It has been quite an exciting time in the life of me lately. I’m coming up on my college graduation, assuming I pass all my classes in the next month, my partner and I are moving into our own apartment, I got a promotion and a raise I was not even going for without adding any work responsibilities, and I was back paid for the position as well!
So another milestone, I will finally be taking in over 30k a year, which was a personal goal for graduating with my Bachelor’s degree. I did not want to still be making less than 30k a year with my B.A. With all of these good, wonderful things happening, the excitement set in. I’d be getting a couple thousand dollars up front in addition to my raise, and my mind started racing through all of the possibilities.
“We can buy matching couches”
“Should we upgrade to a King Sized bed?”
“Maybe look at brand new patio furniture”
“What about a table, we need a kitchen table, we don’t have one”
“What about brand new dressers, the ones we have are old and shabby, surely my mom wants to keep them”
I started suggesting new furniture to my partner, and was getting a little frustrated that he wasn’t too keen on the idea, and was more content getting a couch slipcover for our current bright orange couch. I was getting frustrated that we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Normally I’m the one saying “Yeah, but do we really need it?” This time, he was chiming in with “We don’t really need to spend that money” and I am actually really proud of him food it. Good job sir, keep me in check with my own ideals!
Throughout the discussion, I turned away from the “I-must-buy-all-the-things” mentality, to a more “let’s see what we’re working with” approach. We identified multiple things we already had, or were offered which would work just fine.
We owned a couch, and were offered a second one. We could buy matching covers to protect them, and make them look nicer if we wanted, but didn’t need two brand new couches.
We needed a kitchen table, and there was one in the basement. Sure the legs had some doggie bite marks on them, and some of the chairs weren’t usable, but it was functional for our needs. We would just take that.
We needed clothing storage, we already owned dressers. We agreed to see what the closet space was like, and then see if we could use one of our current dressers to store the rest.
We wanted an Ikea cube style bookshelf to store some records, and then realized there was one left behind by my sister. If we packed up books that were left behind which didn’t need to be on there anyway since no one would be using the space, we could just take that bookshelf.
We met all of our needs by just looking around us, and accepting what we have. And now thanks to that, I instantly have an emergency fund, and am better suited to help start attacking my student loans once I graduate.
So another milestone, I will finally be taking in over 30k a year, which was a personal goal for graduating with my Bachelor’s degree. I did not want to still be making less than 30k a year with my B.A. With all of these good, wonderful things happening, the excitement set in. I’d be getting a couple thousand dollars up front in addition to my raise, and my mind started racing through all of the possibilities.
“We can buy matching couches”
“Should we upgrade to a King Sized bed?”
“Maybe look at brand new patio furniture”
“What about a table, we need a kitchen table, we don’t have one”
“What about brand new dressers, the ones we have are old and shabby, surely my mom wants to keep them”
I started suggesting new furniture to my partner, and was getting a little frustrated that he wasn’t too keen on the idea, and was more content getting a couch slipcover for our current bright orange couch. I was getting frustrated that we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Normally I’m the one saying “Yeah, but do we really need it?” This time, he was chiming in with “We don’t really need to spend that money” and I am actually really proud of him food it. Good job sir, keep me in check with my own ideals!
Throughout the discussion, I turned away from the “I-must-buy-all-the-things” mentality, to a more “let’s see what we’re working with” approach. We identified multiple things we already had, or were offered which would work just fine.
We owned a couch, and were offered a second one. We could buy matching covers to protect them, and make them look nicer if we wanted, but didn’t need two brand new couches.
We needed a kitchen table, and there was one in the basement. Sure the legs had some doggie bite marks on them, and some of the chairs weren’t usable, but it was functional for our needs. We would just take that.
We needed clothing storage, we already owned dressers. We agreed to see what the closet space was like, and then see if we could use one of our current dressers to store the rest.
We wanted an Ikea cube style bookshelf to store some records, and then realized there was one left behind by my sister. If we packed up books that were left behind which didn’t need to be on there anyway since no one would be using the space, we could just take that bookshelf.
We met all of our needs by just looking around us, and accepting what we have. And now thanks to that, I instantly have an emergency fund, and am better suited to help start attacking my student loans once I graduate.