Comments on: Which do you enjoy more: SAVING or SPENDING?

By: Link Love: Catching up edition | Move to Portugal

Link Love: Catching up edition | Move to Portugal — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 06:57:28 +0000

[...] Which do you enjoy more: Saving or Spending? at Budget’s Are $exy [...]

By: J. Money

J. Money — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:41:36 +0000

What a beautiful world it would be not to have to sleep!

By: Ely

Ely — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:38:26 +0000

I definitely prefer saving. I love watching my balances grow! Spending is more of a “have to” kind of thing; if I could get what I needed and do what I wanted without spending, that would be awesome. Kind of like not having to sleep. :D

By: J. Money

J. Money — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:23:24 +0000

@tj – Hey, savings is savings! And I hear ya on the getting bored part, I tend to go down that route too at times ;)
@Early Retirement Extreme – Yeah, that is awesome. I really need to start researching more investing stuff down the road. I’m GREAT at maxing out 401k and Roth, but I’m sure I’m not invested 100% smartly. Although I’m cool w/ being 80% good too ;)

By: Early Retirement Extreme

Early Retirement Extreme — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:37:50 +0000

Oh, that’s very easy to answer; SAVING!

Saving correlates well with one of my primary values.

Conversely, spending is completely anticorrelated with several of my values: independence, self-sufficiency, competence. Spending means I lack the competence to construct my own solution and it means I need to depend on others.

I guess it’s a blessing that the money stuff I earned while I was earning could be invested. Otherwise, I frankly wouldn’t really have known what to do with it. Granted, there are a few things I still haven’t figured out how to avoid spending money on. I’m working on that though.

By: tj

tj — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:46:11 +0000

Re: the 47%, to be fair, I did receive a hefty tax refund this year due to the 1st time homebuyer credit…. but my monthly bills for the so-called ‘necessities’ (mortgage, hoa, gas/water, tv/internet) is still probably under 30% of my gross, so its easy to save.

Plus, I just started socking 15% away into 401k when I became eligible, which I don’t keep track of in my budget)

life’s cheap when your single (even on the west coast!), but I do get bored a lot..need some new (free!) hobbies!

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:31:58 +0000

This was fun to read :) A few responses –

@ctreit – “I wonder if we should call it “delayed spending” rather than saving” That’s a very good way to look at it, sir. It’s true, we will usually spend it at some point! :) But saving for 40 years is still being filed under “saving” in my books.
@Tiffany – Nothing new in my 9-5 stuff…still waiting for everything to be finalized so we can move on. This limbo time blows.
@Greg McFarlane – hmm….I guess I’ll agree with you for a majority of that. I know plenty of people who go to the gym to listen to music on hit on girls, so they def. enjoy that ;) But I see your point. All about proportions.
@Michael Manfredi – Just turned 30 my man. Not sure what you’re counting as “older” but it seems to me that you earn MORE and spend LESS as time goes on, once you’ve figured out how to work it. If you’re talking about retirement ages though, then yeah – def. bringing home less at that point.
@One Frugal Girl – I like the way you think :)

@Jenn – I TOTALLY hear you on that “if I spend X now, that means losing X later” type mentality – doesn’t that suck? I wouldn’t have it any other way cuz *knowing* and reflecting on this information is very very good, but I do miss the days of willy nilly spending and being naive about the whole thing ;) I’m impressed you guys track this so much though! Not many people can pull that off.

@Molly On Money – “purchasing toilet paper made me feel queesy” – hahahaaha….wow, ya just never know what you’re gonna find in these comments are ya ;)
@tj – 47%?! Damn, that is great! Mad impressive.
@Broke by Choice – “purposeful” spender and saver, I like that. Being conscious of your decisions is always good :)
@finallygettingtoeven.com – Haha, I hear that. If I stopped traveling I’d be a lot more wealthier too. But then all I’d want to do is go spend it on traveling! haha…

By: Jenna

Jenna — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:18:54 +0000

I only enjoy spending if I can afford it…which means that I had to SAVE for it first! Spending outside my means = credit card debt or having to take money away from other things I’m saving for (like retirement or a vacation). So, I get more gratification from saving than spending. I love seeing that savings account balance go up knowing that I’m one step closer to that awesome vacation!!

By: Game Night | Weekend Links

Game Night | Weekend Links — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:52:36 +0000

[...] Money talks poses the question: Which do you enjoy more: Saving or Spending? I think I used to enjoy spending much more, but these days it’s saving that gives me [...]

By: finallygettingtoeven.com

finallygettingtoeven.com — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:34:53 +0000

I used to enjoy spending tremendously in my younger years. I looked at it as a challenge to find great deals. Now that I am getting ‘old’ I don’t even care about the challenges. I actually hate to spend anymore, except for travel. I love travel.