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HomeHelp MeI'm bored.

I’m bored.

While talking with Girl Ninja the other night, I uttered four words I thought I would never say. I. Like. Big. Elbows. Just kidding, that’s now what I said. What I really said was “I’m sick of saving.” ::GASP:: I probably just lost half my readers after declaring such a blasphemous statement, but it’s true, I’m sick of saving!

Usually, I’m obsessed with saving money. It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up, and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep. Okay, not really, but it IS always on my mind. I’ve been known to make spreadsheets that tell me exactly how much I’ll be able to save over the course of a year. I also love updating my net worth after I’ve been able to throw a couple grand in to my ING account.

But for at least this week, I’m over it. It just doesn’t sound appealing to me. Ya wanna know what does sound appealing though? A new bike. A 3-day vacation somewhere cool (Canada perhaps?). Giving a few thousand dollars to some random charity. Or investing $2,000 in some tiny start-up company I’ve never heard of. There is nothing interesting about the 1% yield my online savings account earns me, but there are a lot of interesting things that come with bike rides, vacations, charity work, and taking risks. Risk = Fun. Saving = Boring.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’m a personal finance blogger. At the end of the day, I’ll probably just end up putting our excess cash flow in the bank. But don’t judge me if I randomly decide to go out and buy 12 goats named David this weekend. Sometimes spontaneity is a good thing.

Do you ever get bored of paying off debt, saving for retirement, etc? Do you cave to the boredom or persevere and keep on truckin’? If you weren’t allowed to save any money (or pay down debts) next month, what would you do with it? Am I crazy?

Happy weekend.

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27 COMMENTS

  1. I’m right there with you. Money does burn a hole in one’s pocket. Now that I’ve stopped shopping for a new house, I’ve been looking to remodel the one we have now. New flooring, paint, and appliances should fit the bill. Besides eating out and going to the movies, expensive fun stuff, I’ve added gambling to the mix! Like you said risk = fun LOL! Good thing my gambling is limited to a few pulls of the Megabucks slots a month because I know gambling is basically a losing proposition. But you cannot win if you don’t play. The money that I do gamble with is very discretional. I generally abhor gambling, but at a 1% savings interest rate, I need to find something a bit more exciting 🙂

  2. I just started grad school in another state, and I’m struggling to adjust (at least mentally) to a new budget that’s about half of what it was before. I’ve had quite a few large irregular or unplanned expenses in the last few months (car repairs, medical tests, schoolbooks, plane tickets, moving expenses, new insurance policies, etc) that have meant that I’m not where I wanted to be savings-wise for this point in the year, though I have saved some. With the new smaller cashflow, I feel like I am continually pressuring myself to not spend on certain wants, or even sort-of needs.

    Current dilemma is whether to reduce my planned 401k contribution to the company match level (4%) from my current 10% to free up some cash flow for my Roth at the end of the year. If I leave it alone, I’ll probably have to dip a little into my savings for things like plane tickets home for Christmas. I know I’m in a good spot overall, so I just need to keep reminding myself to be thankful and not to get anxious about it. I think you and GN are in a good position right now, so you have some room for an occasional splurge to keep from getting saving fatigue and throwing in the towel on all your goals.

    And the mental image of 12 goats all named David in your new apartment just made my day. That would be chaos!

  3. Savings-it is a means to an end, not the end. I, too, had my moments of burnout. I found I just had to set it in the back burner. Auto-draft to my savings/brokerage accounts just like auto-paying bills. Forced myself to not check the balances (or the financial blogs) but once a month to reconcile and chart. Made it magical and fun again instead of obsessing 90 ways to China.
    If you fall off the “american dream” mentality of wanting to buy your own money pit [wish I did!], you can always buy in some good yielding stocks. Don’t do it with cash you are planning on spending soon, but I am earning an average of 7% on dividends. Since it’s dividends I don’t care about the stock gyrations, though I do care about the individual company’s cash flow.

  4. I heart you think Canada’s cool; come up to The Great White North and spend some Benjamins!! I think it’s beyond awesome that you and GN are saving while you’re still so young; you’ll have plenty of opportunities to spend your $ when you buy your first home and Baby Ninjas start arriving! Until then, keep saving, but remember to have a little fun in the process… perhaps start with only buying 6 goats named David 😉

  5. To answer your questions,

    Do you ever get bored of paying off debt, saving for retirement, etc?
    Yes. I’m bored right now, paying $1000/month toward debt sucks major hairy balls.

    Do you cave to the boredom or persevere and keep on truckin’?
    I keep on trucking, don’t have much choice! Also, if I took a break or stopped for a month, I would go crazy with all that extra money and may never be able to get back to paying it down.

    If you weren’t allowed to save any money (or pay down debts) next month, what would you do with it?
    What would I do with $1500 per month (debt payment and retirement savings) if I couldn’t save it? Perhaps I would “sort of” save it – buy a plane ticket to Europe one month, buy the hotel reservation the month after, a fancy camera the month after that, unless I could short term save, which I would do for a couple months and then buy said trip to Europe.

    Am I crazy?
    Very likely.

  6. We get like this from time to time so we have kind of developed a neat little system… When we get a little blue on saving, we save for a want instead and get something new. It could be a bike, a TV, or something simple like a video game or getting my nails done.

