Saving Money is Addicting
Somewhere along the line, saving money moved from being a constant struggle to a fun addiction. Once I reached the point of making saving for various things a habit, something magical happened. Saving up money became fun. Addicting, even.
As time goes on, I find more and more things to save up money for. Which isn’t to say that I’ve become a miser — on the contrary, I’m spending more money now than I even made at all for several years. And the short-term savings does get spent — it just gets spent in a lump sum on fun and memorable things that I look forward to, instead of in dribs and drabs on little things that are soon forgotten.
How did this happen? It became easier and easier to save up money because I changed how I did it. When we get paid, I immediately send off money to various savings accounts. It’s the very first thing I do. That isn’t the big change though, because I’ve always tried to save using that method.
What’s changed is that the money is now designated for specific purposes. It’s not just earmarked for them, it’s strictly for them. It’s a shift in attitude. I no longer think “well but if things get desperate we could always use that money” in the back of my head. Why? Because we already have money set aside for emergencies. That money is held separately, and it too is only for the one purpose.
Plus it’s a lot more fun to know that if you put money in an account for a trip, that you really will use it for that trip. Knowing that it won’t get conscripted for some other, less pleasant thing, gives me a greater incentive to save. So much so that saving money has become addicting.