I Am a Spender

If I have unlimited access to money, I would be doing a lot of shopping—from picking up a croissant (and a scone and a brioche and a slice of bread pudding) at a bakery to browsing on the web to purchasing flight tickets (and fancy lodging) for my next vacation to shopping wardrobe items for my daughter and husband (and my next designer bag). I would be purchasing beautiful furniture pieces (and other home décor items) and putting an offer on our next house (and vacation home).

However, I don’t shop just to shop. Shopping in generally (even just the thought of it) is both physically and mentally exhausting for me. When I shop, I shop with a purpose—I shop for the experience (what I can enjoy immediately and what I can enjoy weeks, months and years down the road) and a lifestyle. Emotions draw me in. Show me something pretty or something that smells good (hello, fresh baked goods!), and the money in my wallet is already half way out.

With the combined incomes in my household, I can afford to buy lots of things and services. Yet, if you look at my credit card and checking account statements, I don’t spend much money relative to the income. This is especially true in the past four years. How have I been able to resist the strong urge to spend money during my adult years thus far?

I Am Naturally Frugal

Even though I’m a natural spender, I’m also very frugal. I don’t exactly know how these two traits go (or not go) together. For all I know, they could have been engaging in internal conflicts. On the one hand, I generally have a strong desire to buy into experiences and emotions, yet, I am not good at pulling money (or the credit card) out of my wallet. As an example, when shopping for lodging, I’d usually go with mid-price range amenities. Luxury hotels certainly draw my attention. I can spend hours admiring the pictures and wishful-thinking about their wonderful amenities. I’d show the pictures to my husband and continue to daydream of that life. However, at the end of the day, I’d settle my selection somewhere in the middle.

As much I like buying into a certain lifestyle, I also enjoy (a lot) seeing my savings and net worth grow. I like having a sturdy safety net. Even when I was making less than $2,000 a month on a graduate student salary, I felt good logging into my savings account once a month and seeing an increase in the total. Back in those days, I did the math in my head so that my total food cost for a day would not exceed $5.

I suppose it’s this kind of mentality that makes it hard me to be okay paying $400 a night at a hotel where I’d probably spend 8 to 10 hours in, dinning at a restaurant where the average dish costs $40 or $50, or spending $70 to get a one hour massage (when I know my muscles would feel sore from exercising the next day or two). It’s this kind of mentality that has kept me at bay from overspending.

My Husband and His Frugal Nature

When I met my husband back in 2008, he was (and still is) a much more frugal person that I was. He is also a minimalist. As he later told me, he was a frugal person by nature. Then, he became even more frugal during the Great Recession (he saw his investment portfolio shrink smaller and smaller for months). Once our relationship became serious in 2009, I felt the need to restructure my financial habits and mindset to match his. As a result, I became even more frugal.

This didn’t mean I was necessarily spending less money. It was the mindset that really got to me. I started reexamining my every purchase desire and having second thoughts on my purchase decisions. Little by little, I saw myself having a harder and harder time spending money, especially on other people, such as family and friends.

In retrospect, this behavior was very unhealthy for me. My relationship with my husband was suffering, but at the time, neither I nor my husband realized this was one of the sources of my unhappiness. Over the years, we have been struggling to find a balance. It has become harder and harder as our incomes increase. My husband is totally opposed to living an inflated lifestyle with increases in income. I, on the other hand, feel we should splurge a little here and a little there. To this date, we are still working on finding the right balance. On a good note, my husband promised me on New Year’s day that he’s going to try to meet me somewhere closer toward my end of the spending spectrum!

Practice Moderation

I love my husband. There’s no way I’d purposely do anything to sabotage our marriage. Thus, naturally, I will never do anything with our money that would be considered outrageous by my husband. So, over the years, I have learned to satisfy my purchasing desires by practicing moderation. I set limits for myself and I have been very good at adhering to them.

My husband and I also make compromises and come to agreements. For instance, my husband enjoys dining out 3 to 4 times a month (partly to save money, but mostly to have control over what we eat). I, on the other hand, would prefer to dine out every Saturday and Sunday. When I think of weekends, I think of walking to the bakery to grab some fresh baked goods, brunch and yummy snacks while out and about. So, on a day when I don’t want to eat lunch at home and just want to be out, sometimes we would go to a bakery shop, buy a loaf of fresh bread (plus butter) and sit down to enjoy a delicious lunch while people watching. This has been working great for us. We both love fresh bread with butter. And my daughter is a butter queen. She likes eating butter straight out of the container! She thinks it’s cheese. This is a simple pleasure for my family.

Setting My Priorities (and Doing Some Planning)

Earlier in this article, I mentioned that I have a hard time spending $40 on a dish at an expensive restaurant. Yet, I feel okay spending several thousand dollars on a bag. It’s obvious I place much more value on a particular bag that I like than on the dining experience. And I don’t go out to buy every bag I have my eyes set on each year. Some years, there might be nothing in the market I like. Other years, there might be three or four that are calling my name. In such cases, I’d narrow the list down to one. Then, I come up with a plan to make the purchase.

For instance, do we plan on going to Europe or Hawaii this year (designer bags in general are less expensive in many Western European countries and Hawaii (also lower sales tax than San Francisco)? Where can I cut (personal) expenses this year so that my total expenses for the year won’t be outrageously high? Maybe I stop using a brand name moisturizer and buy drugstore brand. Maybe I stop buying the pastry that has been my routine every Friday. Maybe I hustle a couple more hours on my freelance to bring in extra income. Maybe we cut down to dining out only two times per month. 

This part is all about knowing what I want, deciding on what’s most important to me and setting out a plan to minimize the effect a large purchase might have on our overall financial standing.

This combination of traits and money habits have been keeping me at bay from overspending (and also very good for my marriage). Perhaps in his ideal world, my husband might have liked to be sharing life with someone whose spending habits and mindset about money are more in line with his. And the same probably goes for me. But, we got what we got. We didn’t do any financial counseling prior to getting married (though we were given the booklet of questions when we went to register for our marriage license). We were aware that money issues (usually financial stress) were the reasons many marriages failed, but we were in love and nothing was going to tear us apart.

And to this date, we both still hold this belief. We will never let money be the reason we’d end our marriage. We’re not going through any financial stress. What my husband and I have been struggling with is first world problems. I’m confident together we will find a happy medium in time. Being in this marriage with my husband, I don’t ever see myself going wild with spending and/or accumulating a lot of stuff even when we have a lot more money. My husband is a strong proponent of sustainable living, and I respect that. I don’t have to become him, but I can certainly do my part to minimize my impact on the environment and earth. Nowadays, there’s nothing I enjoy about being a hoarder or being wasteful (considering my frugal trait).

One of my personal goals in 2017 is to practice gratitude and take more joy in the simple things in life, such as enjoying a loaf of fresh baked bread plus butter (thank you, Boudin Bakery!) with my husband and daughter! Being it is the start of a new year, I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of work my husband and I will accomplish in this area in the months ahead.

Readers, are you a natural spender or saver?

What money habits are you practicing?