Milestone: my retirement account is larger than my student loan! I have to wait a couple of weeks (until I get paid) for positive net worth, but that is a nice fun fact to tide me over. I've literally never had more in savings than in student loans, not since I was 18.
Meanwhile, I spent $12 on dry cleaning a coat last week, only to get it home and discover that there were little brown spots all over one shoulder (dry cleaning fluid, I assume.) The old me would have fumed, but probably thrown up my hands and just never gone back to that place. The new me gritted my teeth and went back to talk to them. They wanted to try to fix it and even though I knew they probably couldn't, I let them. When I picked it up today (not fixed) I stared them down until they agreed to give me my money back, so that's $12 back in my monthly "spending money" account. I suppose a more aggressive person would have insisted that they not only refund me, but give me something in damages, but...baby steps.
I just was not gonna lose that $12. Do you notice yourselves finding it intolerable to lose small amounts of money, the further you go into your financial journeys?
Hi,
ReplyDeleteLast week I had a friend tell me that while at the self-checkout she almost forgot to get her $10 bill from the change compartment. Her reaction was one of HUGE relief that she remembered to look and how she would have been SO upset had she lost that money. It got me thinking that I don't want to be live like that where I am so stressed and worried over every single dollar to the point where losing that amount of money would have such an effect on me. I'm not saying I want to be rich where money doesn't mean anything I am saying my goal is not about money my goal is to accumulate a lot of it so that I can live/lead a happy, stress free life. Being happy and healthy trumps $10 in my account any day. If that had been me and I forgot my change I would have just lumped into my idiot tax, just like in your previous post. :)
Re-reading that makes me sound self-righteous but that isn't at all what I was trying to convey. I hope you can somewhat understand what I have tried to say.
That's a good point -- I would love to get to the point where $10 or $12 doesn't faze me at all! Right now I'm working really hard to keep close track of everything and every dollar does seem signficant, but I wouldn't want it to be like that forever.
DeleteI think that's just it, we are tracking everything so the littlest amount is a big deal. ;)
ReplyDeleteI think once I roll over a few more financial goals and give myself breathing room, I will not be so uptight about $10. But right now, $10 is half my monthly budget for Starbucks. So $10 is a big deal! haha.
that's great you went back. but bum the coat is messed up.
I know, right? It is a SUPER cute coat, and I'm probably going to wear it anyway; I'm annoyed that it has a little spray of dark spots on one shoulder now, but I don't want to get rid of it.
DeleteAlso, I am so with you on the coffee thing. They'll pry my coffee budget out of my cold dead hands. (Climate change might do it anyway -- they're having a ton of trouble growing coffee in some traditional spots now -- but I'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)