Spending Money

When you’re a frugal person, it can be a challenge to spend money – even when you know it will benefit you to do so.   Sometimes I feel like my habits of saving and being thrifty are so ingrained that  I have a hard time letting myself spend what I consider to be a lot of money – regardless of the circumstances.  

This weekend, we  went power shopping.   We  shop at Costco and  Vitamin Cottage about once every 6 weeks,  we get our produce delivered to our house every week, and are able to  stop at the local grocery stores for  little things  now and then.   But every couple months, we spend  several hours  stocking up.   We buy 50 pounds of oats, 25 pounds of quinoa, cases of  rice milk and soy milk, dried lentils and beans, flour, rice,  supplements… we usually can’t see out the back window of my station wagon on the way home.  

This time, we had decided to get new bedding and a memory foam mattress pad, in addition to all the usual stuff.   Our old comforter and bed skirt were a lovely shade of purple that my husband has hated for 3 years.   I remember the day I bought them, at Kohls.   It was the first time I had ever bought a new comforter, and I spent forever picking out just the right one.   When I got to the cashier, she commented that her husband would kill her if she brought home a purple bed spread.   I just laughed (I truly thought it was a nice color).   My husband was kind enough to not comment, as he could see how proud of myself I was, and he’s practical enough to know that as long as a comforter keeps us warm, it’s ok.  

So on Saturday, we went to Ross and found a new comforter, a duvet cover (now I can wash the outside of the comforter without dragging the whole thing to the laundromat!), and new pillows.   Then we went to Costco and bought the daddy of all memory foam pads.   Total cost for everything: $220.   We also bought a bunch of other stuff that we’ve been needing but had put off buying.   The total for our whole weekend came in at about $1000.   Ouch.    I know that we were very frugal in how we spent that money.   We went to the thrift stores first, and were able to get a new full-length mirror for our guest room for $5.   We shopped at Ross and TJMaxx for everything non-food, which meant we got a lot of it for nearly 50% off retail.   My husband got a pair of new (very stylish!) dress shoes for $21.   When we got home, he threw out the dress shoes that he’s had for 11 years.   Their insides had been poking out through the seams for quite some time now… He also bought me a gizmo that straps on my arm when I run, and uses GPS to monitor my speed, miles covered, and a slew of other stuff (I love it – my run yesterday was awesome with that new toy, even though our recent snow melt meant I was running in mud the whole time…)

When I look at everything we bought, $1000 is a pretty sweet deal.   And I know we won’t have to shop again until April.   But it’s still hard for me to spend money.   I need to remind myself that I can’t just save everything.   Some of it has to be available to use here and now.