When I was four, my parents bought me Barbie dolls on the regular from Toys R Us. I’m pretty sure that I had dozens upon dozens of Barbies, even ones that I stripped of their clothes and chopped off their hair. Yeah, I was that kind of owner. I have no regrets. I still keep and use things until they are literally falling apart, ripped and town beyond repair. But, I still remember how much each one averaged out to be in the store: $19.99. With sales tax, because this is America and no purchase is complete without adding another six to eight percent onto your total, obviously.
In one of my recent posts and in a lot of my writing, if you have caught onto it, I talk a lot about money. My love-hate relationship with money was cultivated as I grew up. I’ve been the girl who had and the girl who lacked. As I’m sure many of us all have. We’ve all been in tough spots and really amazing spots when it comes to finances. It’s hard pressed these days to find someone who hasn’t struggled somewhat in that department. In the moment, I hated every second of lacking money. But you know, even dollar signs and infuriating price tags help you build character.
There’s very little that separates those who have and those who lack in my mind, other than the amount of zeros in my bank account. Let me present you with a scenario: there are two families of four living in the exact same town, making the same amount of money. One family–we’ll call them the Smith family–live in a beautiful four bedroom house on the lake and have three newish cars. They are happy and go on vacations every year. The second family–let’s call them the Owen family–live in two bedroom apartment and have one car to their name. They don’t remember the last time they went on vacation, but spend every night at the dinner table together no matter what happens that day or week.
So which would you rather be? I think most people would want vacations, more assets, and more space. And it’s totally okay. It’s also totally fine if you chose the apartment, too. We all prefer different situations for ourselves. But, I must ask you: if you chose the big house and vacation laced decades to come, would you change your mind if you were in debt, tens of thousands of dollars from failed business ventures and the like? If you owed the bank half a million dollars for your house? If you owed Jeep thousands of dollars for your newest vehicle purchase?
At the end of the day, both of them have struggles of their own. But would you rather struggle with a large sum of debt with lots of things or have little to your name, knowing you’re living within your means with less debt? We spend our early adult years paying off university, thinking that going back to graduate school is actually the answer to it all, to making more money for ourselves but we spend more to make more. We tack on more and more debt, incurring mortgages and credit card debt on top of what we have been paying off since we were twenty-two and change. So, I guess my big question I have also been asking myself is this: why do we need the big fancy house and cars if we can’t afford it? When did our happiness begin and end with what we have in our possession and to our name?
