Don’t let, don’t let, don’t let money fool you

The O’Jays

I’ve always liked saving money.
I receive money, and whether it’s two or two thousand dollars, I move it off to one side, and don’t touch it. End of story.
A small pile of gold two dollar coins on my dressing table.
A check from my grandpa that I deposit as soon as I can.
Pocket money. My sister and I both had piggy banks. Hers was never more than a quarter full. Mine was heavy and barely touched. Hers a rowdy bar. Mine a rarely visited temple.

It physically hurt to lose money.
Of course, it’s pretty rare to actually ‘lose’ money.
But I worried about spending too much of it. I felt like if I didn’t pay attention at the supermarket, I’d buy the ‘expensive’ version of something and the next minute I’d be broke.
My friends couldn’t wait for their paycheck to drop into their account. They’d refresh the page, waiting for it to appear.
I never even liked looking at my bank account. I’d wince if the figures looked ‘low’. When I started a new job, I’d wait for several paychecks before I took a glance, and even then it felt like it would all easily be gone soon.

In my 20’s, I started making American money.
The best kind of money, right?
I learned a little more about saving.
Investing.
Retirement accounts.
Mutual funds.
Compound interest, the eighth wonder of the world,
I read books by people who were really good about talking about saving money, like Ramit Sethi and Dave Ramsey. That mustache guy.
Stories of people scrimping and saving and buying a house, or retiring early. These stories were mythical to me.
The crowning achievement of my life was a three month emergency fund. But why stop there?
It was no longer about an emergency.

I saved money because it felt good, not because it was smart.
It might look like discipline, but it’s really not.
It’s not wisdom either.
It felt good.
Of course, I’d never admit that to myself.
There’s always a good, sensible reason to save.
A house. My future. The bad economy. A rainy day.
It felt good to ‘stay in’. It felt good to say no. To throw away stuff I didn’t use. It felt good, just like it felt sickening to blow hundreds of dollars on booze.

I’m not even interested in money.
The money in my account was like a strange, mystic totem, a rock sculpture in a forest. Purely symbolic.
I read financial advice not to learn, but for reassurance and validation.
I didn’t get happiness from finding ways to get more money. No matter how much or little I earn, payday doesn’t thrill me more than any other day.
I’m not the kind of person to find ways to lower my tax.
Or even cut my utility bills.
And those are great ways to save more money.
Go figure.

I have a friend who is more of a ‘maximiser’.
She’s always looking for ways to get more out of money.
She has a ton of deductions on her tax return.
She studies the tax code so she can part with less of her pay.
She loves sales, deals.
She’s doing something funny with her house. Something about investment property.
I’m more simple.
I see money, I save it.

One day, my addiction to saving went away.
I think it was when I bought my apartment.
When I was looking for a place to buy I noticed I cared less about the price.
I just wanted a nice place to live.
And when I finally pulled the trigger, all those acorns I had been squirreling away were gone.
Of course, they weren’t really gone, they had just shape shifted. But I wasn’t even thinking about return on investment.
I just wanted my own place.
In that moment, money had turned from something sacred to something ordinary.
Some small print on a contract.
Most my battles in life feel like they are internal. Perspecties, attitudes, emotions, memories, dreams.
But this was external. I had to move some coins from one place to another.

Am I a spender now?
Just because I no longer see myself as a ‘saver’, doesn’t mean I’m a ‘spender’.
There’s more than two ways to be with money. 
But I no longer feel really good about saving money.
I have to admit, I miss that feeling.
I no longer wince at spending ‘too much’ on a sandwich at the airport.
I don’t miss that.
I don’t think it’s ‘good’ to save money, just like it’s not ‘bad’ to spend it.

I invite you to use your money appropriately
It’s not appropriate to worry about $5 difference in your energy bill.
It’s not appropriate to buy a new smart phone every year.
If you are thirsty, buy water, don’t buy a dual-fuel outdoor pizza oven.
What matters is the compulsion.
There’s making money and then there’s “I have got to make money“. There’s saving money and then there’s “I have got to save money.”
See the difference?