Feeling guilty about any NWR expenditure

cakemurderer · February 2015

Anyone else reach this point in the wedding planning process? I'm just starting out with my plans, have a vague idea of how much things around here will cost, and have started socking money away every paycheck so we can afford a halfway decent wedding next year. I've got a spreadsheet and everything to track our actual and projected savings and am confident we can stick to the plan. The only thing is that I'd love to save more. That extra cushion would make me feel so much better when those unexpected wedding expenses will undoubtedly arise. Now every time I want to buy something/go somewhere/do something that will cost money, I shy away from it because I think, "That's X amount of dollars that could go to the wedding fund instead."

Going to my cousin's wedding, which will count as a fun vacation this summer? There's $2k that could go into our wedding fund instead! That cute sweater at Target that would be a great addition to my wardrobe since my fat ass has grown out of most of my existing clothes? That's $20 that could go into savings instead. Friends want to go out bowling? That's $40 wasted. It probably doesn't help that usual life expenses like car repair and needing a new mattress have cropped up and gotten in the way. Damn you, life!

I suspect I'm going a little overboard with this, but I was raised never to go into debt for something other than a house, so I don't plan to start now with a wedding. Our finances are tight enough that we don't have a whole lot of disposable income once the bills are paid and money is put into savings (both for the wedding and the rainy day fund), so I do need to watch what we spend. That said, perhaps I need to loosen up a bit for my own sanity! Anyone else hit this roadblock?

blabla89 · February 2015

Yep. Even with little things like buying lunch because I forgot to pack one. I think wedding budget stress is part of it, but it's also just the way I am. Before I buy something I usually find myself thinking "but that's 3 bucks I could use on XYZ instead..."

It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a frustrating feeling. So I have nothing helpful to say except I'm right there with you.

climbingsingle · February 2015

Yup. For about a year up to the wedding, I hardly bought anything extra for myself.

cakemurderer · February 2015

blabla89 said:
Yep. Even with little things like buying lunch because I forgot to pack one. I think wedding budget stress is part of it, but it's also just the way I am. Before I buy something I usually find myself thinking "but that's 3 bucks I could use on XYZ instead..."

It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a frustrating feeling. So I have nothing helpful to say except I'm right there with you.

Oh yeah, I'm always like this to some degree too. I both blame and thank my mom for instilling that mentality! I think I almost gave myself dehydration on a family vacation in Charleston because I couldn't get over the guilt at spending money on a bottle of water while wandering around the city. In the middle of the day. In August. Yeah, convenience stores were not something my mom approved of.

novella1186 · February 2015

climbingwife said:
Yup. For about a year up to the wedding, I hardly bought anything extra for myself.

This. I went shopping with FSIL last weekend and didn't buy anything. There was tons of stuff I wanted, but money is tight right now and I know I don't NEED new clothes. She picked out some really cute stuff and was like "hey there's some good sweaters over there that are on sale!" It was kind of a bummer and kind of frustrating. I love shopping! My level of self-control actually surprised me.

And once all the wedding stuff is said and done, we'll be getting really serious about saving for our future house, so good thing I'm learning non-spending habits now. lol

OliveOilsMom · February 2015

One thing we did and still do when we are racheting down our spending is look for groupon or livingsocial vouchers where it will pretty much cover the full meal, we just need to pay for tips and taxes. It helps us go out on a budget, so it feels like you are living it up (to an extent), but are also saving money too.

Couggal12 · February 2015

This happened to me before I got married. I flew down to AZ for my cousin's graduation and had to spend money on a plane ticket, going out for food, entertainment, etc. I was lucky enough to stay with family so I didn't have hotel expenses but, still took a hit on the bank account.

I also didn't spend money on extra things like new clothes, shoes, and makeup. I did that for a good year before the wedding and it allowed for us to not put a single thing on a credit card (or if we did only for miles and then immediately paid the balance off). It was worth it to me.

novella1186 · February 2015

Couggal12 said:
This happened to me before I got married. I flew down to AZ for my cousin's graduation and had to spend money on a plane ticket, going out for food, entertainment, etc. I was lucky enough to stay with family so I didn't have hotel expenses but, still took a hit on the bank account.

