Personal Finance: Contradiction

I am a walking contradiction, and you know what, I'm okay with it.

At times, I'm frugal to a fault fighting with myself over spending $20 on a new bath mat. Other times, I'm perfectly fine with buying a new car (wait, we've bought 2 new cars-- Dave Ramsey would die!) and don't think a thing about dropping over $2K on new appliances for the kitchen. Wait, what? That makes no sense. Clipping coupons and rummaging through the clearance bin at Kroger, Target, wherever and then buying brand new cars...

Somehow, it makes sense to me. I sleep fine at night and we are reaching our financial goals. We've already paid off one car 2 years early and are well on our way to paying off the other in under 3 years. We needed the appliances as all were at the end of their expected life and the range had actually gone on to appliance heaven. So I contradict myself financially but it makes sense for us and our life.

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It's time to come clean. What do you do financially that seems to violate some of your other financial principles?

Frugal to a Fault

I'll be the first to admit-- I'm proud of my frugal ways. Very. I love my coupon binder and show it to anyone who is interested. I like never paying more than $1 for body wash and shampoo. I like never paying for toothbrushes or toothpaste. I like never paying full price for diapers. Ever. But there is a limit to how frugal a person can be, right?

Last week I had a bit of a personal crisis. Crisis is a bit of an quite the overstatement. I blame these crises on being at home with a toddler all day. She's not big on conversation, at least not ones that are intelligible. I'm in my head a lot, but that's a whole other blog post (or series).

Crisis. Buying a new bath mat or making do with what we had. (Definitely a first world problem.) The bamboo mat in our bathroom was 3 years old and had exceeded its anticipated usable life. We bought it from TJ Maxx or Marshall's for a steal and had used it daily for 3 years. Though it was supposedly mold and mildew resistant, well, the backing looked rough and was growing all kinds of interesting stuff. Time to toss. So I took the too small white reversible mat from Goose's/the guest bathroom and moved it to our little shower. Perfect size for our shower.

I needed a big mat for Goose's bathroom (the kid loves to splash), but I found myself thinking that we could make do for a while without one, that we could just use a towel for her baths and bring the mat from our bathroom when guests came to visit.

Doesn't sound too crazy, right? I mean, I was trying to be frugal and not buy anything new. But why create extra work for myself by having to shuffle the mat (crazy!), and why not buy a new one? We use them forever. The relocated mat has been with us for more than 5 years. And why be so frugal? J-bird makes a good living, I save money for our family every chance I get, and we never run around and just spend money. We budget, we save, we plan

So I took the plunge and bought a new bath mat today. Reversible, white, machine washable. BIG. A lovely find for $19.99. Why did I fret so much over $20? In the end, it wasn't worth the worry I gave it.

I believe in being frugal when you can, but not so much that you're sacrificing your morals or not enjoying your current life.
You only get one go-around. You'd better enjoy it. Even if it means splurging on a $20 bath mat.