A Road Less Travelled

 I heard a story once about a preschool that had a nicely fenced in play yard for the children. They had this brilliant idea that if they took down the fence it would encourage the children to explore and open their horizons. So they took down the fence, and instead of playing in the whole yard as they used to, the children all clumped together in the middle where it felt safer. As I recall they put the fence back up.

I’ve just realized that my budget is a lot like a fence. I’ve always assumed it was there to keep me in reasonable boundaries and prevent me from overspending. But, while this is a very useful function it does serve, there’s something else it does that might be even more useful for me. My budget gives me permission to spend money on things I’ve budgeted for.

I keep starting to freak out because I feel like I’ve spent a lot of money over the past few weeks. And between some good deals I found online recently, thrift-storing (yes, I just verbed ‘thrift store’–deal with it) to find some needed clothes for my summer wardrobe, and splurging on an fancy restaurant one evening with Gabrielle (which we’d planned beforehand and saved up for, and also probably deserves a write-up of it’s own, if only to review the restaurant), I suppose it’s true that I’ve spent a lot of money.

A part of my brain keeps spluttering at me that I’m spending far too much money, and no one cares if these are all good and reasonable purchases, the point is the final price tag! But then I look at my budget and all the money that’s been building up in various categories because I ‘didn’t want to spend too much money’. Am I still within budget? “Well, yes,” that part of my brain splutters, “but, but…”

“Good,” says the rest of my brain, “so shut up already.” Aren’t boundaries great?