I also didn't spend money on extra things like new clothes, shoes, and makeup. I did that for a good year before the wedding and it allowed for us to not put a single thing on a credit card (or if we did only for miles and then immediately paid the balance off). It was worth it to me.

I do have to say that the huge up-side to spending a ton for the wedding has been the miles. We got a Venture card right after we got engaged, and we put most of the stuff on that card and just pay it off. By the time we're done, we'll be able to take another trip to Europe lol. I highly recommend doing this!

STARMOON44 · February 2015

This is me just, normally? I don't see a problem with it. I've decided I would rather save more money and pay off student loans faster than I would go out for drinks every night or buy all the scarves. Sometimes it's hard, but I often decide I can't afford things because I have other plans for that money.

lovemesomemonster · February 2015

I'm right there with you! FI works his butt off for us to be comfortable with our savings, my paychecks are more than just bills but I am not able to stock away what he can.. I know he doesn't look at it this way but I feel guilty when I spend anything extra because I know how hard he works for us to have the extra!

cakemurderer · February 2015

novella1186 said: climbingwife said:Yup. For about a year up to the wedding, I hardly bought anything extra for myself.

This. I went shopping with FSIL last weekend and didn't buy anything. There was tons of stuff I wanted, but money is tight right now and I know I don't NEED new clothes. She picked out some really cute stuff and was like "hey there's some good sweaters over there that are on sale!" It was kind of a bummer and kind of frustrating. I love shopping! My level of self-control actually surprised me.
And once all the wedding stuff is said and done, we'll be getting really serious about saving for our future house, so good thing I'm learning non-spending habits now. lol

==============================

Go you! I'm very impressed. I like shopping too and we all know that a sale = good deal, right? Unless you don't actually need that sweater, that is. It's hard to have that kind of self control sometimes.

Edited because box FAIL.

lyndausvi · February 2015

Not during wedding planning. We had a pretty good savings and plan. Our spending habits didn't change much. Some big things we held off, but the day to day stayed the same.

However, we are very much like now we are wanting to buy a house. Housing is more expensive here so we need a bigger savings then what have.

DH is normally the spender. He loves to go out for meals on his days off. He has his little routine on the mountain when skiing on where to eat, which bartender to see, etc. Even he is dialing back to save faster.

We normally go out to dinner at least one of his 3 nights off. This week we stayed in every night. Big step for DH.

On my end, I work from home. So I'm not spending money on waters, drinks or lunch. I now pay more attention to sales at the grocery store and using coupons from the store's website. Not a coupon clipper (they are not in our paper anyway), but I do look at the online flyer and load coupons to my card. I'm second guessing some purchases. Like do I really need the 2 for 1 ice cream?

One benefit is I'm eating way better, losing weight and saving more money. Win, Win.

Couggal12 · February 2015

novella1186 said:

Couggal12 said:
This happened to me before I got married. I flew down to AZ for my cousin's graduation and had to spend money on a plane ticket, going out for food, entertainment, etc. I was lucky enough to stay with family so I didn't have hotel expenses but, still took a hit on the bank account.

I also didn't spend money on extra things like new clothes, shoes, and makeup. I did that for a good year before the wedding and it allowed for us to not put a single thing on a credit card (or if we did only for miles and then immediately paid the balance off). It was worth it to me.

I do have to say that the huge up-side to spending a ton for the wedding has been the miles. We got a Venture card right after we got engaged, and we put most of the stuff on that card and just pay it off. By the time we're done, we'll be able to take another trip to Europe lol. I highly recommend doing this!

Agreed. That's awesome you'll have enough for Europe! We still have enough to go somewhere on a trip for our 1 year anniversary.

abl13 · February 2015

We're saving for a house now and I'm the same way. My college roommate is getting married in Boston so we just booked our plane tickets and it was difficult for me to spend that much on something non-house related, especially since we won't actually be going for a couple months. It's good to be like that though, it really is surprising how much we can save when we're not buying coffee and lunch every day, etc.

theartistformerlyknownas · February 2015

I didn't really get there with wedding planning, honestly, but am moreso now with saving for a new house while also happening to be pregnant. I want to buy cute maternity clothes, and I often need to stop and get something to eat to fend off the queasies, and I always feel guilty about it.

