I’m the opposite of a compulsive spender. I have a hard time spending money on myself. Whether it’s on a new kitchen appliance, a new dress, or a plane ticket to New York, spending a big chunk of money is something that is not intrinsically comfortable to me. It takes a lot of self-coaxing for me to take the spending plunge, even if it is for something as mundane as a long-overdue haircut or a massage therapist appointment for my aching back.
It turns out that I’m not alone. According to a national survey in the Journal of Consumer Research two years ago, tightwads outnumber spendthrifts by a ratio of three to two. And considering that the ongoing recession is not going to end anytime soon, decreasing your expenses is certainly not a bad idea.
That being said, there’s a difference between comfortably living within your means and obsessively depriving yourself of occasional splurges out of a chronic paranoia of becoming poor. Or between practicing sound personal-finance skills and having the inability to enjoy something for yourself because you’re constantly worried about providing for your family and loved ones.
Why do we feel guilty about spending money on ourselves?
In the personal-finance self-help classic The Nine Steps To Financial Freedom, author Suze Orman asserts that our current money personality is very heavily influenced by our childhood upbringing and our parents’ attitudes toward money. If, for example, you grew up in a low-income household watching your parents struggle every day to make ends meet, you may achieve financial success in your adult years but still feel uncomfortable spending money on yourself out of guilt of being frivolous or excessive.
Reasons you may feel guilty about spending money on yourself:
- Low self-esteem. You feel you don’t deserve to treat yourself because you’re not worth it.
- No identity outside of being a provider for others. You’re so consumed by providing for others, you forget or overlook the fact that you need to take care of yourself first.
- Guilt over being more financially stable than your peers.
- General recession anxiety. Many of us are experiencing this. How can we be comfortable with spending money when we can possibly lose our jobs at the drop of a hat with no forewarning?
