655: Money on Yourself

Financial advisor Dani Pascarella, in 2018, wrote in Forbes magazine:

When I ask people how spending money makes them feel, so many of them respond, “Guilty.”

Ooof. Talk about a gut check. More often than not, you’ll hear financial advice about how to save more money. You’ll see report after report about how a lack of savings is going to be a major problem for seniors, millennials, and just about any other generation that can be named. Discussion about how those living with an income below the poverty line really quote-unquote shouldn’t have… well, anything, even something as basic as internet access.

Among all of this, it’s very, very easy to get into the mindset that spending money on yourself is not OK. This could be because of the shame that comes with doing something with your resources that someone else may judge as inappropriate. It could also be because, as Under 30 Money puts it, quote:

As you move from being in debt to saving money, you don’t want to go backwards. Seeing your balances grow becomes a bit addictive.

There’s also the feeling that comes with knowing you just don’t have enough money, so you put aside things that you perhaps really need to do, from visiting the doctor to much-needed maintenance, simply because the math doesn’t work out.

In some ways though, a reverse hedonistic effect takes place if you never spend any money or resources on yourself in any way. When you become completely used to not ever spending money on yourself, it can be very easy to end up on a tiring treadmill of never making any progress towards anything but burnout.

How you decide to allocate your resources can be an intensely personal decision. So when the question comes up, do you choose to ever treat yourself?