#plus one-time $300 tech $400 phone (will combine) $100 scrubs

[prince-liest]

Read your orchids tags and what a mood... I'm also someone who recently started having disposable income and definitely can spend money but have a lot of guilt about doing it anyway. Idk I guess it's just nice knowing that there's other people going through the same things and that adulting is Weird. I hope you get all the purple flowers! I hope we can both overcome our spending guilt!!! Raaa!!!

Aw, haha, I totally feel you anon! I've literally budgeted a certain percentage of my take-home income as "guilt free spending" and I'm pretty okay with spending it on relatively low-cost stuff, like a $20 game or whatever, but a $65 orchid seems nuts to me even though I'll probably obsess over it for months and months while the game sits unplayed in my Steam library, HAH. I keep thinking "I'm buying too much..." and then I do the math and actually, no, I'm under budget.

Starting last month is actually the first time in my life I've supported myself entirely off of my own income, and I'm 28, so I've jumped from "$100 is so much money" to, y'know, paying rent and bills and buying a couch and so on, and getting used to seeing sums of money that large come and go in my bank account has been an interesting adjustment. On top of that, I also just grew up fairly frugal. We were never in dire straits financially, but we immigrated to the USA without much money, and also, just, like... it's the broke Soviet expat attitude, hahaha. Even when we Had Money it was a matter of Should We Really Be Spending It? (Which has worked out great for my parents and made me like-minded! But even my dad has told me, like, "Worry less, it's not that much money," lol.)

I think it's not an uncommon way to feel, and sometimes I try to justify it to myself in "going to the movies" units of money. Going to a nice movie theator and having a good time without going crazy but still splurging on a snack or a drink or something runs on average about $25 and most people wouldn't consider that too unreasonable. Would this orchid be worth about three fun afternoons to me? Well, that no longer sounds excessive.

Not a super reliable measurement, but it's mostly just meant to put things into some perspective without actually being a strict judgment.

At the end of the day, though, I just tell myself that as satisfying as it is to transfer dollars into my Fidelity account to sit on like a dragon, this money is literally in my budget to enjoy on whatever. I have paid my bills. I have put money into savings and investments. I have enough for groceries. What is money for after that if not to enjoy life?