Then when?
When will the debt be gone? When can we have a house? When can I not worry about this stuff anymore? In a culture of instant gratification, the choice of a lifestyle that runs on a little patience can be a serious thorn in your side sometimes.
It's the end of the month, so this post is timed just right. The budget envelopes are empty (but we have another shopping day coming up, so time to get creative in the kitchen :) ) we had to buy a couple of unexpected gifts (okay, we forgot about them and didn't budget for them and now just look what happened) and there's that looming trip I am just going to have to bow out of on the grounds that we are trying to save and who can afford a hotel in NYC these days anyway? And so.
Sometimes, particularly when we choose to give up some exciting trip or other, and especially when I get to thinking about having kids, buying a home, insuring everyone and the fact that our car is going to break down in the next few years, for sure, and we are going to have to get another one, I start feeling a little sorry for myself and wishing that we could just go on that trip, take out a big mortgage and get a house, forget about it and worry later. Why must we do all this dull budgeting, anyway?
Oh! And then I remember. Our choices put us here. The money that we owe is money that we did, in fact, spend, whether we like it or not. I think it is a real sign of the general sense of entitlement that we have in our consumerist society that having to stop spending in order to pay back debts one owes is seen as some kind of huge unjust chore, the way I was feeling this afternoon as I sat wishing I could buy a house with a lot of hardwood floors and big picture windows. No no, paying back the debts one owes is just a way to start living right, instead of living wrong, the way we were.
So I'll count the things I'm glad of rather than groaning that we can't take off tomorrow on some whirlwind trip that will be forgotten in a few months by everyone except the people at VISA.
* I am glad that we are taking care of these matters when we are still young.
* I am glad that we have discovered how happy we can be leading a simple life not a lavish one .
* I am glad that the choices we make now will make our future brighter.
* I am glad our present is so bright that we don't need to hit the mall to get lots of things to spruce it up .
* I am glad that I recognize that nothing we can just buy is going to make life better. Making life better is up to us.
Now. That's much better than a weekend trip to NYC or a big travel to Delhi next year to visit my BFF (rugged anthropologist) when she is doing her fieldwork. There will be plenty of time to have those experiences when we can afford them, rather than when they seem opportune. Nice things like that always seem propitious, that is why they are nice things. Right?
Right.
5 comments:
I know I probably sound like an annoying fan girl by now but I just have to say again how much I just adore everything you write. This is beautifully thought out. It can be hard to say "not now, later". It's not always easy but it's responsible and I guess I just have to hope, is going to pay off later.
I remember getting to the pissed off point in my debt reduction. I was SO mad that I was paying for things that I just had to have that no longer fit, worked, were useful, whatever. And that was keeping me from being able to do more then while I paid for it.
I am glad that I stuck to it though and you will too. The other side is freeing. And I have a feeling that, like me, by the time you get out of debt you'll have learned that there are a lot of things you just don't need. Even when you do have the means to buy them. And that is freeing too.
~emily@remodelingthislife
very good reminder of why we do what we do! i get frustrated also with my "plan", until i realize that no one else is going to do for me what i want to do.
I should have been flying out to Norway today. Tickets are booked and paid for but we're not going because we've decided we can't afford the car hire (necessary) and spending money. We're actually better off losing the flight money.
I think we all get a little frustrated with our lives from time to time - the grass is always greener and all that. Seeing my debt go down and my savings go up makes cutting back on other stuff so much easier though.
What a truly wonderful post. We all get frustrated/upset/envious about how easy others seem to have it, but we all have to accept/honor what we do have, the blessings we have each and every single day. Life is a journey not a race!
Wonderful post, as always.
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