The past few months have been a nightmare for my budget: not only had I been preparing for a challenging backpacking trip for which I basically wrote myself a blank check, but I have also been preparing to change some critical parts on my car, and have been buying those parts and tools for them like crazy.
It is just insane to me how the mind works. I’ve been cannibalizing the travel fund I had built for up this year, and over time this has been eroded to almost nothing as all of my budget excesses have nibbled away at it. How has this happened? How have I spent so much money? It feels like I can barely make it a week before buying something. I feel dizzy and sick from the whole endeavor.
Stuff begets stuff. I think this is one of the most important things in personal finance. The more cars you have, the more that needs to be maintained. The more things you want to change on your car, the more tools you typically need to do so. The more rooms you have, the more you tend to fill them. The more game consoles you have, the more games there are to buy. The more kitchen utensils you own, the more you feel you need to buy the food that gets cooked with them. The more computers you have around the house, the more they need upgrades or repairs. The more adventures you want to go on, the more gear you need. On and on and on!
It makes me sick to my stomach, but let me tell you about today.
I took today off from work, and this morning it randomly occurred to me: I’ve never opened the case to my laptop! I figured it probably had an extra slot for memory, which would be awesome to install. After all, when running a virtual machine, my computer sometimes slows to a crawl, so doubling the memory would be a great, cheap way to upgrade this, right? While I was at it, I “needed” to find a better headset for work, so I thought today might be a great day to drive to Microcenter, but something didn’t feel right about this. I probably wasted an hour debating, but “treating” yourself to a trip to Microcenter is a money-losing proposition. I don’t actually “need” a new headset, it would just be nice, and I haven’t done enough research to figure out which headset would be best. Also, the memory issue only just occurred to me today, and I’m very distrusting toward last-minute desires. Moreover, the drive to Microcenter and back would have taken at least an hour total, and I would have been tempted to look at some of the cool computer parts while I was there. I’d have been driving all the way across town for these things, likely spending well over $100 on a whim, and having nothing really to show for this except an additional negative entry for my September budget. Was I crazy???
But there’s more. As part of the upcoming part replacements on my car, I’ll need to separate my axles from their hubs, and when I put them back together again, I will need to torque the nuts to about 220 ft-lbs. The problem is I don’t have a torque wrench that goes that high. But I can buy one for $80! Hasn’t that been on my list of things to buy? Well, yes, but you can usually rent one of those for free. Have I not done this before? Bought fancy tools that only saw action for one job, or sometimes not even that?
It also crossed my mind that it might be nice to replace the oil filler cap, which is a bit seepy. Oh, and maybe the radiator cap, too, just in case? Oh, and am I sure I don’t want to change my wheel bearings, too? Wouldn’t it be easier to change those with everything else?
Hundreds of dollars. Hundreds of dollars! This stuff adds up. It’s stupid. I started really feeling all the forces pulling inside of me, then got angry and started thinking about writing this.
Right now, I’m doing pretty good saying no to the torque wrench. After all, I have a very reliable one that goes to 150 ft-lbs (I use it all the time), but the only things on this entire car that I know go beyond 125 ft-lbs (the crankshaft pulley bolt), are the axle nuts. If I spent $80 on a torque wrench with a higher limit of 250 ft-lbs, I would basically be using it for replacing axle nuts and absolutely nothing else. “But I have the money!” You do have the money, but you also have control issues. You can walk to the parts store and rent the tool when you need it. Don’t leave $80 of ‘tool’ sitting in the garage wasting space like those other tools you bought last year. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes, dummy!
The headset can wait. Mine still works, it’s just annoying. The one I looked at was also $80, imagine that. Doesn’t mean I can’t buy a better one, it’s just that the greater of a hurry you’re in, the more likely you are to make poor decisions with money. I have absolutely no reason to believe that the wheel bearings on my car are going bad. I already have enough to change right now, but if my current car is near 200,000 miles and my previous car made it to 250,000 miles without needing new wheel bearings or a new thermostat, calm the fuck down and worry about it when it becomes a real issue. I probably will buy the memory for my computer (it’s like $30), but I can order it online sometime, wait, and not drive all the way across town just to “treat” myself to an emptier wallet. I think it’s just good practice to avoid going to stores if you don’t have a compelling reason to go to them. I like having a car, but they’re easy to take advantage of, and they make it all too easy to make bad decisions when you can so easily drive all over the place and buy all of the things.
It occurs to me that checklists are dangerous and are sometimes a key driver of my desire to go out and buy things. After all, if it’s on the checklist, I need it right? And if I do it now, that’s one less thing on the checklist, right?
My backpacking trip went well, but 35 pounds on my back for 28 miles was rough, so I’m contemplating what I can do next time to reduce this. I’ve proven to myself that backpacking is indeed something I enjoy (with caveats), so I’ll be keeping my eyes open for a deal on that $400 ultralight pack I’ve been wanting. But even then, that’s even more money to spend!
I just wish I could shut it all off! I’ve had that before, when there’s really nothing to desire that doesn’t fit into the monthly budget, and those days were glorious. But these days, just when I think I’ve got everything I want, something else crops up. It helps to have gotten rid of so much stuff, but that doesn’t spare me from the things that are still relevant to my hobbies and interests. Can’t imagine paying for some of these other hobbies out there. If you think backpacking is expensive, you ain’t seen nothin’!
I’m just freaked out by how pressured I felt earlier today. I was pretty close to going, too, but the sirens were going off in my brain.
One of my goals is to get this under control: to either get better at delaying gratification or structuring things in such a way that unexpected spending is less likely to occur in the first place. I guess I’m still saving a lot of money, but it’s just stupid how many things I’m still finding to buy. My “natural frugality” only goes so far, and the danger to having a lot saved is that it’s easy to write yourself that “blank check” I mentioned earlier: “I’m doing this, budget be damned!”
Stuff begets stuff. You’ve really got to be careful what you focus on and why.