{"id":1967,"date":"2008-08-04T05:00:06","date_gmt":"2008-08-04T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=1967"},"modified":"2023-12-05T15:10:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T22:10:59","slug":"dangerous-norms-when-a-treat-becomes-a-routine-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/dangerous-norms-when-a-treat-becomes-a-routine-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous Norms: When a Treat Becomes a Routine Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>When I was young, going out to eat at a restaurant was a rare treat, something to anticipate and savor. About twice a year, we would go to an elegant buffet restaurant called Johnny’s Supper Club in a nearby town. I looked forward to eating at Johnny’s for days<\/i> in advance, plotting all the different delicious foods I would eat. I would even skip lunch on those days so I could eat more at the buffet.<\/p>\n

But at some point, the treat of dining out became a matter of routine. When I got married in 2003, my wife and I settled into the habit of eating out for almost every meal. Soon, spending $20 on a meal at a restaurant became the norm. There was no joy in this process \u2014 it was simply the way we did things, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

Later, I began to appreciate cooking at home, particularly when we moved into a larger house with a decent kitchen. We started preparing a lot of food at home, often spending only a few dollars to feed our family of four. After a while, this<\/i> became the norm \u2014 it was normal to spend just a few dollars on a family meal, prepared in our kitchen and served on our dining room table.<\/p>\n

Now, we’ve come full circle. When my wife informed me that my parents were planning on taking us out to eat at a nice little restaurant nearby, I felt a twinge of excitement and immediately began to look forward to the experience.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, it was during those years of eating out for almost every meal that I began to get into financial trouble.<\/b> I had established some expensive routines in my life \u2014 eating out, buying piles of new DVDs and books and video games on a weekly basis, golfing several times a month, and so on. These expensive things were enjoyable, but they weren’t treats \u2014 they were the expected routine of life.<\/p>\n

That meant that as a matter of course, I’d drop a couple hundred dollars at restaurants in a week and spend roughly a hundred on entertainment, too. That was the normal routine.<\/b><\/p>\n

What made it worse was how high the bar was set for occasional splurges. A new video game system was a potential splurge \u2014 $300 right there. A new golf club? A weekend trip to a tournament? A DVD box set? These were the kinds of things that I would buy to indulge myself every month or two, often blowing a couple hundred dollars above and beyond my normal expensive routine.<\/p>\n

If this all sounds familiar to you, you’re playing a dangerous financial game.<\/b> After a few years of this, I found myself in a downward financial spiral<\/a>. I realized that without making some major changes, I was going to lose everything I had.<\/p>\n

The most important change I made was resetting my norms.<\/b> Instead of eating out for every meal, I started cooking at home. It was rough at first – I had difficulty preparing even the most basic things – but I already had some rusty skill in the kitchen, and before long I was making passable meals at home. After a couple years’ worth of steady practice, I can make all kinds of interesting stuff.<\/p>\n

Instead of buying a new DVD or video game or book every week, I found other ways to manage those hobbies. I started borrowing DVDs and books from the library. I started to use swapping services like PaperBackSwap<\/a>. I made an effort to actually master old video games before acquiring new ones.<\/p>\n

Before long, the things that had seemed part of the routine \u2014 like eating out or picking up a new video game \u2014 began to seem like splurges, and my new baseline routine was much cheaper. The best part is that I never really felt like I missed out on anything during the transition.<\/b> I still had delicious meals to eat, books to read, games to play, and DVDs to watch \u2014 I just didn’t gorge myself on them.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the take-home message here? Make your routines as cheap as you possibly can.<\/b><\/p>\n