{"id":129632,"date":"2012-04-11T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=129632"},"modified":"2023-09-23T16:09:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T22:09:41","slug":"how-i-stopped-excessive-gifting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-i-stopped-excessive-gifting\/","title":{"rendered":"How I stopped excessive gifting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most of us struggle with some psychological aspect of money that can impede our savings. Whether it be the lure of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-to-stop-buying-clothes-you-never-wear\/\">clothing stores<\/a>, nights out with friends, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-to-stock-your-liquor-cabinet-on-the-cheap\/\">stocking a top-shelf liquor cabinet<\/a>, there tends to be one thing or another that creeps from our <em>wants <\/em>category into our <em>needs. <\/em>I&#8217;ve never been a compulsive shopper and always preferred <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/book-review-voluntary-simplicity\/\">voluntary simplicity<\/a>, both in the kitchen and in my closet. This means that for most of my young adult life, I had good control of my finances.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"then-i-started-dating%e2%80%a6\"><\/span>Then I Started Dating\u2026<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Dating quickly made gift giving my Achilles heel. As with other debt-inducing habits, it seemed harmless at first. Here are some things I started doing, not realizing how much money I was shelling out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I never liked to show up at my girlfriend&#8217;s apartment empty handed so I always had her favorite Snapple or a magazine for her in hand. (Six bucks, just to say hello.)<\/li>\n<li>I always wanted to pick up the check, even when we were out with a friend or two. (Could be upwards of $100, just to show I cared.)<\/li>\n<li>I brought expensive bottles of wine to dinner parties, not to show off, but just to enjoy with everyone, even if I was just as happy with $7 bottle myself. ($25 to try to find community.)<\/li>\n<li>I was sent to the store to get simple baking supplies, but instead of getting the normal vanilla extract, I would get the fancy packaged one for twice the price. Take that philosophy down the entire list of supplies and I&#8217;d racked up a pretty hefty bill. ($50 extra just so we could feel high society together.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was never about seeming rich to my friends or girlfriend. I took pride in my penny pinching in every other aspect of my life. I honestly thought it was about generosity and showing affection, nothing more.<\/p>\n<p>My usual smart budgeting was out the door. If it began with my dating life, it quickly found its way into all my close friendships and relationships. If I were booking a hotel room for myself, I would find some side-of-the-road motel for $35. If it was for my parents, I&#8217;d charge a much fancier $300 room to my card. I wanted them to be comfortable, <em>right? <\/em>(I should note that my parents&#8217; honeymoon was a nine-month camping trip in a VW bug across the United States. They&#8217;ve grown up some since their 60s hippie days, but not all that much.) Technically, I could afford it. I just wouldn&#8217;t contribute very much to savings that month.<\/p>\n<p>As the gifts became a larger and more elaborate, my savings account stagnated. The <em>want <\/em>of purchasing gifts found its way into my budget as a <em>need.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"providing-the-important-stuff\"><\/span>Providing the Important Stuff<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If I look deep enough, I <em>know <\/em>that I have an engrained desire to be the provider in my relationships. I was stuck in a 50s mentality of the man as the breadwinner, and thinking that gift giving was my only way of showing financial muscle. I never wanted to <em>buy <\/em>the affection of my friends, but I got caught in a trap thinking that financial security was the most important thing I could provide. I ignored all the other myriad ways of showing affection, whether it be kind words, acts of service, spending quality time, or even a big hug.<\/p>\n<p>I tried a spending freeze on gift giving and decided to come up with something different whenever I got the urge to spend for someone else. The experiment lead to the following new behaviors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I accepted that showing up at her front door was hello enough, and I realized a smile and being genuinely happy to see someone went further than I&#8217;d ever expect.<\/li>\n<li>I learned the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/the-art-of-the-potluck\/\">fine art of the potluck dinner<\/a>, and saw that people got so much joy just from sharing what they loved to make in the kitchen.<\/li>\n<li>At a dinner party, I brought <em>Apples to Apples<\/em>. It was appropriate for the crowd, probably more appropriate than the bottle of wine I would&#8217;ve brought, and if you&#8217;ve never played it, it&#8217;s the best thing ever to bring a group a little closer.