My Daily Dollars

Today’s article on “Failing Home Economics” in the New York Times got me thinking and reading a new blog.  You know, my mother was a home economics teacher, so thanks to her, I passed home ec with flying colors.  When it comes to budgeting though, Penelope Green found excellent examples of the failures we all make when we’re trying to save money: save $12 by forgoing expensive soup at the store only to spend $500 on dog beds. Give up summer vacation because of high gas prices before doing the math; it would really only cost $80 extra. Pass on the big screen TV at Best Buy only to buy a cheaper one at Wal-Mart. If you can’t afford a new TV, that “savings” is no savings at all.

Of course, (sorry Mom!) I have had plenty of my own failures in home economics. I saved $45 over three months by drinking generic coffee, but spent $45 for a salad and martinis at the Cheesecake Factory Friday night. I save $30 a year by canning my own strawberry jam, but spend $420 a year on a gym membership that I no longer use.

While the article makes the point that we don’t always spend and save rationally, I also appreciated behavioral economist Dan Ariely’s definition of rational behavior: “But I have a more relaxed definition, which is that rational decisions are those you make and don’t regret later.” It’s far too easy to laugh at someone else’s economic decisions. What’s more important is how you evaluate and reflect on your own.

Sure, the $45 dinner wasn’t frugal, but I don’t regret one minute that I spent with my friend.  On the other hand, I do regret the gym membership and curse the fact that I’m still locked into a contract with them.  In some ways, a budget helps us minimize potential for regret.  I have $150 a month for fun, and part of that went to dinner this month.  However, now the fun money is gone, so I need to find frugal ways to entertain myself until December 1.  It really doesn’t matter what I spend that $150 a month on.  As long as I’m allocating the rest of my budget wisely, I can just feel happy that I can afford money for a little frivolity each month.

This week I’ve been settling into the idea that spending, in and of itself, is not bad. If it’s something you won’t regret, you should go for it! Hoarding money just for the sake of hoarding won’t help you live your best life either. Being frugal, for me, is turning out to be about trimming expenses on things I don’t value that much so that I have more money for the things I do value.  What seem like illogical, lopsided trade-offs can actually be quite logical.  I’ve become pretty frugal when it comes to groceries and household cleaners, but now we have a lot more money going to savings each month.  I’m content with my new frugality in the kitchen.  The key is not to reduce ALL my decisions to some kind of stereotype: “I’m the frugal gal, so I’ll wear this cheap watch until I die.” 

In fact, all those irrational calculations are really just the manifestations of interesting, complicated people.  We’re faced with so many ways to spend money and so many choices in life, that we’re bound to make some quirky ones.  If we all just always acted on the rational impulse, we might pass home economics.  But I don’t think we’d be nearly as compelling!