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Hiding Out From The Personal Finance Fun Police

Posted by Sean | Posted under Foo | November 11, 2008

Room 13
Creative Commons License photo credit: Siemar

SingleGuyMoney had an interesting post about how he wanted to take his teenage sister to the mall for possible “splurging” shopping. Particularly interesting quote:

“I know alot of personal finance bloggers will disagree with me but I think it is okay to splurge (within reason) every now and then.”

SGM is taking care of business. He’s saved ~$9,000 in the past half year and planned to spend up to $200 on this trip. At what point do those ratios become right or wrong? For the record, I’m not a mall person, but I’m not judging. I’m more interested in the risks of extreme personal finance.

  • Is this sort of splurging looked down on by a lot of personal finance bloggers?
  • Or is splurging a key benefit of budgeting: guilt-free (or less-guilty) spending?
  • Do personalfinance-types become too mechanical?
  • Do we leave enough room for spontaneity?

If the pfblogosphere got together in 30 years for a reunion, as a group, would we find that we got more out of life by meticulously managing our money? Or would we be the grumpiest group of curmudgeons the world has ever seen?

This week, I’ll follow SGM’s lead and prepare for splurging. (He ended up not spending, btw.) DW’s parents are in town from Tokyo and we might eat a car payment’s worth of sushi. I’m not sure what else. We’ll try and find some neat things for them to take home, but that can be hit-or-miss. The main thing is… I’m going to think about money less this week than I do during the other 51 weeks.

Wish me luck on splurging. Like SGM, I might need it! :-)

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5 Comments so far
  1. Miranda November 11, 2008 8:36 am

    I think an occasional splurge is healthy. After all, you want to enjoy life. You just have to make sure that you splurge within your means :)

  2. Dawn November 11, 2008 10:23 am

    I agree with Miranda. But I think the size of the splurge should be in proportion to your financial budget. I’m $900 in the hole each month, so I can’t be splurging much!! But I did buy a nice cheese for myself for $5.75 the other day - that is the kind of splurge that I can allow now and again. However, once I get my financial situation worked out, my emergency savings account funded, my other goals met - I would have no problem splurging $200 - though I would make that money strrreeettccchhh as far as it could on that splurge!

  3. Sean November 12, 2008 8:33 am

    Miranda,

    “splurge within your means” great phrase! i like it…

    Dawn,

    yeah, it is hard to unplug from “value” too much…

  4. SingleGuyMoney November 12, 2008 6:23 pm

    GOOD LUCK on your splurging spree! Hopefully, you’ll find something that you want to buy.

  5. Mary@SimplyForties November 15, 2008 9:08 am

    I think splurges can be in the budget too. That would come under the heading of fun money. What you can’t do is splurge away your mortgage payment!