After my previous post mentioning the unfortunate cultural association of status with houses, I got to thinking about my "experiences not stuff" philosophy toward life. Diana happened to see a post on Facebook about the research behind it, which is information I've seen before. I get it.
I didn't always adhere to this way of thinking, and I still know people (especially younger) who find buying stuff to be intoxicating. I can criticize that behavior as immature, I suppose, but I sure was the same way until my early 30's. (Interestingly, divorce is a solid mechanism to instigate positive change in your life, if you take the opportunity.) I don't even know what the hell I bought in those days, or why I thought it was a good idea to have credit card debt. And what weird times, because the practice of granting massive amounts of unsecured credit to poor college students didn't start until right after I graduated. My first credit limit was $500, and I didn't get it until I was a senior.
Now I'm probably too paranoid about money, wanting to save as much as possible and try to make up for my total lack of responsibility in looking forward to retirement. I hate being behind. However, we've been pretty good about experience spending since Simon was born, and the result is a massive photo album in my brain of good times. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, at least I would know that I was creating a whole lot of great memories.
But there are times when the spending urge creeps back into me. I suspect it's a reaction to something else, like anxiety, work or parenting stress, maybe some need for validation. I don't really know. I'm pretty good about rejecting the idea of buying a Tesla, the ultimate toy spend, but there are times when I want to buy other smaller stuff that I don't really need. I don't even know what, to be honest with you. I don't really need shiny things. Sometimes a grown-up Lego set ends up landing at my doorstep, or some camera piece, but that's infrequent.
My discipline is hard to maintain, but it might still get in the way at times, as in the case where I retired my 5-year-old iMac to give to my 5-year-old. I still haven't replaced it with a desktop for my desk after six months, even though it's justifiable. I struggled to allow myself the trip to Holiday World a couple of weeks ago, and totally missed traveling to Carowinds to see their new ride. Even the experiences are hard to spend on!
I'm mostly glad that I'm not my stupid 30-year-old self. I'm not buying a ton of movies or constantly updating computer hardware, etc., all on credit. We could have filled this new house with stuff, but instead we took cruises. Buying crap isn't living, and I'm glad I figured it out relatively early in life.
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