Your effectively managed home and your effectively managed life and your effectively run family and filofax system make you feel good about yourself.
- Nothing ever gets on top of you.
- Every day, you wake up and slip into your morning routine, ticking boxes and adding and subtracting from your to-do list. Your inbox gets to zero, then goes up to fifty, then goes down to zero again.
- Bills are always paid on time because you’ve got a kick-ass “how to pay bills” system. Your credit-card debt has been paid off, and you can afford a couple of meals out each week.
- You’re smug.
Now comes the fun part: the accumulation of monetary wealth.
You’ve got no debts, so you build your slush-fund.
You build your slush fund by:
- Working a little bit longer each day
- Taking on a second job, perhaps in the evenings
- Walking to work instead of taking the bus
- Giving up on some of those small luxuries: meals out, coffees, drinks with friends, gym membership, anything that makes life worth living.
- Sending your kids out to work in a coal-mine
- Murdering your husband for his life-insurance payout
By not taking a holiday, and not going abroad, and not leaving for a phone-free vacation, you can add to your bottom line to the tune of a grand or two a year. AWESOME!
Awesome?
No: sucky.
Gee, hon, I’m really stoked we’ve got our retirement savings up to a comfortable six-figure amount.
Yes, I sure hope we’re alive to spend it.
GO ON VACATION. TAKE A HOLIDAY. SPEND SOME OF YOUR MONEY ON THE KINDS OF THINGS THAT MONEY IS EARNED TO BE SPENT ON.
Give yourself permission to grab your sandals and bermuda shorts and hit the beach, climb a mountain, eat strange foods in strange places.
Ride a donkey.
Have some fun.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I like this post a lot! Why, when you’re a skint student do you go out for nice meals, backpack round India; and the minute you’ve paid off all that debt, you just want to save for your pension or pay off your mortgage?? With great responsibility comes great dullness.
I agree that sometimes you need to splash out on a nice holiday, buy the “Tesco finest” once in a while, live a little!
“With great responsibility comes great dullness” – quote of the year, I reckon! Thanks for all your comments. I’m your number one fan.
Great advice.
Life happens so fast that people don’t realize that it’s okay to just stop and take a break. You don’t have to go on a lavish vacation for it to feel great.
Don’t ride a donkey!! My dad ended up in hospital in Mexico for 6 days after riding a donkey!