in a position of constant justification to themselves and to others. Like that need for peer approval is incredibly strong and the self justification has to be presented as a kind of evidence that the decision is valid, even if the decision doesn’t impact anyone but the individual. Intense internal struggle seems present too, but also a very externally focused way of presenting decisions.
I find the lack of confidence really fascinating. And not just confidence, but the lack of a sense of justified authority to make decisions. There is something in that that’s super strange and alarming to me.
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I think he has gotten better over the years in understanding more about experiences that aren’t his. I say this as a very long time subscriber to his email list and having never bought a course.
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That’s totally fair, I still like him fwiw! I even put his book in a 'best of year" article I wrote. I think he’s an entertaining writer, too. It just comes through a bit, sometimes, in his more poor people focused advice. But I think ignoring IQ and other differences is a common pitfall in discussions about financial equity; it’s definitely not him specific.
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@plainjane I agree that that episode left me very unsatisfied. It is still a pretty new podcast and I feel like he is getting better about interviewing after failures like that episode. I don’t think that interview was set up for success at all (the guy didn’t think there was a problem, she did, signed up without telling him, etc.). I liked the one about the couple who realized that they didn’t need to buy rental properties just to save up enough to go on an RV vacation with their family, and some of the ones about people who have “won the money game” and need to figure out how to spend their money and not be so cheap.
The most recent one the couple who has $11M in net worth with $2.5 million per year in income who can’t spend money I wish he would have answered the guys question of “how do we make sure we aren’t going to start spending and then end up bankrupt like others.” To me it felt like he brushed it off instead of addressing that very limiting fear. He started a bit with the fact that that line of thinking is “all or nothing” and you can stop before you get there but having more concrete examples of how people go from 10M to bankrupt could have been helpful too.
@AllHat ETA to hide my response on a spoiler.
Summary
Feeling like you are privileged and wanting to spend money on things we don’t need but kind of want for reasons that are not directly related to basic needs feels like you are a terrible person. I feel this way quite a bit. I just bought a new Garmin watch (that I have wanted for a year) and I felt like a terrible person because I could have donated that money, or put it into savings. There are people who cannot afford to eat, how can I buy myself a $500 watch because I want it? I am a terrible person. That is the thought process and it’s really hard to shake. ETA - See what I did there? I tried to justify the purchase of my watch when I really didn’t need to.
I think there is a lot of fear around buying things for fear of being judged or exiled. For fear of running out of money. For fear that if you spend money on something you really want, all of the sudden you are going to start throwing around $100 bills all over the place and go bankrupt. For fear that you are going to look like a rich asshole for spending money.
I disagree that it seems like a lack of justified authority to make decisions. I think it is more fear of the consequences of your decisions. There is lots of public shame or negative judgement for your choices. You cannot go on social media without feeling like an asshole these days and I think that plays a HUGE part into all of this. Maybe the fear and the lack of justified authority are related and one in the same.
Also, I do think some of his content is tone deaf towards the lower income and net worth crowd but what I do appreciate about it is that there is some content for the middle/upper class that I have not heard before. One thing he said is “if you don’t learn how to spend your money when you are poor, you will not learn how to spend your money when you’re rich.”
@TrisPrior @Economista and @noodle if you give it a listen let me know what you think! I hope that it helps with the
aspect of this. It has certainly helped me get over some of this. For me feeling more in control and changing my mindset has been a huge stress relief.
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