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I’ve always been pretty frugal. I grew up without money, I lived on welfare when my family immigrated to the US, and those experiences influenced me to always try to spend less, not buy things we don’t need, and to generally be conservative about money. But even with that foundation once my husband and I had a solid income we bought things we didn’t need. Nothing big or fancy, but a cute T-shirt here, a fun DVD there, an awesome new toy for our daughter — all of these add up to a bunch of stuff we don’t really need.
I am ridiculously organized — which annoys my husband to no end and to be honest, even me sometimes — so buying stuff we didn’t need didn’t result in us having too much stuff. We’d give things away, donate, throw them out. We’d rarely have piles of stuff we don’t use any more, but things were in pretty good rotation — I never bought expensive clothes for myself, but you can bet that when I saw a really cute new T-shirt, I bought it and put an older similar one in the donation pile.
We’ve become much more limited in our spending since my career change and as I’ve written about recently, it’s turned out that we don’t miss a bunch of the things I thought we might. But for the first time in our lives we live within 10 minutes of Target and Marshall’s and a bunch of other stores where we find endless opportunities to buy inexpensive things we don’t need. You know what I mean, right?
I’ve recently come across a few blog posts that have inspired me to be much more mindful about these wasteful puchases. Our very own Chris Jordan has started a new blog to chronicle her family’s year of no wasteful spending. (I just read her post about spending $800+ at Target in a month and now I really don’t want to check my statement.) Amy S. has written a great post about not shopping for a month, which she was inspired to do by Susan Wagner’s post over at Blogher.
What I take from this is the idea of being mindful about shopping — to buy things we truly need and do away with wasting money because we’re bored or stressed or need some retail therapy. But as I sit here and think about it, I wonder if there is another side to this argument. If you can afford to have a little retail therapy, is there anything wrong with that? Particularly for exhausted working moms, if a fun new T-shirt can cheer you up and reduce some anxiety, isn’t it worth it?
I hope to hear your thoughts and reactions to this, so please share in the comments. Have you tried to rein in your family’s unnecessary spending? Where do you find that you most often spend money on things you don’t really need? Have you ever not gone shopping for a whole month or longer period of time? Do you think a little retail therapy is actually a good thing at times?
Nataly Kogan is the co-founder and CEO of WorkItMom.com, an online community for working moms. For more career tips, to connect with working moms, share advice about balancing work and family, quick recipes, and growing your business, and to read working mom blogs, visit www.WorkItMom.com.
Check out Nataly's recent post on the Work It, Mom! Blog:
How our work affects our kids
I cover up my working mom guilt with cooking, what about you?
