Tuesday, April 22, 2014

52 Week Savings Challenge: Week 29

It may be just me, but 20 something dollars has not seemed to be that much money…until now! For the past nine weeks, I have been struggling to put back my money each week. You would think that it was as if I was trying to set aside an extra couple $100 every seven days, but no, just one Andrew Jackson and a few Washingtons.

It makes me think back to when I was younger, you know back in the day about 10-15 years ago. I would receive money in cards for birthdays or Christmas and most of the time there was a $20 bill inside. My excitement when discovering my new found wealth was equivalent to an adult winning the lottery. I could not believe I was holding such a vast amount of money in my bare hands. In my head, $20 made me the richest kid on earth. After my giddiness wore off, I was faced with a dilemma.  Do I spend the paper that was burning a fiery hole in my pocket or to lock it up and hide it like the heart of Davy Jones? That way I would still be able to tell everyone that I was filthy rich since I possessed a whopping $20.

Then I grew into my teens and what I assumed was adulthood at the time, a mere naive 18. Somehow along the way that $20 had lost it’s value. $20 was a trip to the movies and hoping to have enough left for snacks. $20 was going to dinner with friends and having just enough to leave a tip, and that was paying for just me. I could no longer use my childhood riches to buy the things I wanted most. A new pair of jeans, the latest handbag, this season’s new shoes, filling my car up all the way with gas, seeing my favorite band in concert, or even just going to a Friday night football game was out of my $20 reach. I was dirt poor! I needed more money. I could not live on just $20 and was now in the mindset that this was chump change. Birthday and Christmas cards needed to up the ante to a minimum $50.

Fast forward just a few very short years and here I am now in my mid 20’s. It is amazing the stages you go through in life and the ones that always seem to come back around to you. I have entered back into my childhood ways of thinking. $20 on any given day seems like an extra payday to me now. I get just as excited seeing that Mr. Jackson as my ten-year-old self did not so long ago. In a way it is funny. That same dollar amount buys even less now than it did in my teen years, yet somehow the value of $20 has increased so much more to me.

So as we head into our 30’s weeks, I suggest that each of you go back and find that inner child and cling to every $30 amount with the jaws of life because it is only getting more difficult. Keep moving forward. We are more than halfway to the end!


Total Savings: $435


By: Tawny Ormes
      Marketing Projects Coordinator
      and TBT Webmaster

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