<\/li>\n<li>Instead of worrying about how fancy the baking supplies looked, I joined her in the kitchen. I never realized how much raw dough the woman could eat. I joked that it was a much truer way to her heart.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ignoring these other ways of showing love had been getting in the way of my friendships and relationships. I learned so much more about the people around me and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves when I stopped worrying about how much they were enjoying themselves.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"tracking-spending\"><\/span>Tracking Spending<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Since I identified the underlying cause of my stagnating savings account, I could go about fixing it. I started tracking the dollars that left my bank account each month and realized just how much was going to small gifts. Paying for gas for my girlfriend&#8217;s SUV was an incredibly friendly gesture, but it hurt in the long run. This isn&#8217;t to say I needed to <em>stop <\/em>with my generosity, but tracking my spending allowed me to create a column just for gift giving. It stopped being a mindless act and more a conscious decision, which in turn provided me with more joy in the activity. This way, I was giving something from my daily life to be generous toward others, which to me, seems a much truer definition of generosity.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"virtues-in-excess\"><\/span>Virtues in Excess<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>We usually think about our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/facing-and-fighting-financial-trolls\/\">financial trolls<\/a> being negative. Something like greed leads us to live in excess, buying new shoes or the new electronic. It&#8217;s easy to blame. It&#8217;s much harder to point your finger at a problem that seems <em>virtuous.<\/em> I started to see that I wasn&#8217;t alone. My friend Tracy spends almost all of her disposable income spoiling her kid and yet complains about the holes in her own shoes. I had a family member almost go broke donating to the <em>Doctors Without Borders<\/em>. Such gifts of charity are easier to rationalize; <em>they seem so nice,<\/em> even if they are ruining your financial situation. It&#8217;s never easy to change patterns, especially when the emotions of not only yourself, but of others are involved. As always, it&#8217;s important to be honest with yourself and communicative with those around you.<\/p>\n<p>I <em>still<\/em> have to remind myself that if someone is going to breakup with me because I don&#8217;t bring Snapple to her door each time I show up, I could probably do without the relationship. I bring myself, and that&#8217;s just fine.<\/p>\n<p><em>What are some ways that gift giving puts you under budget? Do you have other &#8220;virtuous&#8221; that hurt you in the long run?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of us struggle with some psychological aspect of money that can impede our savings. Whether it be the lure of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-to-stop-buying-clothes-you-never-wear\/\">clothing stores<\/a>, nights out with friends, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-to-stock-your-liquor-cabinet-on-the-cheap\/\">stocking a top-shelf liquor cabinet<\/a>, there tends to be one thing or another that creeps from our <em>wants <\/em>category into our <em>needs. <\/em>I&#8217;ve never been a compulsive shopper and always preferred <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/book-review-voluntary-simplicity\/\">voluntary simplicity<\/a>, both in the kitchen and in my closet. This means that for most of my young adult life, I had good control of my finances.<\/p>\n<h2>Then I Started Dating\u2026<\/h2>\n<p>Dating quickly made gift giving my Achilles heel. As with other debt-inducing habits, it seemed harmless at first. Here are some things I started doing, not realizing how much money I was shelling out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I never liked to show up at my girlfriend&#8217;s apartment empty handed so I always had her favorite Snapple or a magazine for her in hand. (Six bucks, just to say hello.)<\/li>\n<li>I always wanted to pick up the check, even when we were out with a friend or two. (Could be upwards of $100, just to show I cared.)<\/li>\n<li>I brought expensive bottles of wine to dinner parties, not to show off, but just to enjoy with everyone, even if I was just as happy with $7 bottle myself. ($25 to try to find community.)<\/li>\n<li>I was sent to the store to get simple baking supplies, but instead of getting the normal vanilla extract, I would get the fancy packaged one for twice the price. Take that philosophy down the entire list of supplies and I&#8217;d racked up a pretty hefty bill. ($50 extra just so we could feel high society together.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was never about seeming rich to my friends or girlfriend. I took pride in my penny pinching in every other aspect of my life. I honestly thought it was about generosity and showing affection, nothing more.<\/\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[494,475],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}