Does it suck to live within your means? Honestly yes. Hey the title of my blog says it all. I enjoy life and would one day love to live large. Or live without financial worries. The truth of the matter is, it will take discipline and sacrifice to get there.
A coworker, who graduated last year is getting married next year, and 24 I think and her fiancee is 25, is just starting out. They are living together, enjoying life, but the wedding, etc is EXPENSIVE. It’s going to run $25-30k at least. Don’t freak, it’s a HCOLA and weddings run that much.
So we were talking and I told her, sure the wedding is expensive. But the truth is, that’s a one day expense and it’s fine since her parents are paying for a portion, his parents, and them. But it’s harder to get used to savings and living within your means. It’s so much easier to go out and buy a brand new car, to go out and eat or hang out in trendy clubs every night.
The truth is that many people can’t afford the lifestyle of city living. They really can’t afford to be eating out every night, bars every night, movies, clubs, etc. But they try to. Yes they have jobs. Yes they might not own cars, but they are still living beyond their means.
They are living paycheck to paycheck, often times paying only the minimum on their credit cards, and relying on parental support. It’s a lot harder to say no to a “cool” lifestyle of trips, designer clothes, eating out, partying and saying I should save $100/month to my Roth IRA.
Yep, trust me I know. I’ve been there and done that. It’s honestly even hard now! Now instead of wanting to spend money on going out, traveling, fun times, I now thing, gee I would love that $1k stroller for my baby.
But instead I think, that $1k can buy an awful lot of diapers, wipes, clothes, food, etc; all necessities she’ll need. That $2k crib/bedroom set is AWESOME, but that is 1 year savings in a Coverdell account for college.
So my practicality wins out. I still can’t bring myself to indulge and splurge, even though this is our first baby. We still have to live on a budget and within our means.
So to my friend, my advice? Just keep living poor and broke and within your means. Because it’s a lot harder to give up a posh lifestyle than it is to just live a cheaper/moderate one from the beginning. And yes it does suck to live within your means.
Do you think so?
6 responses so far ↓
1 Meg from FruWiki // Oct 23, 2009 at 10:44 am
“Does it suck to live within your means?”
Not as much as the alternative! I mean, living beyond your means might be fun for a little while, but then you start to realize that, you know, that actions have consequences.
Personally, now that I’m used to being frugal, I don’t find it sucky at all. Yeah, there are times I wish I had more money and could do things I can’t afford to now, but I know that I’ll eventually be able to afford the other things that are important to me because of my current efforts. And anyhow, what’s the rush? There are plenty of other things that I enjoy doing now that VERY affordable!
Truth is, I passed over a lot of affordable fun things when I was spending like crazy but they turned out to be more fun than the things I was spending so much money on! Living within my means helped me discover some great hobbies because before my husband and I would just go shopping and to restaurants out of habit when we were bored. And frankly, that wasn’t as fun as we thought it was.
2 oilandgarlic // Oct 23, 2009 at 11:47 am
In my 20s, my friends and I found a lot of fun things to do that were not expensive – brunch, happy hour, hanging out at coffeehouses a la “Friends”, exercising/hiking together, potlucks and an occasional day trip. Sometimes I passed on activities that were beyond my budget (or more likely, to spend in areas that were more important to me). If one did get into debt, it wasn’t due to any peer pressure.
The alternative is much worse! I know several people in their late 30s with credit card debt and/or student loans. Now that sucks!
3 TeacHer // Oct 24, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I totally agree with you. I live in a HCOLA (metro DC) and living within my means and saving is soooo hard. Especially because my friends aren’t really in their careers yet and aren’t at the stage where they’re really thinking towards the future, so they just spend without thinking about it and never budget or save.
I agree that it would really suck to wake up and be in my late 30s and still in debt, with nothing to show for my first 10 years working, but on a day-to-day basis being financially responsible is really hard.
4 FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com // Oct 24, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Agreed.
It is difficult to go back down to moderate or low income-style living when you’ve been living it up and getting used to the high life for too long.
Being financially responsible is hard, but the alternative is way, way worse…
5 ken // Oct 25, 2009 at 11:19 pm
is there really 1k stroller?
I wouldn’t say it is hard to live with in your means.
i would say boring a little.
6 LAL // Oct 26, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Absolutely it’s hard to live within your means.
Meg, sometimes it’s boring.
Oilandgarlic, but then when you have time in yours 20s to travel the world, you have no money. Then when you have the money, you have no time.
teacher, exactly!
FB, are you sure the alternative is way worse?
And Ken there is a $1k stroller, there are many.
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