I had a friend in high school who spent a lot of money on clothes. I remember how she would gloat, “look at this $350 dress I got for only $75!” In her mind she was saving $275, in my mind she’d simply blown $75! (Babysitting was $1.25 an hour in those days, so $75 represented a lot of diaper changes and mind-numbing Candyland games!)
It’s easy to solely focus on the money saved with a purchase. But your bank account doesn’t know how much you saved, it only knows how much you spent.
I have certainly been dead guilty of this outlook.
I go into a thrift store and see a $75 whatever-ma-thingy, that’s now priced at $10.
“Wow, what a deal, can’t pass that up!”
But $10 spent is still $10 gone from my wallet.
Because I never would have actually bought the item at the original price, there’s no actual savings.
So next time you’re passing that tempting clearance aisle, try adjusting yourself to this mindset:
Money spent is money gone. It doesn’t matter what the original price was. The perceived savings is only valid if the item/service is something you would have bought in the first place.
Your money is precious, and not just because the price of a good babysitter has risen slightly.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Definitely. I stopped buying everything because I realized that even buying things that are super deals was still adding up to more money than I wanted to spend. Sales are just scams anyway.
I use this sort of logic with gas also. Just because someone bought a hybrid doesn’t mean they saved any gas. There is no way to *save gas* just ways of using less. I use a gallon a month now, but I didn’t save any for later.
-Andy
I have been on a reduced consumption lifestyle for many years. Unfortunately, I started selling on eBay for awhile, and it brought the stuff back in. I stopped selling on eBay because I felt like I was contributing to the consumption problem. I wasn’t selling things people actually needed.
I am happy to see simple living becoming popularized, and hope it’s not just a fad. It’s really not as hard to find a life outside of “stuff” as people think, it just takes a little practice. I love the feeling of not being a slave to “stuff”!
Also, there’s no such thing as “free”, but we’ll discuss that later!
Take care and thanks for the info!