The other night, we were stuck. We couldn’t agree, and the things we thought
of, one of us didn’t want. She would
suggest something, I’d say no. I’d
suggest something, she’d say no. It was
surprising that we had this issue because it really doesn’t happen that often.
What were we trying to decide? What to have for dinner!
What does this have to do with personal finance? Well, a lot actually.
While we are comfortable, my family and I are certainly not
wealthy. Hey, I work for a living
after all. The reason we were having
difficulty wasn’t what type of food we wanted, it was how much it was going to
cost. Neither of us wanted to spend much
for dinner.
And we don’t go out to eat very often at all.
Even if we had a bundle of money to spend, we wouldn’t have
necessarily done so. But this little
situation is an example of what financial independence is all about.
Being financially free doesn’t mean going to the nicest
restaurants. It doesn’t mean just
blowing money mindlessly.
What it does mean is that you could do something – go to a
nice restaurant – without having to worry about money.
One of my friends told me that when she goes out to dinner,
she looks at the prices on the menu first instead of what she would like to
eat. And she hates that feeling, but it
was how she was raised from a monetary perspective.
In the end, we went to a food-fast-but-not-fast-food
place. I’ll just have to make real food
at home.
