Miss Money Penny and Her Guilty Pleasures

“True. Money is not everything. But it’s the only thing!” a close friend of mine said to me half-jokingly more than half a decade ago. Post-college, newly employed, at the bottom of the food chain we all were. Back then he was Mr. Frugal, smarter than everyone, a successful auditor for a top-5 accounting firm in the US, more importantly he was a very wise money manager for himself. One who will not spend on anything unnecessary, he was. Or so we thought.

People do make mistakes. We couldn’t blame him for investing in a seemingly-solid-but-trembling-inside companies, the likes of MCI WorldCom and Enron scandals. After some irrecoverable realized-lost, he became more “economical” than ever. He seemed to lead a perfect lifestyle for someone who should be concerned about any recent financial lost.

Out of curiosity, we (his dear pals) traced his movements now and then. And we didn’t seem to be shocked when we found out about his guilty-pleasures. The things he shouldn’t have done or bought at the times like this. Those were normal things, the things that he enjoyed doing when he was more stable: Playing pools and drinking copious amounts of Bud’s and Heini’s at Jillian’s, flirting with the waitress (that he longed to date but afraid to make a move on), and eating fancy Japanese food once in a while. We tried to understand his stress level by rationalizing that those things were just his guilty-pleasures to take his mind off his troubles lately.

Still in conjunction about the way we spend and save our hard-earned money below (see my blog, Tale of the Hunters and the Gatherers), I did a small survey amongst people around me before finding out silly things that we do or buy just to supply our splurges and mood of the moments, our guilty-pleasures.

There was a friend of mine with a growing 2 years old, who would buy things for her son in order to minimize the guilt of new wardrobe purchases. Another was an advertising exec who is wise enough to save some in order to splurge on travels in holidays. There was also an interesting case of a person who felt guilty all the time because of his constant urge to experience new things (by that I mean new restaurants, new movies, and new items at his favorite boutiques), while he was on a limited budget due to his mortgage on a house somewhere across the island (which he rarely visit anyway).

Topping the list of guilty-pleasures that we buy/ do regularly are:
1. Music CD-s. Especially when they are “originals” only to be converted to mp3-s and stored in a climate-controlled CD-quariums never to see the light of day ever again.

2. Movie DVD-s that you buy because they were pirated and cheap though you never get to watch

3. Novels and books that you never get to read faster than you buy them

4. Clothing items to follow some recent trends. Be it only a belt, shoes, bracelets, in which I am sure we all have enough in our closets.

5. Dining out. Sure, sometimes dining out are cheaper than if we even bother to cook our own meals. But dining out in expensive places? Once a month may be ok for some, but for others once a month should be more than allowed by his/ her budget.

6. Going to the movies. We wouldn’t feel accepted as one of the “in” crowds if we haven’t seen the latest blockbuster movie at the cinema would we?

My ultimate guilty pleasure is having a chocolate cake at midnight, followed by mutton satays and fried rice. But seriously, purchases here and there taken as your little guilty-pleasures may lead into some serious trouble with the cash flow or credit card bills.

In my case: Monthly doses of certain magazine(s) provided by Kinokuniya; Original CDs (just to be burned into my Pod) – I can argue for hours about the sound quality- but still I didn’t have to get that many; DVD-s that didn’t get to touch the player because I never had enough time to watch; Mystery Books that mysteriously disappeared from the shelf because my friends would get them first before I had the time to read; Well, lastly, ok I am a shoe addict! I felt like I never have enough sneakers in my racks.

All of these happened when we still have to pay the rents, the bills, and the loans. Damn.

Maybe I should follow an instruction from a very thrifty friend of mine, who aptly works as a financial advisor:

“I never have any guilty-pleasure. The only thing that would exist afterward will just be the ultimate… pleasure…. hmm….. (pausing for a while). Oops, sorry. Let’s continue this. You know why? Because if I knew that I would feel guilty subsequently, I wouldn’t even bother to buy/ do the god-damn thing in the first place….”

So what’s your guilty-pleasures?

How do we suppose to handle this modern problem of ours?