A Quick Thought

Two blog posts in a week?  What is this madness?

I read this thing a while back.  It was one of those "7 Things You Should Learn To Be An Adult" or "21 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was 25" or whatever.  I can't remember the name specifically so I can't find and link it.  But suffice it to say, it had all these things that 20 somethings or young adults or whoever need to realize if they're going to start being adults.  It was one of the better of that breed of post and I remember it had this one point that really just sums up this whole blog post.  It said "Learn to spend money on things".

"Well that can't be right!" you're thinking.  "Being an adult means that you save your money like a responsible human!"  And you would be right.  But you'd also be wrong.  The post went on to explain that when you're in high school and then in college you are saving saving saving to pay for high school and college.  Mostly college.  It is big and important and expensive and you're constantly poor and not spending money becomes practically an art form.  You learn to get by and make do and live like a Russian peasant.  But after school you need to stop thinking like a college student and learn to spend money on the things that are important to you.  Because not spending money is a waste.  You might as well just not earn it...so to speak.

And like I said, in a nutshell, that is the point of this post.  It is about the difference between frugality and cheapness.  The simplest explanation, I would say, is that frugality is action-based and cheapness is attitude-based.

What it comes down to is this--money is a really great and important thing in life.  Having it makes pretty much all the things possible.  Not having it can literally kill you.  Thus it becomes important to be responsible with your money, learning to prioritize your spending and save for a rainy day.  However, as with so many things, it is possible to become unbalanced in your attitude about money.  Money, and the process of saving it, become the end themselves rather than the means to an end they should be.  When you start resenting the expenditure of your money; when you start perceiving a larger number in your bank balance as more valuable than a night out with your friends or a new and exciting experience, then I think you have become unbalanced.

I have realized lately how valuable a trait generosity really is.  Actual, real-world generosity is one of the greatest attributes a person can have in my book.  Because money is great, but only because it allows you to buy gifts for the people you love, and travel to new or familiar places, and supply and enrich your life, etc...  Money is valuable insofar as it enables you to live.  It is not valuable in and of itself.

this seems like a good thing to post here...