I wrote before about how many past purchases have been made with the hope or expectation that an item could Make It Better. I have bought many a thing because I believed it could solve a problem or improve a challenging situation. Making It Better is probably one of my biggest spending motivations.
But it’s not the only one. I have bought a lot of things in my life because they felt Worth It, as in the product provided me with enough of something good (ease, pleasure, convenience) to validate how much I spent on it. Sure I might not need a new {insert shiny specimen here} but I sure would use it a lot, and frankly that was all that mattered.
I also bought a lot of shit because I wanted it, and the price seemed Reasonable. Hey, I would wear a new pair of shoes if I owned them and at 50% off that price sure is Reasonable. Why not buy the shoes when I’m clearly getting a good deal?
I bought a LOT of shit in my life because it would be Worth It or Reasonable. For almost my entire life I’ve judged the merit of a purchase on whether or not I used the item enough to justify how much I spent. If I used something regularly, even if I didn’t need it, it was absolutely worth what I paid for it. Necessity was never a part of the equation. (If that isn’t a symptom of financial privilege, I don’t know what is.)
Lately I’ve been asking myself (and all of you) all sorts of questions about whether or not I should be spending money on something. I’m realizing that Worth It and Reasonable are not applicable anymore. I need a new measure.
Nicoleandmaggie had an insightful comment on my last post, which echoed the sentiments of a comment they left on Ana’s post last week (and was expanded upon in a post put up yesterday). In the end, the answer to the question, Should I spend? is never justified (at least not absolutely) by whether or not something can be deemed “worth it” or “reasonable” or “deserved,” (another qualifier that has green-lit spending for me in the past); in the end all that matters (at least initially) is whether you can afford it. Taking into account all your financial obligations–past, present, and future–can you buy that thing without borrowing from someone else (or your future self)? If the answer is no, then it doesn’t matter if it’s Worth It or Reasonable or Deserved. What matters is The Whole Picture.
It’s amazing how long it took for this to sink into my thick, spendy skull. I would like to say it’s because my spending freeze was not anchored in a working budget, but I tried to follow a budget for months earlier this year and I still didn’t figure this out. It quite literally took me half of 2015 to connect these dots, to put these pieces together (and I only managed it because others kept showing it to me, over and over again).
{Another reason I think it took me so long to figure this out is because I was raised believing that I’d always have enough, that I didn’t have to take The Whole Picture into account because The Whole Picture was just fine, thankyouverymuch, so I skipped that part and went straight to my metrics of Worth It and Reasonable. Yet another unabashed example of my financial privilege.}
When I said I wasn’t sure how to handle purchases that I believe would be therapeutically beneficial for my daughter, I was trying to apply my old standards of Worth It and Reasonable to the spending freeze, a situation that stripped them of their faculty. I was trying to apply them to a situation in which they quite literally no longer applied. In the end it doesn’t matter how Worth It or Reasonable an item may be, in the end, all that matters is if we can afford it.
Perhaps it makes sense that I didn’t see this, given that my spending freeze has not involved a specific budget of any kind. The spending freeze was, in fact, a pre-budgetary exercise which was supposed to help me create a budget I could confidently follow. Maybe if I had a budget in place I would have figured it all sooner. In the absence of a budget I floundered, throwing around Reasonable And Worth It in contexts where they absolutely didn’t apply.
Now I (finally!) understand what I need to do. I (finally!) understand that I need to look at The Whole Picture. I (finally!) understand that only in the context of “what we have,” can I answer the question “Can we buy it?”
This is a big step, having this understanding. Unfortunately I’m still a few months away from really knowing Where We Are financially so that I can answer Can we buy it? And double unfortunately, my husband has to take some important and time consuming steps before I can paint an informed picture of Where We Are. But that’s okay. In the meantime, I finally understand that I can’t answer the question of Can we buy it? So if it’s a significant enough question, then the answer is unequivocally, No, we Can’t, until I have The Whole Picture, and can be sure.
It’s amazing how much clarity this brings me, as I throw out my old metrics and start applying (or preparing to) the new. I am now more motivated than ever to create a budget that BOTH my husband and I can follow, so that we can responsibly determine what kind of life is available to us right now, in this city, under our current circumstances. Now if only I can get my husband to actually start using the joint accounts we opened, I’ll be set.
What metrics help you determine if you can buy something? Have you even fallen back on Worth It or Reasonable?
