I’m saying it to them, but I’m saying it to me as well…Thanks for sharing your experience MLow. Ultimately spending is a choice, so this makes sense. You’re right about it reinforcing a bad attitude about budgeting.I completely agree. Another thing that helps me not feel guilty or bad that I my kids don’t have everything they want, is that I really believe that giving them everything the want is actually good for them.
Those make more senseYeah. A great reminder of all the reasons not to spend! The semantic difference between “I can’t afford __” and “I don’t want to spend money on ___” is very apparent to me.
Or I don’t buy a new handbag because I’d rather put that money toward a new bedroom outfit for the new house we are building. You don’t need the money” (WHHHATTT?!?!?!). That’s great that your husband is a convert. I definitely plan to be more mindful of using more realistic and empowering wording myself. Save to Splurge {What I learned From Two Failed Blogs} 10. Don’t we all!)
However, if they wanted a snack immediately before lunch, I would not say, “No, you can’t have that before lunch.” Instead, I would phrase it, “Yes, you can have a snack as soon as you finish lunch.” Now that our financial circumstances have changed from what we expected during our senior years, I generally have a pretty upbeat attitude toward the different way we’re living. If we start speaking less passively, will we become a more active participant in our finances?
That can be awkward…..but those people are usually very close friends or family. It’s not simply about not spending as it was for my parents.
I think words do make a big difference.I prefer a monthly spending plan as opposed to a budget. We just don’t want it that much.Thankyou for your post. Now that they can see the fruits of our labor (no mortgage, fully funded college funds, nice vacations, plans to retire in our 50s, etc), they wish they had been more diligent over the last 20 years, instead of always buying “what they could afford”, and often times more than they could afford. Living in Southern California where we do is NOT easy on one very modest income (I am a SAHM who homeschools) but it CAN be done. Find descriptive alternatives for polite. (Mine is a bit older than yours–13–but I think this is something I probably said all the time when she was little, too.) You could have just a moderate amount. Just this week my husbands check was enough to get us back to $900 in savings (so close!). 1. How we phrase things most definitely matters. Some people seemed really shocked because I’m so young and so careful with my finances but I feel like it empowers me. They got so tired of hearing me say “we don’t have the money” but then I would spend it on something else.
I also say things like “we just don’t have the money for that right now”, or “that’s not in the budget” (even though I don’t really have one), or “we’ve be doing/spending too much on that lately,” or “that’s not what we want to spend money on right now”, or “let’s save up for that and see if we still want it next week/month/etc”.
I found that the best way to sound cool, when I was researching words for money and merging them with ways to say “I don’t have any”, was to use the names of world currencies and words that were never intended to have that meaning. Having a choice is so freeing!I wish everyone would read an internalize this article! I would rather have them grow up thinking, “We are selective in the things that we do and the places we go. Saying “no” or “can’t” is tough love.