Not Spending Money

My name is Kalani, and I live a relatively unfettered existence in a medium-sized city. 

My father was a teacher, and my mother stayed home with us kids.  My family has such a spirit of pioneering; my mom can do anything: sew, work with wood, build a house, teach, handle finances, train dogs, decorate, fundraise, use power tools, grow stuff, demolish stuff, etc, that I grew up believing I could do anything, too, as long as I had some directions to read or at least a basic understanding of physics.  We made toys for ourselves on our childhood limited budget while my parents built a house for themselves on their adult limited budget.  I grew up with a level of can-do and frugality that I took for granted. It took me a while to realize that what seemed obvious to me about saving, working, building, buying quality not quantity, or finding plenty of things to do or contribute without spending a cent, wasn’t always apparent to other people.

Everyone is talking about how the economy is bad, a recession is on, etc, etc, etc.  I feel for the people who are in dire straits, but I also see a lot of good coming from the circumstances.  Teenagers are working hard to find jobs, when I’ve seen them throw jobs away because it interferred with their social life. People are trying harder to pay down debt and save money, instead of buying extravagance on credit and teaching their kids to do the same.  The housing market is so low right now that first-time homebuyers have hope to get into the market.  And the skills I’ve learned and the economic values I’ve grown up with are suddenly, somehow, “in style” among a wide variety of people across income levels.

One thing that I’ve learned since childhood–Spending money is fun. You can use it to spend time with friends, do special things for people, fix up your home, educate yourself, and make the world a better place.  The hard part about budgeting is the feeling that you have to give all that up just because you are not spending money. So many times we feel like we have to give up lunch with friends, forego that field trip, not attend that party, or not give out good presents just because we can’t afford it.