Money Musings đź’ maximize your joy per dollar đź’µ
Many of us were hopeful that our spending was going to decrease due to stay-at-home orders. For some of you it has (maybe not as much as you’d expect) and others of you were surprised to see your spending increase.
In our house, spending definitely increased the first month of quarantine. We stockpiled shelf stabilized goods (often at a markup) and purchased some things to set us up to WFH.
But after that… it still didn’t decrease as much as we expected.
How could this be? 🤔
Our grocery bill definitely stayed high (understandably) and we overpaid for toilet paper 🧻 a few too many times, but the main culprit was online shopping.
Oh, we need a container to store olive oil, books to read instead of watching so much Netflix, a pan to replace one that had seen better days (debatable), arts & crafts for E, gifts for people we can’t see for their birthdays and holidays, and the list goes on and on. J even got me a 7 lb jug of rainbow sprinkles (don’t judge - I’m pregnant and I love sprinkles). 🤦‍♀️
Laugh it up… but I’ve heard similar stories from all of you.
We’re stressed, we’re sad, we’re bored - and we’re trying to make our time at home more enjoyable and comfortable. Not to mention, a lot of our favorite brands are on sale, luring us in to stay afloat during this economic crisis.
Online shopping is available at any time with the click of a button.
So, how can we make sure our purchases are conscious and intentional rather than retail therapy we’ll regret?
I’ve partnered up with Clasp to bring you a free, fun, five-question quiz to help you decide whether or not to buy something.
Before making a purchase, take the quiz.
We ask you important questions about the emotional and practical aspects of your potential purchase. Not only do you get our recommendation, you’ll see a summary of how you answered the questions in the results.
At the end of the day only you know whether or not a purchase makes sense for you. The quiz helps you reflect honestly so you can make the best decision for you.
I recommend using it over and over again as you are making purchasing decisions.
AND please report back. I’d love to know if the quiz helped you decide whether or not something was worth it to you and if it had any influence on your decision. Meaning, did you ignore our rec or take our advice! I promise, I won’t take (too much) offense if you ignore me. 🤪
MONEY MOVE OF THE WEEK
Find your opportunity cost. I have some bad news… we can only spend each dollar we have once (unfortunately), so we want to use each dollar in the way that will make us the happiest in the short and long-term. I call this maximizing our joy per dollar. We deal with opportunity costs like this all day every day. When we choose a restaurant for takeout, we don’t get the opportunity to try the food from other restaurants for that meal. The same goes for our money.
Write down something that makes you really happy. It can be something you love doing (like dinner with friends), it can be a goal (like paying down a credit card or building savings) or it can be something you’ve been saving up for (like taking a big trip). What does it cost, on average? This is your opportunity cost. This week, look at each of your expenses in terms of your opportunity cost. If you are deciding whether or not to buy something online, take a moment to calculate how many dinners that would be with friends or how much of your credit card you would be able to pay down. When you think of it that way, is it still worth it to you? There’s no right or wrong answer here - just be honest with yourself about how your dollar truly treats you.
YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
Define GDP. Gross Domestic Product (or GDP), the most common method to track an economy’s health, has been given a bigger spotlight than usual lately because we’re in a recession. Recessions are measured as two quarters of negative GDP growth. US GDP was -5.0% in Q1 and some estimate to be worse than -30% in Q2. GDP represents the value of all the goods and services produced over a specific period of time within a country.
Our GDP calculation represents what we consider valuable as a nation (and what we do about it) and surprise, surprise, we’ve been leaving women out for eighty years. We track factory output and buildings but the creation of a human (along with the feeding and care of said human) are completely left out of the equation - despite being an essential part of our economy.
In a new book, How Gender Can Transform the Social Sciences (add it to my list of purchases above), economists Nancy Folbre and Julie Smith say it best - “International systems for measuring the economy [i.e. GDP] have institutionalized the devaluing of women’s unpaid productive and reproductive work, distorting the allocation of resources, and entrenching gender inequality.”