Outside of my wife, the majority of my family and friends think I am cheap. We always get the gilt trip on why we don’t go out to eat or on trips with them. The basic facts are that my wife and I would rather put our money back to work for us instead of spending it to go out to eat or on expensive trips. Don’t get me wrong, it is nice to go out for a nice dinner every once in a while but surely not every week.
The most recent example of this was on Mother’s Day. My wife and I decided we would invite my family over for dinner and I would cook the food to celebrate the holiday. My sister thought it would be a much nicer celebration if we went out for brunch instead and made the reservations for the entire family. When I called her the next day and said that we would not be attending, she flipped out. Wondered why we didn’t want to celebrate the holiday with her and our family. I told her that we were not going to drop $20 a head (total of $60 - me, wife, and oldest son) just on brunch. I told her the $60 can go a long way for us on something else and that we would have our own celebration staying at home. Of course she really didn’t understand and took it personally.
On a side note - I would have possibly broke down and taken my wife if she really want to go to brunch to celebrate mother’s day. However, she was more serious about not going than I was, so it worked out in the end.
How do you balance the pressures of going out with family and friends vs. saving money and staying home?
What is the hardest choice that you had to make when deciding between spending a lot of money on something you didn’t really want to do or hurting a loved ones feelings?
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Ralph 05.18.08 at 12:32 am
Great blog! You sound as though your opinions on frugality coincide with my wife and I as well.
Back on topic; It can be a really hard thing to not fall into the group dynamic of spending at every turn. The only good way I have found to help thwart uncomfortable interactions is to simply be honest.
Once the important people in our lives knew that we aren’t the typical spenders, they will realized that our financial decisions are based on us and not on them. We wouldn’t want people to think we don’t want to spend time with them, we just don’t want to have to spend to spend time with them.
passivefamilyincome 05.19.08 at 6:49 am
Thanks for the visit Ralph. As you probably know, it is very difficult at times, but I think our family knows that we still care about them and want to spend time with them. We always try to offer “cheaper” alternatives.