You CAN Change Your Expectations

I had a somewhat frustrating conversation with a co-worker over lunch today.  She was moaning about how she now had to budget herself to $250 a month, spending money, and how was going to have so much trouble making it work for her.  It was going to be a huge adjustment, she couldn’t afford to go out and have fun anymore.

I stopped dead in my place.  At Waterloo, I was living on $20 - $30 a week in groceries, and spending $20 tops on amusements.  It was only foolish fripperies like my trip to Montreal or rare extravagant meals that cut into my gradually amassing savings.

She could easily live on $30 a week, $40 tops, and still have a reasonable amount left over to go out occationally.  So long as she picked her spots wisely, she could still go out often.  It’s not a manner of bending and scraping on meager means, it simply adjusting expectations when going out.  Just get an entree, not an appetizer, an entree, and dessert.

After I pitched in, the other gal at the table chimed in with a similar perspective.  We both agreed it’s not hard to maintain a reasonable lifestyle while living on $250 a month.  When she passed off spending $55 going out for sushi with just her and her sister as an example of why she couldn’t do it, we were shocked.  How does one person spend that much on sushi?  In Vancouver, land of cheap, good sushi.  …Well, she’d gone to one of the top places in Vancouver, she “doesn’t trust those cheap places,” and then she’d treated her sister; from the other two examples, she’s used to treating whoever she’s out with.  Nothing could convince her that there were a lot of quite affordable sushi places that were really quite good.  And when we remarked on her habit of treating everyone she went out with, she started into “Well when I was working in LA…”

…No, no, hon.  You’re not working in LA anymore, and you seem to either be making less here or limiting yourself more.  Either way, if you don’t have the money on hand, don’t act like you do.

And it’s not a matter of age, as you so repeatedly tried to claim - I’m only three years younger, and I seem to have a far better grasp of money than you.  I can change my expectations reflexive to my means, and of the two of us; I’m making more.  Age does not mean you have more money, or should expect to have more money.  It simply means you’re older.  Theoretically, you should be more mature and possibly wiser.  This is plainly not so.

…All that’s needed is to change your expectations, and you cannot keep passing that off as a problem beyond you.  It’s not “just the way your personality is” or related to you being all of three years older than me or the fact that I’m still a student and you’re not or that you’ve had a job in LA.  It’s a problem in your head related to what you expect to be able to do and what you are able to do not matching up.  You can align them if you just take responsibility for your decisions and adjust a little.

It’s not hard, just do some math and apply yourself to a set budget.  And that goes for all those other chumps out there spending more than they have, too.