While spending the last week in Seattle, I realized that I've been pushing myself too hard to not do anything fun. By that, I mean that I've been unwilling to spend a lot of money made from my regular day job to do stuff. I decided early in the year that I wanted to save half of my take-home pay. Me, the guy who used to bust out the plastic with complete disregard for how I'd pay it off. In setting this goal, I've endured a self-imposed ban on doing things I enjoy.
Two things have caused me to abandon that goal. The first is that I have crappy health insurance, and I've had to pay a whole lot out of pocket to cover the costs. Between Simon's pneumonia and Diana's shoulder issues, I'm well on my way to hitting the deductible. I never realized how good I had it with previous insurance. This issue makes it hard to hit the 50% goal without giving up everything else that might be interesting and fun. The second issue is that it took until September to realize that we just haven't done much in the way of travel. The trips we have taken we probably wouldn't have if it weren't for family encouraging us to do so (which by the way means we have good family).
Now, I've made two decisions. Revise the savings goal to 40%, and stop being such a stingy dick about doing fun stuff. It's time to let go.
So we're doing fun stuff that ranges from a cruise, to Disney World, to weekends away. I don't win any awards for staying home all of the time while Simon plays with his abacus and Diana knits a sweater. I don't know where I get this feeling that I should just be satisfied with being a responsible adult doing the same damn thing every day.
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