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Why My Wife and I Have Money
By JLP | August 23, 2008
Last weekend, during our trip to San Antonio, my wife and I took a short drive up to San Marcos to check out their massive outlet mall. It is unbelievable how big their outlet center is. To top it off, last weekend was our tax-free back-to-school shopping weekend so LOTS of people were out shopping.
We had to drive all the way to the end of the mall in order to find a parking spot. The section of the mall where we parked was mostly higher-end stores that we weren’t famliar with. So, we decided to start with Neiman Marcus Last Call. We walked in and started looking around. My wife decided to check out the shoe department. She walked over and picked up a pair of sandals (basically, high heels with two small leather straps). The original price was something like $264 and Last Call had them marked down to $164. My wife said something like, “I would NEVER pay that much for something like that.” I agreed but didn’t say anything.
We continued to look around and saw a bunch of nice clothes but they were still out of our normal price range, which is relatively modest. After a while we decided to leave. As we were leaving, I told my wife, “This is why we have money.”
It’s true.
No, we aren’t rich but we are comfortable and it feels nice. There was a time not too long ago when our budget was tight. It’s not that way now and I like it!
We have never been the type of people to spend lots of money on clothes and stuff. We usually shop sales or just buy cheaper clothing. Now, it does help that my wife is an engineer and therefore typically wears company-provided clothing (Nomex). Not everyone has that “luxury.” I understand that. But, for us, it has been a blessing because my wife doesn’t have to spend a lot of money on office-type apparel.
Don’t get me wrong. We do like nice things. We spent a small fortune doing our kitchen/family room renovation last year and probably spent more money than we should have. In other words, we aren’t always cheap. But, it has been our relatively frugal day-to-day activities that have allowed us to spend more money on things like our renovation. That, coupled with our refusal to upgrade our lifestyle with every raise, are the main reasons we are in the best financial shape we have ever been in.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering—we did end up buying some stuff so we do have less money than we had before we visited the outlet mall. LOL!
Topics: Budgeting |