Archive for May, 2009:
It’s our second anniversary!
Cutting a wedding cake proved harder than I thought! A huge chunk of cake fell onto the table. I put it on a plate and ate it, of course.
It’s our second wedding anniversary! Hooray!
I’m just amazed at all that has happened in the last two years. We’ve had a good run so far and I’m looking forward to 80+ more anniversaries. In October, we’ll celebrate being together for six years, which will be one fourth of our lifetimes. That blows my mind.
I couldn’t think of a better person to be married to. I love Shane so much!
Here’s some of my posts on saving money for your wedding:
- Our wedding accessories
- Hair and makeup
- Photography
- Stationery
- The dress
- The flowers
- The wedding party
and someone else’s wedding:
Why I wanna spend: Daunted by my next goal
First off, I want to apologize if my last post came across as, “We have lots of money now! But I don’t want to spend it! Woe is me!” Because that’s not how I intended it.
I do realize that having a few extra bucks each month to do whatever we want with is a good problem to have. And I don’t want to be insensitive to those who are scraping by, working on debt, dealing with foreclosure, big medical bills, etc.
I just want to recognize that as soon as I became debt-free, I temporarily lost some momentum.
Last night while I was thinking about our next big financial goal — saving up for a house — I think I realized why I have a big urge to spend money right now:
Our next goal is huge. So big, that it’s really going to take awhile. So big, that I cannot see the end yet. So big, that if we want to reach it soonish, we won’t be able to spend a lot of money frivolously.
So rather than save every dollar I find for the house fund, I think I was briefly tempted to just say, “Forget it!” for now. “Let’s take a break from being responsible and have some fun already!”
And maybe we still can. As I mentioned previously, maybe we can set aside a small amount of money and just have fun with it. Maybe I can get a frou-frou coffee from Starbucks a few times per month and not think twice about it. Maybe we can get a Wii and a Wii Fit.
If we do that, we need to set boundaries. We can’t get a big flat-screened TV on which to play our Wii, and we can’t get a new couch to put in front of that TV.
But rather than think, “Darn! I want all of those things and I’m going to pout because I can’t have them,” I’m going to focus on what we do have and what we can acheive.
Fighting an urge to spend friviolously
So we’ve been out of debt for like a week and already I’m feeling the urge to spend all that “extra” money we now have. Not good.
I’m surprised at myself. Normally, I don’t like spending money. But over the past few days, I’ve been fantasizing about all the nice things crap we can now afford.
It’s almost all frivolous stuff — and stuff I don’t even think I actually want. It’s just stuff I know we can buy.
I’m annoyed at myself, because I want to reduce the amount of stuff we have lying around in our apartment, not add to the clutter.
And yet, this money is really burning a hole in my pocket.
Shane and I would like to have the money to buy a house next year if we wanted to. That means saving at least $15,000 more than what we have right now.
If we want to save that kind of cash, then I need to stop this nonsense.
Maybe it would be a good idea to budget for these frivolous things. Some people call this their “blow money” within their budget. The nice thing about it is that it gives you permission to spend, while still putting a limit on how much you blow.
You can keep up with your savings goals without feeling totally deprived this way.
Another thing I’m doing is I’m keeping a list of all the things I might want to buy. The more expensive the item, the longer I should wait to buy it. If a few weeks pass, I might find that I no longer want it.
Money — spent or saved — can trigger an emotional reponse in us. It’s important that we stay in control of our emotions (and money!).
