I Am Not the Status Quo

Today, I sat in a meeting regarding “Sequestration” and the impact it will have on my paycheck. In that moment, I remembered exactly why I wanted to try my hand at “No Frills March”. I am angered to the core by many facets of this sequestration, but I believe the two things that anger me the most are that people are uneducated about the repercussions of this and act like it’s “no big deal”, and that I am being punished for the mistakes and poor financial management of the people who run this country. I manage my money, well, and always have, so why do I have to pick up the slack because no one in an elected position can figure it out?

For those who are not directly impacted by sequestration, brace yourselves. You will be. Follow the logic – I’m losing 20% of my paycheck, therefore I have less money to spend, therefore I don’t go to local businesses, therefore they have to cut back on the number of employees, therefore more people are out of a job collecting unemployment benefits. Why is this so hard for someone who makes 10x’s my salary to understand?

I can do one of two things, I can sit around being angry, or I can try to turn this into something positive. I’ve chosen to do the latter. While I do have moments of sheer anger, like the last hour of my life, I’m embracing this opportunity. Fortunately for me, I was taught how to manage money. It’ll be hard for me, but I’ll be okay. My main goal is to continue building my savings. In order to do that, I must give up some of the things that I tend to take for granted. This is where No Frills March comes in. Since my paycheck won’t be impacted until around May, I have some time to practice going without. I have some time to strengthen my willpower to say “no” to something I think I might like to have. Do I need to go out to eat? No. There’s bread and peanut butter at home.

This week has been challenging. Not so much in the fact that I’ve not been able to go out and buy things, because I’ve bought nothing frivolous. I’ve spent the week having quiet conversations with myself. For instance, yesterday I was planning to go home and get right to work cleaning the house and doing some laundry. I decided I did not want to spend my time cooking dinner. I had two choices: Captain D’s $4.99 Fish Stick dinner with corn and green beans (Yum!) or a grilled cheese and a can of campbell’s soup. Dilemma: I didn’t have bread. After a conversation with myself, I opted to go to Dollar General and buy a loaf of bread (because it would feed me more than once, which is all I’d get from Captain D’s). Once inside, I see my favorite bread “Nature’s Own” at $2.85 a loaf. I look down to the bottom shelf where I see the “Dollar General Brand” at $1.50 a loaf. I opted for the lower cost loaf of bread. Shocker, it didn’t kill me when I ate it. So rather than spending $5 on a Captain D’s dinner, I spent $1.50 on a loaf of bread that I can use to eat 5+ times.

Another scenario I’ve encountered this week, I use Neutrogena Mineral Powder. And go figure, I ran out. Now, it’s anywhere from $10-13 depending on where you buy it. I used every single bit of it I could get out of the container, but I still did NOT want to part with that money. Low and behold, in my makeup drawer, I find some Bare Minerals makeup that I used a while back and “didn’t really like it”… guess what? I like it now. Two fold, it’s good makeup, and it was essentially “free” since I didn’t have to go out and purchase it. So, I opted to keep the $10+ in my pocket and use what was available. Again, just another example of the mental conversations I have with myself.

Yet another – I posted on my facebook that I was ready for Saturday and my cut/color. Someone asked me if that was something “required to live”. The answer is no. However, I get a haircut/color once every ten weeks. That’s about $10 a week that I save for 10 weeks for this purpose. I always budget for a haircut. However, in this pay period (two weeks), I will have saved enough money by not buying frivolous things that I don’t need to use the money I’ve saved for the last ten weeks. So any way I slice it, I feel like I’ve saved $100.

It all comes down to finding the willpower to say “no” and to know what you really need and what you don’t. There are some things that will be harder to give up than others, but this is a lesson in simplicity for me. I realize that many people live on far less than I do, with far more mouths to feed. Some do it because they want to, some do it because they have to. For me, I’m just me. Trying to do what I have to do to lay a solid foundation for a financially secure future in an economy that, I believe, will be unstable for many, many years. So, some people might think I’m crazy for essentially volunteering to live with less when I don’t necessarily have to. I’m okay with that. Being financially aware and living below my means isn’t the status quo – kind of makes me feel “not normal” sometimes, but I’m okay with that. This little “experiment” and a change in lifestyle have the potential to teach me to embrace simplicity, to love my life for what it is rather than what I can buy. Buying things I don’t need isn’t a “happiness requirement”. The people around me, the choices I’ve made for my life, the smile that crosses my face when I wake up every morning, those are the things that make me happy.