Save First Buy Later

From Marie

We’re happy, and even though there are things that we want, we know that we don’t NEED them, and by the time we have the money saved up for whatever it is, we usually forget about it. So far the neighborhood that we’re looking at seems to be very nice. But even if it doesn’t work out, lo and behold, there’s a home for sale in my old neighborhood.

 

Marie makes a good point. We talk about the many benefits of saving for things but one thing that many of us don’t realize is that, by taking our time to save for it, we often realize we don’t need it and didn’t really want it that bad. Also when I take the time to shop around more I can find a much better deal too.

This idea is essentially going home and sleeping on it (not literally of course : )) before you buy it. By the next day or couple of days your need to have it has probably faded some.

 I’m not sure why it is but when you diligently save for something you seem to appreciate it more than if you charge it and spend several months or years paying it off. I wonder if the burden of trying to pay for something and worrying whether you will be able to pay that debt each month takes away some of the pleasure of the thing. Compare that to the opposite which is working very hard and sacrificing much to get your “prize”.

This could be why people who pay “cash” for their things seem to enjoy them more. When a person buys something on credit, there’s a burden associated with it. Maybe this is why they don’t enjoy it as much as they expected which starts a cycle – because they are not satisfied with what they bought they buy more hoping the next thing will satisfy but then the dissatisfaction is worse because there is more burden (debt) so they buy more to try to satisfy……

This could be part of the reason why a society who has so much to be thankful for is so unhappy.

      -Jill

 

photo by: valeriebb