    I have learned the hard way if you deprive yourself you only end up blowing up later.

    We are tightening our belts until the end of the year to max out my Roth IRA… but our reward is our christmas trip to Utah. If we can max out the roth and be good for a few months, we get to blow an entire paycheck in Utah! Its those little deals we make that make everything work well for us (so far at least)

  7. Being able to have enough in savings so that you can splurge once in a while is important. Life is all about balance!

  8. In the last 2 years we’ve spent very little on extras beyond covering our basic needs.
    In the next year, we are putting most of our savings plans on hold and spending some major cash… for stuff that we’ve been putting off for far too long! In total, we will likely spend $6500 on various life stuff between now and next summer. In one way it causes me stress to think that we won’t have that money added tp our emergency fund, however, what’s the point of living if you aren’t actually living???

  9. TOTALLY! You have to loosen the purse strings sometimes and live a little. I got my bonus today, and instead of putting 100% into savings like normal, I am going to spend some a want that I have put off for years – an ipod. Of course I can’t deviate from PF principles & get a brand new one, I’m getting a current generation nano refurb to save about $50.

  10. I don’t know if it’s sick of saving, per se. I do have periods of time (about once every two years it seems) that I throw up my hands and declare “I’m tired of being responsible!” The feelings usually lasts about a month and they are typically the result of build up of a lot of things (people walking away from loans and getting new ones the very next day, people quitting their jobs to get entitlements from the state, people in debt way up to their eyeballs with way cooler cell phones than me).
    So I spend the month trying to be irresponsible. Rack up some debt or something over the edge like that. Usually what ends up happening is I get a couple new movies/games/cds, some new clothes, a few down-the-road weekend getaways and a couple really nice dinners. I don’t end up in debt, but I lose a month of savings usually.

  11. By the way, “A new bike. A 3-day vacation somewhere cool (Canada perhaps?). Giving a few thousand dollars to some random charity. Or investing $2,000 in some tiny start-up company I’ve never heard of.” would be great ways to blow money if you think you can do it without feeling guilty later.

  12. The chances of finding 12 goats named David is really slim, so I’d put my money in some dividend yielding stocks instead.

  13. Yes, yes, yes. I’m totally bored with paying off debt right now. But the more I pay off, the sooner I can do more stuff I actually want to do. Darn responsibility. Darn delayed gratification.

  14. I definitely feel like I have traded off a certain degree fun and sponanity for financial peace of mind. But for me it was a good trade. I never get stomach aches or stay up nights worrying about paying the bills anymore and that is PRICELESS. I did set up a sunny day fund though so if I see a cute goat (or a dozen) I am totally allowed to indulge! A girl’s gotta have some fun afterall.

  15. Is Sept. not your 3-check month? Take that sucker and call it BONUS CASH!

    You’ve got to do a little spending to remember why it’s worth all the saving – it feeeels so goooood.

  16. You’re definitely not crazy; these things happen! Once you get into the groove of saving money, and you’ve gone so long without splurging, you miss it. Get yourself a bike and take a vacation. You & Girl Ninja deserve it.

  17. It happens, sometimes I just get bored myself but it disappears mostly. I always discover something new. Sometimes all you need to do is open a new savings account or find some new way to invest your money.

  18. Do I get bored of saving, paying off debt, etc.? I don’t get bored, but I do get frustrated, particularly with debt, because it seems like foreverness. I get resentful that I put myself in that position, and sometimes through a temper tantrum. Thankfully, BF is very understanding.

    Do I cave in or persevere? Depends on the situation. For every credit card I pay off, I take the next months minimum payment and do something with it. For saving for the heck of saving, for every five months I put aside the allotted amount, I take 25% of the next months amount and do something fun with it (allows it to be done in one calendar year). But if I’m saving for a specific purpose, like right now, then it’s guns ahoy.

    What would I do if I weren’t allowed to save for one month? Go on a 3-5 day vacation with BF. I just started my own business this year and I’ve taken exactly one day off, which I spent helping prepare for a wedding. I’d love to get out of town for a few days and turn the phones, emails, everything, off. Quite frankly, I’m still trying to plan this to preserve what’s left of my sanity.

  19. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to splurge every so often. And buying a bike can be frugal – especially if you use it to run short errands, you save on gas and wear and tear of your car. See, buying something can actually be good for you! 😉

  20. Can’t say I get bored with saving. More like bored with paying off debt. I want it to be done already. It’s not exciting at all. ‘Lucky’ for me, Murphy’s Law seems to take effect more often than I would like and forces me to spend money to fix something. 🙁

  21. Feel free to spontaneously donate your excess cash flow to the Red Wants Out of Debt fund. It’s a charity everyone should support! 😉

    I would totally take a bunch of weekend trips next month if I wasn’t allowed to pay off my debt!

    I wrote a post on GRB not too long before I took a blogging break about how bored I was with money. Like, I love it, and if I get in a room with people, I feel like I could talk about it all day. But at the same time, there’s only so many things I can make for myself instead of buying. There’s only so much to be done before you run up against a wall, and you just want to scream, “WHEN WILL THESE DEBT PAYMENTS EVER END!?!?!?” But I’ve done a good job this summer of having fun with my money in addition to paying off debt/saving for tuition. So for now, I’m feeling good about money.

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