I think it's important to just establish how much you need to save, make sure you save that amount, and then give yourself a little break some of the time. As long as you're meeting your goals, you shouldn't need to deprive yourself of EVERYTHING else. Otherwise you risk going on a spending bender and really going overboard.

amelisha · February 2015

We're having a tiny inexpensive wedding so that we didn't have to do this.

We want to buy a house soon, though, and I definitely think that way about house savings. We can't even get a little, un-renoed 1950s bungalow in our city for less than $400,000 so I have a pretty one-track mind about having the biggest down payment possible. We've got just about 20% now and so I'm super motivated to skip every extra possible, pretty much.

madamerwin · February 2015

STARMOON44 said:
This is me just, normally? I don't see a problem with it. I've decided I would rather save more money and pay off student loans faster than I would go out for drinks every night or buy all the scarves. Sometimes it's hard, but I often decide I can't afford things because I have other plans for that money.

This is me too. Sometimes I think about buying lunch at work, or going out to dinner, but I always end up packing lunch or going home to eat because I feel guilty about unnecessary spending (pretty sure I got this from my parents). FI, on the other hand, spends fast and freely, so I guess we balance each other out...

huskypuppy14 · February 2015

We bought our house 2 weeks before our wedding. So that was a lot of money spent in a short amount of time. We were not spending money on anything else big (we eat out a lot, but that's in our normal spending). We had the money in savings (plus our parent's contributions to our wedding), but it was more the depleting our savings accounts that made us nervous.

This is also why we did not go on an elaborate honeymoon. Now that we have replenished our savings I want to go on a big vacation, but my husband doesn't want to leave the dog.

thisismynickname2 · February 2015

I was more diligent about saving, but, I could not justify cutting other fun expenses just to save for a one-day party. I couldn't. We saved for the wedding, saved for the rainy day like usual, and kept a usual discretionary budget, but I felt no guilt still socializing at usual. Heck, who's coming to your wedding if you neglect your friends to pay for your wedding?

[Deleted User] · February 2015

I saved for the wedding before I was proposed to. I went through the same thing. And right now we're trying to build an emergency fund and pay down Fiance'so cc, so I'm scrutinizing everything. I just bought a $2.50 hot dog for my train ride home because I missed lunch today and we're not eating until 9 when fiance gets home- felt so gulity.

I'm usually good about building in a little spending cash but that guilt got to me today.

kvruns · February 2015

I'm just this way in general, I hate spending money because I forgot my lunch or didn't plan well. FI is the opposite and is all about eating out especially on days he works from home (which makes no sense when I type that out!). Fortunately we are having a very low budget wedding and my parents are paying for about 2/3 of it so no spending changes but even then we have enough in our accounts to pay for it anyway.

lyndausvi · February 2015

kvruns said:
I'm just this way in general, I hate spending money because I forgot my lunch or didn't plan well. FI is the opposite and is all about eating out especially on days he works from home (which makes no sense when I type that out!). Fortunately we are having a very low budget wedding and my parents are paying for about 2/3 of it so no spending changes but even then we have enough in our accounts to pay for it anyway.

I get it. I work from home. There are times where I like to go out and eat just to get out of the house and interact with someone other the dogs (or people on the phone). Those days are mostly when DH is working 7 days a week and missing all meals at home.

kvruns · February 2015

lyndausvi said:

kvruns said:
I'm just this way in general, I hate spending money because I forgot my lunch or didn't plan well. FI is the opposite and is all about eating out especially on days he works from home (which makes no sense when I type that out!). Fortunately we are having a very low budget wedding and my parents are paying for about 2/3 of it so no spending changes but even then we have enough in our accounts to pay for it anyway.
I get it. I work from home. There are times where I like to go out and eat just to get out of the house and interact with someone other the dogs (or people on the phone). Those days are mostly when DH is working 7 days a week and missing all meals at home.

Your reason makes sense, and I am the same when I work at home I want to get out. FI is happy being alone and not interacting with anyone so he isn't doing to for socialization. He just wants to eat out haha

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