This one’s for the diary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s weird. I spent a few years unemployed, pinching every penny. Now that I’m employed again and I’m making a decent amount of money, I feel like I still have to pinch every penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have no problem with paying bills or buying things for other people. If I could live my life buying food for people every meal, I would. But I crunched the numbers. It’s not sustainable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, the problem is with spending money on myself. I don’t like buying things for my own pleasure, and I have an incredibly difficult time justifying a selfish purchase more than $10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My guess is that I have residual tight-fistedness from my time spent unemployed. In those few years, I taught myself to be happy with what I had. I didn’t have money coming in, so I found joy in things I already owned or things I could do for free. I played games. I listened to music for free online. I watched TV on shared accounts. and I never traveled, except by car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recently discussed this with two of my friends, and they brought up their measurement of a purchase’s value. They called it the “cost-to-happiness” ratio. For example, they (and I) wouldn’t derive much happiness from buying a new car, since they’re not car people (nor I), so the cost-to-happiness ratio is rather high. But for something else like Taco Bell (for them, not for me), the cost-to-happiness ratio is low. They’re constantly using this ratio to weigh their purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, for the past few years, I taught myself to be happy with things that have a near-zero cost-to-happiness ratio. Or more specifically, zero-cost, high-happiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I have trouble justifying anything with more than low cost, even if they provide high happiness, because I know I can be happy with zero cost. I want to travel, but I can’t get myself to spend money on trips. I missed out on some of the benefits of my early 20s because I spent them at home, too afraid to spend money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am trying real hard to get out of this mindset. I am not poor. Later on when (if) I have a family, I don’t want to prevent them from experiencing things just because I didn’t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My budgeting spreadsheet says I spend ~6% on gifts for other people and ~3% on my own recreation. Perhaps I should tip it in the other direction? Pretty weird conclusion to come to. \u00af\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This one’s for the diary. It’s weird. I spent a few years unemployed, pinching every penny. Now that I’m employed again and I’m making a decent amount of money, I feel like I still have to pinch every penny. My problem with my money I have no problem with paying bills or buying things for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n